What did Paul Perrier see when he rode a bicycle across Canada?
Early in 2025, I spoke again with Paul Perrier, a photographer and filmmaker. The last time we talked, he had just published his memoir, Cracked Wide Open. Since then, he had taken the book on tour by bicycle, filming the whole way for a new documentary.
He left Toronto on Canada Day, rode east to St. John’s, Newfoundland, then flew to Vancouver and rode back to Toronto. The ride had two purposes, he said: promoting the book and raising awareness and funds for mental health initiatives. Along the way, he recorded the stories of people living with drug use and homelessness.
We talked about what he saw, how he filmed it, and why fentanyl has changed the street drug supply.
How do you ride across a country without a plan?
At 3:58, Paul explained that he simply did not have time to plan. Everything he needed was on the bike, including a small tent and a sleeping bag. He camped often to save money and usually picked the next day’s stopping point the night before.
Who did he meet along the way?
At 5:26, Paul said that people came up to him once they heard what he was doing, and they told him their stories. None of it was planned. In his view, unplanned encounters are how a documentary finds its truth, and he believes he was led to the right people.
At 12:54, he described a street musician in Newfoundland whose live song about addiction is now in the film.
What did he find on Hastings Street in Vancouver?
Also at 12:54, Paul described Hastings Street, close to the center of one of the most beautiful cities he had seen, where blocks of people were living on the street. Drug use had been a theme of his work for many years. Still, he had never seen fentanyl in action until he came west, where he saw more and more people standing bent over, unable to move.
At 30:03, he was careful about what he could and could not know. He interviewed whoever approached him, so he could not say what each person was using. In his account, fentanyl was the change that stood out.
Why is street fentanyl so much more dangerous than heroin?
At 31:08, I said that crack and cocaine are not nearly as deadly as opioids. The danger with unregulated fentanyl is that nobody knows the potency, so a person can use the same thing for a while and then one day get something far stronger.
At 33:13, I explained that heroin turns into morphine in the body, while fentanyl is synthetic and many times more potent than morphine. In surgery it is used safely all the time, because an anesthesiologist measures it precisely and the patient is on a ventilator. On the street, with no idea of the dose, it is far more dangerous. Paul said, at 36:36, that people on it looked like something out of a horror movie.
Why can fentanyl make it harder to start buprenorphine?
From 34:02, I described a problem specific to fentanyl. It builds up in fat cells when a person uses it every day for weeks, months, or years. Oxycodone, heroin, and morphine clear the body fairly quickly, but fentanyl lingers.
So, starting buprenorphine (Suboxone) is more difficult. The medication can interact with the fentanyl still in the body and set off what is called precipitated withdrawal, which makes the transition into treatment harder.
Where does harm reduction fit in?
At 36:50, I recalled a report from Canada about machines that dispense a prescription opioid to authorized people, activated by a biometric scan. At least the person knows exactly what they are getting. Paul put it well at 37:27: not prevention, but at least safety. I called it harm reduction.
Interestingly, Paul did not claim to have the answers. At 37:44, he said his purpose is to show people what the reality looks like. Good mental health has many parts in his view, physical, spiritual, and mental, and no single habit covers them all.
What did a young bike shop worker’s story show?
From 45:47, Paul told one of the quieter stories in the film. A young man boxing his bike in a Winnipeg shop said he had been prescribed a prescription pain medication after oral surgery and kept taking it after the pain was gone, because he liked how drowsy it made him feel.
He noticed what was happening and stopped. Paul saw that awareness as the point of the story. It is not a dramatic drug story, he said, yet it shows how easily the thought that something feels good can turn into a need for something stronger.
Was the ride a spiritual pilgrimage?
At 18:36, I asked about the film’s working title, My Own Private Pilgrimage. Paul answered at 18:57 that it was a totally spiritual experience. He was raised Catholic, and as a photographer who relies on light to make his pictures, he believes God was leading him. In fact, he believes he photographed his guardian angel.
At 51:03, he said he needed a change and had to get out of Toronto. He connected the ride to a memory from Expo 67 in Montreal, when he was seven and saw a film shot across Canada and projected all around the audience. It was the first documentary he remembers.
How did he film it all on a phone?
At 41:48, Paul said he carried only an iPhone and an Insta360 camera. Much of the footage was shot one-handed while riding.
The sound is not always perfect. He used no proper microphone, so an interview on a windy hill in St. John’s carries the wind. Of course, that is part of the point for him. Nothing was planned, and what he captured is real.
Who is Paul Perrier?
Paul Perrier is a photographer and filmmaker from Montreal who moved to Toronto to pursue photography, which grew into filmmaking. He spent about three decades there. His memoir, Cracked Wide Open, is about being an artist and the path that led him to his film Cracked Not Broken, one person’s account of addiction.
That earlier film reached Oprah, he said at 58:09, and then HBO, which made it one of four independent films in its addiction series in 2007. When we spoke, he was editing the new film and planning to tour with it and the book in 2025.
What can listeners take away from this conversation?
Unfortunately, in Paul’s view, things on the street have grown worse since he made his first film, and fentanyl, with its unknown strength, was the change he saw most. Yet his strongest material came from ordinary people who simply wanted to tell someone what had happened to them. Listening without an agenda is where understanding starts.
How do I approach this today?
My thinking has kept developing since this conversation was recorded. Today my practice is built on one idea that runs through all of it: when the body has adapted to a substance, the safest way off is usually gradual, with the smallest steps the person’s nervous system can tolerate. Physical dependence is not addiction.
