The campaigns for the 2019 federal election have officially started, with that comes the introduction of the People’s Party.

For the first time in history, the election is opening its doors to the People’s Party of Canada (PPC). The party was originally formed by the party leader, Maxime Bernier on Sept. 14, 2018, after he announced his resignation from the Conservative Party.

According to the PPC website, the party is based on four main concept, including freedom, responsibility, fairness and respect. Along with these four principles, the PPC has also provided multiple platform goals that help further Bernier’s position about how they believe the country should be run.

One of the first platforms to be released by the PPC mentions that if elected, the party will fence off the areas where illegal border jumping is prevalent.

Along with this, Bernier also promised he will lower the total number of immigrants and refugees that Canada accepts every year by over 250,000.

Even with being the first election for the PPC, they have over 350 representatives across Canada.

Among these 350 representatives is a Lethbridge candidate and local business owner, Grant Hepworth.

According to Hepworth’s biography on Facebook, he has lived in the Lethbridge community for close to 20 years.

He has built and grown his own business where he learned the hard way to not like the government as they, “favor revenue over peer-reviewed science.”

Hepworth says one of the largest issues with the political system is that the primary candidates don’t represent the people, only themselves.

When asked about the PPC and why the party works well, Hepworth said the party is made up of regular people who just want to make the government better.

“Ninety per cent of candidates are normal everyday people, looking to improve the government so that they actually work for the people, vs. special interest groups and the corporatocracy,” Hepworth said.

Ward Grantham, president of the riding association, has been a supporter of Bernier for a long time and said he fully believes in the PPC platform.

When asked about his perspective on Canada’s biggest issues, Grantham said the Canadian population pays an excessive amount of support to the country’s dairy farmers.

“Thirty million Canadians are supporting roughly 15,000 dairy farmers across the country and it doesn’t seem right as far as I’m concerned,” Grantham said.

When asked about the character of Lethbridge candidate Hepworth, Grantham said he is a “live in the moment” kind of person and believes it is important to represent your population.

“He is a very live and let live, but represent the people that elected you,” he added about Hepworth’s personality.

Attempt to contact PPC candidate Hepworth have been

Overall, the PPC candidate has been difficult to contact. Despite plenty of attempts of communication via phone, email and social media, the long response times from this Lethbridge candidate reveals the party is not what they say they are.