EDITORS NOTE: This article is part of a series on the provincial election candidates in the Lambton-Kent-Middlesex Riding
Brian Everaet has always done things different.
As a youngster growing up in Wallaceburg, he would sit at home watching CPAC – Canada’s parliamentary TV channel – while his friends were out riding their bikes and playing ball.
“I have been political my whole life,” says the 43 year old ironworker who lives in Wilkesport and is now the Trillium Party’s candidate for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex.
“I have always been political, sometimes even in my youth it was hard for me, people who didn’t know anything about politics or they didn’t have any interest, I wasn’t interested in.”
Everaet came to politics through his parents. His father was a farmer and Everaet says he was “interested in politics. My parents are good citizens who checked the issues out and voted,” but he adds they “never were in the spotlight. They weren’t interested in doing any campaigning.”
Everaet set down a different path than his parents in both politics and life. He went off to Fanshawe College in London where he became an industrial millwright mechanic. He joined the Ironworkers and never farmed.
And in his mid-twenties, he started thinking about being politically active.
At first, he was just “pounding in campaign signs” for a favourite candidate.
But his interest peaked in the 1990s after the federal Liberals brought in a long-gun registry.
“I used to be a duck hutting guide, when the gun registry coming out that was why I became a Conservative, because it was going to hurt my business, so I went full bore.” The Conservatives won that election and the long-gun registry was abolished.
Everaet’s interests turned to the provincial arena as he became frustrated with the decisions of the Liberal government. He was so against the waste and increased power costs associated with the Green Energy Act, he refused to work at wind turbine sites even if that meant he wouldn’t work.
As the 2018 election neared, Everaet became a candidate for the upstart Trillium Party. One of its main thrusts is MPPs should serve the people, not their party. “There is a lot of promising going on right now, but once you get to Toronto I don’t see any of the MPPs making a difference…MPPs are told how to vote.”
The Trillium Party will allow MPPs to vote as their constituents say through referendums.
It is not possible for the Trilliums to form government. The party is running just 32 candidates in 124 ridings this election.
But Everaet says that shouldn’t stop people from taking a look at the party. “People sick of not having a say, they should be voting Trillium Party because we say the people are right, all the time – that’s democracy.”
And he says it would be good to have a new party at Queen’s Park to expose the backroom dealings. “Right now, two teams are out on the ice without a referee, everyone is running around without anyone saying anything. The Trillium Party can be the referee.”