For opioid dependence I prescribe buprenorphine, which steadies the body so a person can rebuild their life without the cycle of withdrawal. Visits are monthly, or weekly when needed. Some people stay on it for a long time, and that is a legitimate choice. Others later taper slowly, using the same gradual approach I use for every other medication.
I believe medication for opioid dependence should be available wherever people need it. I prescribe in Florida only.
Call 911 or go to an emergency department if there is a seizure, confusion or hallucinations, or thoughts of self-harm. For thoughts of suicide or any mental health crisis, you can also call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
This page is educational. It is not medical advice, and listening to the episode or reading this page does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Decisions about starting, continuing, or tapering any medication should be made with your own physician.
Full transcript
A note from Dr. Leeds: my guests speak from their own experience and expertise, and the terminology they use is their own. Whatever the topic, this show holds to one distinction: physical dependence on a prescribed medication is not addiction. This transcript is educational content, not medical advice, and nothing here creates a doctor-patient relationship.
Read the full transcript (62 minutes)
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:00] Paul Perrier, how are you doing today?
Paul Perrier [00:02] Hey, Mark, good to see you again.
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:05] It’s great to see you. So you’ve been really busy since the last time we talked. I’ve been following you on social media, and you’ve been on an incredible journey. Tell us a little bit about that.
Paul Perrier [00:22] Yeah, so I think I spoke to you, the last time I spoke to you was just after I published my memoir, Cracked Wide Open. And since that time, last summer, I decided to do a book tour on my bicycle that went across Canada. So I left on Canada Day, July 1st, and I left from Toronto. I biked east to St. John’s, Newfoundland, the edge of the country on the east side. And then I flew to Vancouver and biked back to Toronto.
Dr. Mark Leeds [01:00] Oh, wow. That’s got to be a long way. Is that like over 1,000 miles, maybe 2,000?
Paul Perrier [01:10] It’s I figured it’s around was 5500 kilometers so I’m not sure exactly how what that translated into miles but probably like 2500 miles
Dr. Mark Leeds [01:17] Yeah yeah sorry I forgot yeah we’re backwards with the measurements and everything yeah yeah
Paul Perrier [01:30] Was that I had never I had never done anything like that. I mean, I bike almost every day, but it was something I’ve always, I guess, sort of dreamed about doing. And then I just went, wow, this would be a great way to promote the book. But also I was trying to raise awareness and funds for mental health initiatives. So there was two parts to it, and I documented the whole trip, and I’m right now editing a film about it. Wow.
Dr. Mark Leeds [02:06] Now, that’s just to be clear. This is not a motorcycle that you were riding. When you say bicycle or bike, this was an actual – you were pedaling the whole way. It was not even an e-bike.
Paul Perrier [02:18] It was a regular. I bought a secondhand bike. It wasn’t even an expensive bike. And it was a gravel bike, which it turned out to be the perfect bike for it. And yeah, I just naively kind of went out there going, how hard could this be? And it was pretty hard. I mean, there’s challenges you face, but that’s sort of what I wanted to experience, too, was about the challenge and about being out there. And after, you know, after COVID and the lockdowns and everything, I kind of just wanted to get out there and see what the state of Canada was like. And in terms of addiction and homelessness, which since, you know, I made the film, my book was sort of based around the film I made 20 years ago about drug addiction. And, you know, my sense is things are getting worse since that time.
Dr. Mark Leeds [03:31] Yeah. Well, so as you were biking along, I mean, there’s so many questions, you know, like, you know, what did you eat? Where did you sleep? You know, shower, bathroom. I’m just like, I just can’t even imagine. I’m always thinking when I travel of like, you know, in a car, you know, what hotel am I going to stop at? And you’re just here you’re on a bicycle did you have to plan ahead for everything
Paul Perrier [03:58] Well I guess ideally you do but I didn’t have the time to I just went and so I had two bags on my bike and a pannier in the back a little box and so everything was on my bike I would go out and I had a one man tent, a sleeping bag so I camped quite a bit just for expenses and stuff but it was also Canada in the summer is so beautiful and there’s so many beautiful campsites that was a huge bonus but I also you know when I had to I would stay in a motel or whatever just where I didn’t know where I would end up at the end of every day so it was completely yeah I’d wake up go I’d look at the map or I’d do it the night before and go okay well I’ll try to get to here and you know I was probably doing about 100 kilometers a day to 140 kilometers a day.
Dr. Mark Leeds [05:13] Wow. Well, that’s incredible. So what about, tell us about your interactions with homelessness and addiction along the way. Like who did you encounter and what kinds of things did you learn about them?
