Brent Rodger was born and raised in London, Ontario, where he has spent most of his life. When he’s not working, you’re likely to find him camping or canoeing somewhere in Ontario’s backcountry. Like many in his community, his path wasn’t shaped by privilege or connections — it was shaped by work.

Early in life, Brent worked in small trade businesses — electrical, hardware, building supply — the kind of jobs that keep local economies running but rarely make headlines. He served a year in the Canadian Armed Forces, and later earned a diploma in Multimedia Design and Production from Fanshawe College, rounding out a hands-on, adaptable working life that moved from the trades into more technical and creative work.

For many years, Brent worked at a university, in a role he valued for its contribution to public education. That ended when the university began downsizing its technical staff, replacing experienced full-time workers — union and non-union alike — with part-time labour to cut costs. It wasn’t a story about him being bad at his job. It was a story about a system that increasingly treats stable, secure work as an expense to be trimmed rather than a foundation to be protected.

Rather than just talk about that experience, Brent decided to put his paddle where his convictions were. This fall, he’s undertaking Paddling for a Second Chance in the Trades — a canoe trek through the same Ontario backcountry he’s always found refuge in, this time to raise funds for adults trying to rebuild a career in the skilled trades the way he once did. It’s a small, practical response to a large problem: proof that the trades gave him a second chance when the system had failed him, and a way to help make sure that chance is there for others too.

Watching his two children grow up alongside his wife of 20 years, he saw a future narrowing in front of them — a future where a stable career, an affordable home, and the ability to raise a family were no longer guarantees for people who worked hard and played by the rules. It wasn’t abstract. It was personal.

As he looked for a political home that reflected his values, Brent found none. Every party seemed to demand that Canadians pick a side — left or right, liberal or conservative — as if the country’s problems could be sorted into two neat camps. But most people Brent knew didn’t think that way. They wanted fairness, security, a fair shot, and a community that looked out for its own — values that didn’t fit neatly into either tribe. He realized he wasn’t the only one who felt politically homeless.

He’d also come to notice a pattern: decisions made to chase profit — by corporations, by institutions, even by his own former employer — rarely had ordinary people’s interests in mind. He’d watched it happen firsthand, in his own workplace: steady jobs traded for part-time labour to save a few dollars. He saw the same thing playing out elsewhere — in hospitals, in housing — not through any one big event, but through a slow, steady squeeze on the things that used to hold communities together.

That’s why Brent founded the Common Good Party of Canada — a name chosen on purpose. It’s meant to sit above the usual left-right paradigm, and speak instead to what most Canadians already want: work that pays fairly, institutions that serve people and the freedom to live by your own values without being told which team to join first.

Brent isn’t interested in performative politics. He’s focused on the same things that shaped his own life and his concern for his kids’ future: making sure hard work still pays off, communities stay strong, and people don’t have to pick a side just to be heard.