Before opioids claimed Aric’s life, the Canadian healthcare system failed him. Now, his father walks hundreds of kilometres to make sure no one else is forgotten.

Ottawa resident Greg McPherson, and father to Aric, launched On The Road 4 Mental Health following the loss of his son to the opioid crisis.

This year’s campaign, “Steps to Remember,” is dedicated to honouring every life lost to the opioid crisis in Canada since 2016, a decade of loss since British Columbia declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency.

That same year, a national surveillance system was launched, showing more than 56,000 Canadians who had lost their lives.

To mark this milestone, On the Road 4 Mental Health is hosting 10 walks in communities across Ontario, six of which have already been completed.

His plan: to walk over 56,000 steps: one step for every life lost in the first ten years of the crisis. That equates to 44 kilometres per walk.

The story behind On The Road 4 Mental Health

Who was Aric McPherson?

Aric was a child with promise.

“He was just an amazing kid. Everybody loved this kid. He was really bright,” McPherson told Now Toronto.

Before Aric’s eighth birthday, he had finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy and had a university credit in bioethics by 15.

“Everything seemed to be going for this kid, and he just all of a sudden started shutting down,” McPherson said.

He believed it was just an awkward teenage stage until he got a call from his son, who told him he was in the Children’s Hospital in Eastern Ontario (CHEO).

At the age of 17, Aric had gone by himself and asked his father to join him during his two weeks in CHEO’s mental health unit.

“I sat with him overnight, talking to him. He was really scared. He was dealing with a lot of anxiety and depression, and he was an outpatient; he was doing well. He had the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa helping him out. Everything was better,” he explained.

When things started to worsen…

When Aric turned 18, he had to be switched over to the adult system. The problem: there was a three to four-month wait to get in.

“That’s where things really went south,” McPherson recalled.

He explained that Aric could only call if he had an immediate crisis, but McPherson explained that people dealing with a crisis won’t “pick up the phone and call.”

“They don’t know who’s going to be on the other end. It’s not what they need,” McPherson stated.

So, Aric started self-medicating, hoping to feel better. Instead, things got worse.

Aric went to rehab and later flew to McPherson’s brother-in-law’s place in Calgary, who gave him a job, where he worked until he relapsed.

He later moved back to Ottawa, but just a few days later, a parent’s worst heartbreak happened.

“We got a call in the morning, January 6, 2019, to come down to the hospital. Something’s wrong, and I remember going to the hospital. My wife said, ‘We’ve lost him,’” McPherson teared up. “I tried to make myself believe that no, something’s happened, but we’ll get through it. And then we got down there, and he was gone.”

“I lost my son to toxic drug poisoning,” he said.

How McPherson turned his grief into a fundraiser that raises awareness of the opioid crisis

The grief hit, COVID started soon after, and McPherson had no clue how to deal with his pain.

“I asked my wife in April, just less than a month after COVID hit and the shutdowns happened. I asked her to drive me to the East end of Ottawa, and we live in the far West end… She asked me what I was going to do, and I said I was going to walk home,” he explained.

So, McPherson walked 27 kilometres, unprepared for the fact that washrooms would be closed and that it would be hard to buy water due to COVID closures.

“I did it. I felt that Aric was with me. I felt that I had my time. I found strange and weird things. I tried to find humour. From there, I realized that my therapy, the best thing to do, was to get out, be active and walk,” he shared.

That’s when McPherson started walking longer distances, and his other kids asked to join him.

So, it turned into a family activity, and later into a fundraiser and awareness campaign.

Since then, McPherson’s lit up Niagara Falls purple for overdose awareness and the American Falls green for mental health, and did a 24-hour, 105-kilometre walk despite having the flu, 18 hours of rain and seven-degree temperatures.

“It was a miserable walk. But when I did it, I realized that somebody who deals with homelessness, addictions, or mental health issues doesn’t have the luxury of knowing that in 24 hours, they’re going to be able to put their feet up and have a nice hot shower. So that’s what pushes me on,” he explained.

This year, McPherson has been doing 10 walks since it’s been 10 years of B.C., declaring the opioid crisis a public health emergency.

The campaign for Ontario to declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency

“Nobody chose to be addicted to anything,” McPherson said.

“If anybody sits back who thinks that and really thinks it through, there may have been a choice once upon a time to take the drug. Now, who got them to take the drug? Was it your doctor? Did you have an injury? Did you know you were prescribed something that you actually became addicted to? Was it because the mental health system was failing that you couldn’t get somewhere that you just wanted to feel normal for that one moment?” he asked.

“For whatever reason, somebody took that first drug. The choice was not to become addicted to it. The choice was not to become homeless, the choice was not for mental health issues.”

These misconceptions are part of what is holding back the Ontario government from following in B.C.’s footsteps to declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency.

McPherson added that more lives will be taken to the crisis without the safe injection sites.

“The people are still there, but they’re not inside anymore. And the neighbours are complaining, and the police are arresting and confiscating drugs and everything else. When people take some of these drugs away isn’t going to stop them from taking drugs. They’re just going to be doing it in the back alleys, where they’re even less safe,” he explained.

“Because if they do overdose, nobody’s going to see them on the street. Nobody’s going to see them and help them. You know, when you drive something underground, it becomes much more dangerous,” McPherson explained.

The final safe injection site, Kingston’s Integrated Care Hub, is set to close on Sept. 30.

“Everybody knows what’s going on. The politicians know what they’ve gone on. They just haven’t taken that step to declare a public health emergency. We have had states of emergency declared in different communities, and really, it just means that they’re declaring that there’s a problem, but there’s no solution,” he added.

Safe consumption sites, help and sensitivity: Three wishes for a safer future

• Safe consumption sites.

“They need to be reopened and expanded on,” McPherson said.

“I think of it obviously as a bandaid. It’s not a cure, and it’s not enabling people. They’re using anyway. Just like a bandaid, just because a bandaid doesn’t treat the wound, we don’t throw it away. That bandaid is really important to keep the wound from getting infected while the wound heals, and the supervised consumption sites are just that: they need to be safe,” he explained.

• The number of beds needed to be available.

“Having that treatment available when they’re ready because it can sometimes be a really close, really small window,” he said. “Somebody who is dealing with mental health issues or addiction issues, that window needs to be open. When they’re ready, the bed needs to be there for them.”

• Stop politicizing the issue.

“When people are calling the places ‘drug dens,’ it’s really hard and really harmful,” McPherson explained. “There are a lot of people like me out there who have lost somebody very close, and I mean, I’m a parent. I’ve lost a child, and you know, I’m not supposed to outlive my children. And when you see people politicizing this, the grief is, it’s just like somebody is twisting that knife.”

​McPherson reminds people that someone struggling with addiction is still a person.

“Even at his worst time, he would always give a hug. Even at his worst time, at a celebration of life, we had so many people come up and say that if it wasn’t for Aric, I wouldn’t be alive today,” he said.

“I would do anything to have another hug, another conversation, just to hear his voice,” McPherson teared up.  

​How can you support the cause?

​You can visit McPherson’s On The Road 4 Mental Health website to donate or join him on his walk.

He’s already completed six walks, but will be walking from Hamilton to Burlington on Aug. 14, and from Urban Toronto on Aug. 16, if anyone would like to join.

“Join in just to say hi. I’m carrying a cloth banner that people can write the names of loved ones they’ve lost. I will be carrying that on International Overdose Awareness Day on Monday, Aug. 31, in Ottawa, and bringing that up to Parliament Hill with me,” McPherson said.

The live route tracker and other walk details are available here.