Paul Perrier [05:26] Well, so, yeah, as I’m riding along, you know, I’d meet people and they’d obviously ask me, oh, you know, what are you doing? And I’d tell them and they’d go, wow, it’s pretty amazing, you know, and then they’d start talking and people just came up to me and, you know, it was former addicts, addicts, homeless people, and they would just tell me their story. So I didn’t, again, I didn’t, as my film Cracked Not Broken wasn’t planned and most of my documentary work isn’t planned because I believe that’s how you really get a good documentary. It was just haphazard who I would run into. So what I’m trying to show in this film, there’s a few things. I mean, it’s a journey about a trip and about crossing a country. The beauty of Canada in the summer is jaw-dropping. And but it’s interspersed with these. Yeah. And I wouldn’t say it’s all dark, but people who’ve experienced addiction and people who are experiencing homelessness. And so you have these beautiful visuals and then these kind of stark stories that, you know, lay underneath everything as, you know, as addiction does or homelessness does. So what I captured, you know, I’m in the middle of editing it right now, but I believe I was led to the right places. These people were, I was meant to meet these people, kind of like my film, like Cracked Not Broken. And I always believed that just didn’t just happen, that it was two forces that came together in a room for 45 minutes and created this pretty incredible story about one person’s experience with addiction. But that is relatable to a much anybody who has either gone through it themselves or their family has. And that, you know, addiction now, it’s not just drug addiction. There’s the addiction to technology. There’s the addiction. You can be addicted to anything. But every, but drug addiction, you know, what I really saw. So there’s an interesting part to it. And it sort of is playing out in the film is when I set out on this, I was just trying to make it. Like, I didn’t know if I’d make it the whole way. You know, I’m 64 years old, and I’m in good shape. Well, I’m in much better shape now that I did it, but I was in pretty good shape. But I was just, you know, the first from Toronto to, I would say, New Brunswick. I was just trying to figure everything out. So I wasn’t really thinking about anything other than surviving. But then once I got into it, I kind of got into this groove and I was shooting each day. I shot everything on my iPhone. And I had an iPhone and a 360 degree camera. But most of the stuff is shot on the iPhone. And at the end of the days, I’d look at the footage going, oh, my God, this is like it’s incredible. And then I started getting into the whole mindset of making a film about it and everything just sort of played out you know better than I ever could have expected
Dr. Mark Leeds [09:24] Yeah oh wow well that’s so and I can imagine Canada in the summer you know it really must be really beautiful. I was, I haven’t really, I was briefly in Canada as part of a few years ago as part of an Alaskan cruise. And I think we stopped in Victoria to go to the, I think it’s called the Butchart Gardens, which of course is incredibly beautiful. And I think we went on some kind of mountainous train ride in part of Alaska, which is, I mean, I know it’s like technically not Canada, but it’s all that same region. And it really is just like, you know, hills all covered in trees and, you know, just looks untouched and just really beautiful. So it must, there must be some incredible footage.
Paul Perrier [10:08] Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I’ve been across Canada, you know, I’ve gone to Vancouver and like I’ve been to the major cities, but I never really went across Canada. Like this was really, you go into each province and they’re very different, right? Like you have French Quebec, like, well, English Ontario, then you’re in French Quebec,
Paul Perrier [10:35] And then you’re in sort of French and English, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. And then I’d never been to Newfoundland, which is this rock off the coast of Canada. And so it was such an enlightening thing for me to see Canada that way and the beauty of Canada. And, you know, the people, especially doing what I was doing, like when you’re biking, people recognize that you’re going through something. And they were so helpful, and people would welcome me into their homes and put me up occasionally. And it was just such a cool, cool experience.
Dr. Mark Leeds [11:24] Just to get an idea of like, were you about, like through most of the trip, about how far north were you of the U.S.-Canada border?
Paul Perrier [11:35] Pretty close to the border most of the time and you know it’s you know from Vancouver to Winnipeg you know it’s a couple hundred miles from the border
Dr. Mark Leeds [11:49] And then was it like one one highway that you like took most of the way
Paul Perrier [11:55] Yeah the Trans-Canada Highway I mean I took Like, I would do both. Like, I was a little nervous riding the highway at first, so I did more back roads. But the back roads are hard. You have hills and stuff. The highway, you have these semi-trucks passing you by at about 120 kilometers an hour, and they’re a foot away from you. But that breeze that they actually pushes you forward. And there’s less hills and stuff. So I got pretty good at riding the highways and, you know, after a while didn’t have much fear. I mean, anything could have happened, but I just, you know, trusted that I was going to be safe.
Dr. Mark Leeds [12:44] Yeah. Were there any stories, like who stands out the most in your memory of people that you met along the way and the stories that you heard along the way?
Paul Perrier [12:54] Well it was sort of in when I got to newfoundland that I really got into the addiction homelessness side of it up to that point I do you know I really hadn’t run into that many people and that was just before I flew west so I ended up there and I had to take a flight to Vancouver. And Vancouver, as you’ve been to briefly, is it such a beautiful city. It’s one of the most beautiful cities I’ve been to. And I captured all that, but there’s a street called Hastings Street, which is one of the most unbelievable streets. Like it’s just about a mile from the center of town, but it is three blocks of people living on the street. I’ve never seen anything like it. And the one thing I started to notice from the West Coast, which I’ve had experience, I’ve been around, drugs have been sort of a theme in my work for the past 20 years. I’ve seen lots of drug use and stuff, but I had never seen fentanyl in action where that sort of became when I started coming west, I would see more and more people on fentanyl, which is you see them just bent over. I don’t know what that drug is all about, but that was the big change to me. Something I’d never seen before and something that’s killing so many people. And that was a big change to me. And then, yeah, just I met people like I’m in part of what I’m using in the film is I’d meet like this. I met this guy in Newfoundland who was a street musician, and he had this great song about addiction, which I’m using in the film, and he sang it live, and I’m using the live footage from it. I met other musicians whose music I’m using. And, yeah, just the state of homelessness is terrible in Canada, as I’m sure it is in the States and everywhere now. I mean, there’s just been such a huge change in the last, I don’t know, well, I’m using 20-year period that goes back to when I made my film. But, yeah, so Hastings Street in Vancouver was kind of mind-blowing and sobering in many ways. And so, and then, you know, people in one section, I was going along in Saskatchewan, the prairies in Canada, which I had come through the Rockies, which is climbing these crazy hills. And then once you get out of the Rockies, it’s the prairies, which is flat, flat, flat, straight and flat, which I loved. Like it was beautiful, but when the wind blows against you, like it’s like riding against a wall. And one day this guy just stopped his van. He had his, like it was almost like a tour bus. And he just pulled over and he goes, get in. And I got in. Like that was part of my thing. Like if anybody told me to go somewhere, I would, if possible, I would go there. Or if anybody said, come with me, I would go if I felt safe. And I always felt pretty safe. Anyways, he picked me up and he had an interesting, so we were going to Regina. And so he ended up giving me a lift for about two hours, which is about a day’s riding. So that saved me a day’s riding. And it would have been way more than that with the wind. But he had this interesting story and he led me to a place in Regina. So there were all these connections that just led me. And, you know, I was also lucky. So I was on the road. It took me 66 days to complete the bike ride. And out of those days, I think I had one day of rain and I had one flat tire. And I don’t know how to change flat tires. So that was a blessing. But, yeah, just everything went so well, and I just, you know, I believe I was meant to make this movie, and it’s a companion piece to my book, and it’s a standalone piece, But I think it’ll be it’ll raise more awareness about addiction and homelessness. And, you know, I plan on touring with the film and my book in 2025 because connecting with people like that is really I don’t know. I just think that’s what I’m meant to do.
Dr. Mark Leeds [18:36] Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I believe the title or maybe the working title is my own private pilgrimage. And I think of pilgrimage as being, you know, like a religious journey, like a spiritual journey, maybe not religious, but spiritual. And so did you feel that this was a spiritual journey for you?
Paul Perrier [18:57] It was a totally spiritual journey. And not getting religious, I mean, but I believe I’m a Catholic. I was brought up as a Catholic. I was an altar boy when I was a kid. I believe in God, a God. And I believe that, you know, as a photographer and filmmaker, I rely on light to make beautiful pictures and beautiful videos. And, you know, God is represented by light in the Bible. And I believe God was leading me. And you’ll see it in this film. It is. Yeah, it was a pilgrimage and a pilgrimage is a real pilgrimage as you go out there searching for something. Not really sure what it is, but that you’re led somewhere. And I really believe I was led by whatever God is. But, you know, everybody has a different do or don’t have a relationship with God, and that’s fine. I don’t care. But this is, I believe you’ll, in fact, you know, I don’t want to give away too much of my film, But some of the things I photographed are very, I believe I photographed my guardian angel. I believe I had a guardian angel. And I believe I photographed God in a sense.
Dr. Mark Leeds [20:44] Wow. I know where I live, if you look at the night sky, you can’t see, you almost can’t see any stars where I live because it’s just so much light. Like, did you have any times when you were out laying under the stars and just seeing the entire galaxy?
Paul Perrier [20:56] Yeah, it was incredible. Yeah, almost. So my day, I probably spent about eight to nine hours a day on the bike. OK, I’d get up pretty early because riding is easier. There’s less wind in the morning and I wanted to get going anyways. But then at the end of these there were always pretty hard days no matter what I’d end up at these beautiful locations and yeah there was sometimes I’d just sit out under the stars just sitting there going wow I can’t believe I’m here and I can’t believe I don’t know where I’m going tomorrow but it’ll probably be as good as this or maybe even better. And there was one day where I got in New Brunswick where I took this old logging road by mistake. I was just led there by my Google Maps. And I either had to, I didn’t know how far it went along, but I either had to go on that or go back 20 kilometers and take another road. I was going, okay, I’m not going backwards. So I decided to take this logging road and I got like lost. I was in the middle of nowhere and like hadn’t seen a car for hours. And this road was like, it was just potholes and rocks and how my bike made it through there without a flat tire was a bit of a miracle there because if I had a flat tire there, like I said, I wouldn’t have known how to fix it and I would have been in the, like they were just nowhere. I finally, after hours ran into three hunters on ATVs who looked at me like, what the fuck are you doing here on that? And I go, I’m lost. I’m trying to get to Miramichi, New Brunswick. And they go, can I get there from here? And they go, yeah, you’ve got another 20 kilometers. But I made it. And, yeah, it was just this kind of, just an experience about going out and trying something that, you know, people have done a lot harder things than I’ve done. But riding across the second biggest country in the world is, it’s a pretty big accomplishment for me anyways.
Dr. Mark Leeds [23:50] Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was it hard to get away from like your regular everyday life? Were there like people or responsibilities or things that you had to kind of work around or, you know, like was that like I’m thinking like for like maybe anybody out there who’s thinking, you know, maybe I should go on a pilgrimage. […] But how did that work out, being able to get away for so long?
Paul Perrier [24:26] Well, so I’ve been living in Toronto for 30 years. I’m from Montreal. I moved to Toronto to pursue photography, and it evolved into filmmaking. And so I, you know, the one thing about Toronto, which has changed in that time period is that Toronto is a great city, but it’s a tough city for an artist to live in. Like, especially now, everything’s so expensive and stuff. So I sort of wanted to make a change. And I’m not sure Toronto is a place where I want to spend the next part of my life. Like I spent my career there. So I wanted to make a change. So that was one part of it. The other part is, you know, I’m divorced. So I have two daughters that live in Toronto. But they’re on their own now. So, you know, I just told them what I was doing. That was the biggest tie I had, but, you know, they’re on their own now. So, you know, when my parents were, when our, when I grew up and we were all on our own, my parents moved to Europe and, you know, I still had a relationship with my parents, whether they were beside me or not. So, yeah, it was something I wanted to do. Like right now, I’ve spent the last six weeks. I’m in Kelowna, BC. That’s where I’m editing the film. So that’s all I’m doing right now. I want to get it finished as quickly as possible and out there as quickly as possible. And continue sort of what I’m doing. Like, I don’t think I’m finished with that. I mean, the bike part’s finished. I’m not going to bike across Canada again, but I want to take this film and let people experience. Because I shot most of it on my bike. It’s all motion. I obviously watched a few films about people who have done big bike trips, and they’re always interesting because, you know, you’re seeing people taking risks and capturing beautiful stuff. But I want it to do, I want it when people see my film, you’ll really experience, well, you’ll see things the way I saw them. And it’s all motion. And I’ve watched it on a big screen TV. But I think in a movie theater on a huge screen, it’ll be like, I think you might have to take Gravol before you watch my film.
Dr. Mark Leeds [27:31] Well that’s so that’s how many you must have hours and hours like how much time of footage do you have to go through to edit
Paul Perrier [27:45] So I don’t know exactly but probably five or six hours of decent footage
Dr. Mark Leeds [27:53] Okay but
Paul Perrier [27:57] Yeah, as I went along, like I said, that first part of the trip, I wasn’t really shooting that much. But then as I went along, I started shooting these longer scenes like on the highway. And you really feel trucks passing you by. And, you know, you really feel the loneliness of like that part that I got lost on. I shot too. So there’s, I started shooting, I just started shooting it more cinematically once I got into it. So it’s all, I mean, editing is a really interesting process. It’s very, until you, again, get the flow of it’s hard to see it. But I’m more than halfway through it now. And it’s all like the pieces going, okay, this goes here, this goes here. There’s a bit of cheating you can do too. But it’s just good I’m really I believe everything I grew up doing like photography filmmaking but cycling those are like three of my passions in life they all sort of came together for this piece and it’s going to be a very unique documentary it’s not going to be your typical documentary. You’re going to experience what it’s like to do something like that and then experience, you know, what some people in Canada are fighting through.
Dr. Mark Leeds [29:47] Yeah. Yeah. And so with the addiction, people you came across with addiction issues, was it all fentanyl, like no crack or meth? Or is it pretty much fentanyl across the board? Everywhere?
Paul Perrier [30:03] That’s hard to say. I mean, because a lot of stuff, I would go A, I wasn’t, I was staying in like I shouldn’t say the bad side of town, but just because of my budget, I was staying in cheaper places, right, so which are nearer to those areas of town. So I would always go there and just document it. It wasn’t like I was always interviewing people. It was people who was coming up people who came up to me that I would interview. So I’m not exactly sure what everybody was on or not but the fentanyl for sure you begin to see because especially from the west coast you just see people bent over just standing there bent over holding their backs and not being able to move and whatever that you probably know more than like, I’m still not sure what that drug is all about.
Dr. Mark Leeds [31:08] Yeah. Yeah. I think fentanyl is pretty much dominating the drug scene out there as far as what people are doing. I mean, there’s been periods maybe like in the eighties where crack was like the big drug and amongst the homeless population. And I know here in Fort Lauderdale, there was a tent city, you know, by the main bus terminal. It was a huge parking lot. I don’t know how that worked out, if that was given to them or something, which they eventually took away later on. But, yeah, it was just like this huge parking lot of tents everywhere. And from people that I had come across and talked to that I know that there was a lot of crack use. And that’s where people would go to live there and, you know, get their drugs and interact with each other and whatever they did there. But, yeah, you know, crack is not and cocaine are not nearly as deadly as opioids can be, and especially fentanyl, especially unregulated fentanyl on the streets where you have no idea what the potency is. You know, it’s pretty much worse than anything because you don’t know if you might be getting the same thing all the time. And then one day you get something that’s 10 or 100 times stronger.
Paul Perrier [32:18] Well, no, I just heard of my friend of my brother’s, a friend of his son just died from fentanyl. It’s like, what? Yeah. Yeah, that guy who picked me up in the tour bus, literally was the tour bus, he said something to me. He goes, he was talking about fentanyl and he goes, he goes, it’s not like heroin, which is a much smoother. He was just explaining it. And I’m thinking, wow, like heroin used to be that drug. That’s a, wow, that’s got to be the worst drug. But fentanyl has upstaged that by a long margin right now. And it is a killer.
Dr. Mark Leeds [33:13] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Heroin is four times the potency of morphine. And when a person takes heroin, it turns into morphine in their system. So it’s essentially a form of morphine. And fentanyl is synthetic and it’s 80 to 100 times more potent than morphine. And that’s in a medical context. That’s you know, they use it all the time in surgery and it’s used safely, you know, under supervised medical conditions, you know, all the time. But, you know, when it’s on the streets and you have no idea what you’re getting or the potency of it and it’s that potent, it’s much more dangerous than heroin and probably more dangerous than any street drug that’s ever been out there.
Paul Perrier [33:58] Yeah. And what is it used for in surgery?
Dr. Mark Leeds [34:02] For pain management. Okay. Yeah, it’s part of general anesthesia. You give a potent muscle relaxer, and the muscle relaxer will paralyze the diaphragm so the person can’t breathe, so they’re on a ventilator. So the issue of respiratory depression is not a problem during surgery because they’re breathing for you. And they give other things to put you in a state of general anesthesia. But fentanyl is, you know, often used and it’s an important component of surgery. And, yeah, they use it all the time. But, you know, when you get it at one time from an anesthesiologist and they know precisely how much they’re giving you. And even though it’s potent, you know, they measure it in micrograms. You know, they don’t – and it’s diluted appropriately. So, you know, they don’t have to worry about, you know, accidentally giving you too much. They know exactly how much they’re giving. And it’s very controlled. And fentanyl, also a unique thing about it is it builds up in the fat cells over time when a person uses it a lot. So someone who gets it once in a lifetime or a couple of times for surgeries is different from someone that takes it every day, multiple times a day for periods of weeks, months or years. And so that makes it really difficult to get off of because to start a medication like Suboxone, it has to be out of your system for a period of time. And an opioid like oxycodone or heroin or morphine, you know, they get out of your system pretty quickly, but fentanyl lingers. And so it interacts with the Suboxone and, you know, people go into what’s called precipitated withdrawal, which is difficult. And it makes the transition into treatment a little bit more difficult. And yeah, I mean, there’s all kinds of solutions. I think in some areas of Canada, they’re a little bit more progressive and have some better ways of dealing with it than here, you know, because we’re a little bit more limited, you know, but it’s, you know, it’s a difficult issue. And they’ve tried to make medical treatment more available, you know, things like Suboxone, they’ve opened up a little bit here more now, you know, they don’t require doctors to do the same training. Actually, they do. Now they require every doctor to do the eight hours of training rather than just the doctors that choose to. And that way they’re hoping more doctors will take it on, you know, the job of helping people get off of opioids. But, yeah, it’s a major issue and, you know, they don’t talk about it as much anymore in the news, but it’s still I think it’s bad as ever.
Paul Perrier [36:36] Yeah, well, for sure. Yeah, I mean, from what I saw, it looks like Night of the Living Dead when people are on it. That’s straight out of a horror movie.
Dr. Mark Leeds [36:50] Yeah. I think in some places in Canada, they’re making prescription opioids more available where at least the person is taking something that the known quantity. There was a story a few years ago about Dilaudid dispensing machines where a person could, and it wasn’t like you put in a dollar and get your Dilaudid. It was like a biometrically activated thing and you had to be authorized to use it, but a person could go up to it and whatever use their hand fingerprint or eye. I think they actually use an eye scan thing and get their Dilaudid dispensed. And at least now you know exactly how many milligrams you’re getting rather than an unknown.
Paul Perrier [37:27] Right, right. Yes, not prevention, but it’s at least safety.
Dr. Mark Leeds [37:33] Yeah, harm reduction. Harm reduction, yeah. Yeah, which goes a long way, you know, hopefully keeping a lot of people alive and safe. Yeah.
Paul Perrier [37:44] Yeah, I mean, I don’t know what the answers are. Like, that’s, you know, I believe my purpose is to just expose it and show people what it looks like and what the reality is. And, yeah, I don’t know what the solutions are to fentanyl or drug addiction. I mean, there’s a whole there’s so many things that go into mental health and good mental health. And part of it, you know, part of what I was doing this whole big trip was, you know, I believe you got to be there’s so many components to be mentally healthy. And part of it’s physical, part of it’s spiritual, part of it’s working on your brain. And it’s not just one thing. Like you can’t just go to the gym every day and you’re going to be, it’s good for you. But there’s a whole bunch of components that go into being healthy and whatever happy is.
Dr. Mark Leeds [38:56] Yeah. Yeah. So I would imagine like when someone goes to watch your film, You know, one person might watch it to see, you know, your interactions with people and then somebody else might want to see, like, what is it like to bike across Canada? So you imagine it has something in there for a lot of people to enjoy.
Paul Perrier [39:17] Well, yeah, that’s what I think why it’ll touch a lot of people and expose the people who aren’t exposed to addiction and homelessness, although you’re exposed to it wherever you live now. That’s sort of, but I captured it in a way that it’s not pushing anything on anybody. It’s just, here’s what I experienced. I went out sort of with this idea in mind to, you know, my book, which is about addiction and mental health. And that sort of led to this and will expose people to it in various ways that will be both entertaining and educational, I hope. And I’ve also, you know, I’ve been as I’ve been at first, I was just editing footage and now I came across somebody who’s supplying me with music and I’m putting music under it now. And it’s like, well, this is it. This is a cool trip. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Leeds [40:35] Oh that the you mentioned a 360 camera and I that’s intriguing because I have one somewhere I don’t know and it’s not a good one it’s a little I have a low quality one but years ago maybe I think maybe 2017 we were in san francisco and I was using it all over the place and I made a video of us we went we went on this old-fashioned trolley ride you know up hill I guess I forgot where it was but it was one of the famous ones that everybody has to go to like you go at the bottom of the hill and wait in this long line and the thing is circling at the end of the line then you get on and it takes you up the hill and I held the 360 camera I didn’t even do it right I didn’t have the pole to put it on so you can see my thumb in the bottom of the video the whole way but I published that one to YouTube to save it because I don’t know where all my other videos from that camera are but if you go on YouTube you can spin around and look at it from any angle you can see the people on the train car with the trolley with us or you can look out of the street and watch the buildings go by. And if you put a VR headset on, you can, I think even on YouTube, you can just look around as if you’re actually there. So that’s, I mean, did you get a lot of that 360 footage?
Paul Perrier [41:48] Yeah, so I bought an Insta360 camera. I never used it before. Like I never even tested it out before I went on the road. And like you said, mine has that pole, the invisible pole. So I would mount it. I had a mount for my bike and, you know, I don’t overuse it because you can do a whole bunch of really cool things with it. But it looks almost, it looks like a drone, you know. You put it up six feet, but that wide angle makes it look like it’s flying over you. So it just gives a really cool perspective in certain shots. And yeah, and it was light. Like it was this big. The camera’s this big. And so all I was carrying was my iPhone and that camera. I was originally thinking, oh, I’ll bring my good 35 millimeter camera to take beautiful pictures. But thank God I didn’t. Literally, thank God. Just because of the weight and the time it takes. No matter what, you have to set up. Whereas with my iPhone, I had it in my back pocket or on a clip on my bike. And I would just grab it, flip it on, and start shooting. What I managed to capture is on an instrument like this, it was just incredible. Years ago, you wouldn’t have been able to do that. I think technology was at the right point for me to do this trip too. The timing on everything was perfect.
Dr. Mark Leeds [43:48] Yeah yeah the iphones get capture great pictures and video I think when I was when I was on that trip to alaska and canada I had the only camera I had with me was an old iphone like a five what they call it a the se I think yeah the five se like which is by today’s standards is ancient and the quality during the day that you know going through the mountains and everything and on the water the and through the gardens I mean it’s great incredible quality I mean it’s not not perfect but it’s I mean it captures everything really I mean it does look good you probably had like you probably had a much more recent one on this trip
Paul Perrier [44:28] Well so I have the 14 so it was a few generations from that one but the difference like I’m literally hand holding so I’m riding one hand holding the can’t like I’m not even looking most of the time when I’m shooting and that’s what’s really incredible about my footage because I look at it go man if I was a drone operator it would look this good but I would just take my camera position it and then ride and then you know just do a pan and stuff but the stabilization it’s incredible like because there’s so much movement going on and yet it’s this it just flows the whole way like yeah they yeah this camera is and it’s not even the latest one like it’s got yeah
Dr. Mark Leeds [45:20] […] I have the 12 because I have no reason to upgrade yet […] and yeah the quality of video and pictures is incredible it’s I think it’s as good as anything so you know and they’ve I think even the you know Apple, they’ve shot commercials and people have shot full movies on those, on even older ones. So that’s, you know, perfect camera to bring with you.
Paul Perrier [45:47] It was the perfect camera. Yeah. And that’s an interesting, you know, an interesting part of the film, too, that it’s shot and part of it’s added. I’ve edited part of it on the camera, too, like just using iMovie. Yeah. So it’s a real light Cracked Not Broken, which cost me 45 bucks to make. This one’s more expensive, but it’s like the real costs were only a couple of thousand dollars. And it looks, it’s going to look and sound. I mean, it doesn’t all look and sound great because I didn’t even, I didn’t use a proper microphone either. Like I just, when I was talking to people, I was just up close with them. So you, there are, like, I remember this homeless guy interviewed in St. John’s at, it’s called Signal Hill. And it’s the east, it’s not the eastern most part of Canada. There’s one place 20 miles down that’s a bit more east, but it’s the edge of Canada on the Atlantic side of the ocean. And it is windy up there. So you hear some wind during the conversation, but that’s sort of how it sounded anyway. So, you know, your experience, you’re hearing what I heard, too. So it’s kind of like Cracked Not Broken wasn’t a beautiful looking film because it was shot with a cheap camera and no lights and no microphone. But that added to it, too. Right. Like it’s, it was, it’s just what I captured is real. Like nothing was planned. That’s the interesting thing about my film. Like most documentaries, they go, okay, well you have to have, you have to interview this person, go here, go here, go here. This is no, no, no, I’m just going to go and capture whatever, and then make something out of it. So, you know, There could be more in-depth interviews for sure, but you really capture, you know, there’s one guy, a kid where I was getting my bike. I had twice when I flew from St. John’s to Vancouver, I had to box up my bike to transport it. And then I took a bus from Winnipeg to Sudbury, Ontario, because to get from Winnipeg to Sudbury, you go through northern Ontario, which is just barren land. And it would have taken me a week to do. And at that point I went and people had warned me going like, it’s really dangerous. There’s tons of bears, blah, blah, blah. And I just went, okay, I’m not going to – I don’t have to cover every kilometer of Canada. So I took a bus from Winnipeg to Sudbury. So I had to get my bike boxed up at a bike shop in Winnipeg. And one of the kids who was boxing my bike, you know, asked me what I was doing. I told him, and then he just told me this story about how he had recently undergone oral surgery for, I don’t know, a crown or something. He was prescribed Tylenol 3s to deal with the pain. And he just told me this story about how after the pain went away, he kept taking the Tylenol 3s. Because he goes, I feel I kind of like the drowsiness. And anyways, it was just this story about how he realized he was becoming addicted to something and how he stopped it. And, you know, it’s not a huge, terrible drug story, but it’s this young kid who was aware that he was becoming, it could have gone like that’s how you can go into addiction right like if you just go oh this feels good so it must be good and then the Tylenol threes wear off and you go okay well I need something else to get that feeling and you know sometimes like things can lead to more potent drugs that I guess can go up to fentanyl but it was just this kind of cool story about this young. I think he was like 22 years old. And it’s just another story that it’s in the film.
Dr. Mark Leeds [50:37] Did you feel that the trip was therapeutic for you, like with your own life of being able to just get away and get away from regular everyday life? I mean, I don’t know if maybe in dealings with people you see every day or with your ex-wife or with anything else going on, Like, did you feel it was therapeutic to just pull yourself out of your regular life and just be out there far away?
Paul Perrier [51:03] Yeah, man. It was, well, I’d say I needed a change, like, at the beginning of the film. I needed to get out of Toronto. Because I hadn’t made a film since Cracked Not Broken due to a bunch of circumstances. And you know in a way it’s something I’ve always dreamed of doing I think you read my book right? Yeah I talk in the book my book’s a memoir about being an artist and leading me to Cracked Not Broken but I talk about when I was seven years old our family moved to Montreal. Well, we lived in Montreal, but we moved to Westmount in Montreal, which is downtown Montreal. And it was the summer of 1967, which was Expo 67 was hosted. The World’s Fair was in Montreal that summer. And I was seven years old and I went to Expo a few times that summer. And I talked about it in the book. I went to see a film. It was called Canada 67 and it was shot by what ended up being the people who ended up doing IMAX but they went across Canada with I think 13 cameras and they shot Canada in the, well, not just in the air but a lot of it was in the air. Some of it was on the ground using 13 cameras. And they projected it in this theater that the screen surrounded you. And I remember what, so that was the first documentary I remember seeing. And, like, it was, talk about an experience of going, like, you’re, as if you’re, like, there’s a scene that goes over Niagara Falls. And, like, people were just holding on to rail. So that was a really profound experience for me. And, you know, the irony that 50 years or how many years later, I make a film about going across Canada using modern technology, which fits in, you know, they must have spent millions back then. Now you can do it with what you have every day but I believe my film is probably a more beautiful film than even that one is in a different way but it’s this you look for me writing the book and doing this trip it really ties everything in your life is tied Every experience you have in your life is tied together, right? And that experience about, A, writing the book was, you know, hard, hard. It took me 10 years to do because I’m not a writer. But I like doing things that seem hard to do or push you know? So leaving Toronto was hard. You know, I’ve been there 33 years. I still have some family there. I have friends there. But for me, like, I would have regretted not doing it, I think, if I didn’t do it. Like, now there’s so many more opportunities to – I want to keep traveling, And not just in Canada, I believe this film can, you know, people in the States will understand my film. People anywhere will understand the film because it happens. It’s happening everywhere.
Dr. Mark Leeds [55:09] Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So I believe you also you have a thing going on where people can get involved. A GoFundMe page. What’s the best way to find it? I think I typed something on Google and it came right up. I typed your name, Paul Perrier, and another word, I think. But what’s the best way to go straight to that?
Paul Perrier [55:29] Yeah, so I started a GoFundMe campaign to try to offset some of the costs. And part of what I, you know, part of the reason I do this, like I did with my book, is when my book was published, all the people who helped me, you know, put whatever amount of money in, their names were in the book. Which is kind of a cool thing. Like that’s kind of the book will last long after I’m gone, long after all the people who put the money in. It’s sort of you’re leaving. You’re part of something that’s part of something bigger, I believe. And that’s sort of what I’m doing with the film. People want to have their names associated with it. And it is a good cause. It’s about awareness. But, you know, you put some money in and in the credits, your name will be there and you’re part of this film, which who knows where it’ll go. You know, I want I want to the first thing I want to do is just tour with it. So when people see the film, I’m there that you show the film, there’s a Q&A after and sell books or whatever. But more an experience other than just releasing my film on a streaming thing. I want to do sort of what I do with my bike tour. So the GoFundMe is, yeah, I guess you go to GoFundMe and just put in my own private pilgrimage. It’ll come up. And, yeah, if you want to be part of that’s cool. And it helps, you know, it’ll help me with the expenses that, you know, editing and preparing for the next part of this. Yeah, that’s part of it. Just an interesting part of how filmmakers and artists get money now because getting money for especially documentaries and especially when it doesn’t fit into the mainstream, which this won’t. You’ve got to rely on people who understand or understand what you’re doing.
Dr. Mark Leeds [57:51] Yeah. And for people listening who are wondering how far this film might go and where it might go to, your last film went to Oprah. So it got a lot of recognition and it got a very wide audience and a lot of attention.
Paul Perrier [58:09] Well, not only did it go to Oprah, which was an interesting part of it, which was, you know, of course, I never thought it would go that far. But getting to Oprah was what got it to HBO. And then HBO bought my film for their addiction series. So Cracked Not Broken was one of four independent films that became a part of this groundbreaking series in 2007. So, yeah, like, again, to me, when I made that or when I went to shoot that interview, which was never planned as a film, and you put it out there, you never know where it’s going to go. And I think I didn’t, well, I had a feeling about Cracked Not Broken that it was going to do something. There was something about, there’s something about that film that is so unbelievable. Just even though it’s just two people in a room talking, it’s, there’s stuff that happens much like on my trip that were like the phone calls and the timing of everything. The timing that I got to that place, the timing when I left, there was just when I looked at it afterwards, I went, there’s a film here. Like, I don’t have to I barely have to do anything. And when I pitched the film, that was the problem that people like people were saying, no, no, it’s part of a film. Like, you’ve got to you’ve got to bring in other like professionals interview interview this. I’m going, no, no, no, that’s not what my film’s about. My film is about just two people talking in a room about, well, one person mostly talking in a room. I’m capturing most of it, but it’s just about one person’s experience that will hopefully other people can relate to. So yeah you know the film I’m working on now isn’t finished but I have a really good feeling that it’s going to go I don’t know where it’s going to go but it’ll take on a life of its own for sure
Dr. Mark Leeds [1:00:45] Yeah yeah it sounds like it’s going to be great I can’t wait to see it I can’t wait to finish it sounds really incredible.
Paul Perrier [1:00:56] You’ve seen the trailer, right?
Dr. Mark Leeds [1:00:59] Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Paul Perrier [1:01:05] That gives a little feeling of it. I originally thought this would be like a short documentary, like 45 minutes. I thought it would be around the same timing as Cracked Not Broken, but it’s going to be a full 45 minute feature film because to cover that area you just can’t cut stuff down too much so it’s going to be getting through the film will be a bit like getting through biking across Canada
Dr. Mark Leeds [1:01:41] Yeah it was great to be able to follow you as you were out there you posted on Instagram regularly that was really great to be to see your progress as you went along. Yeah, that was a cool part of it, too. Yeah. So, Paul Perrier, thank you for joining me today.
Paul Perrier [1:01:49] Thanks, Mark. Great to talk to you again. And let’s keep in touch and see where this all goes.
