I went to High School with him. I was class of 1990, and he was 1991.
He was a moderately-popular kid, probably ranked about Gamma in the pecking order, and the last I had heard of him (until he entered politics) was that he’d gone to RMCC and was eventually commissioned into the Air Force.
He has a charisma deficit, but he is solid on the major conservative issues of government spending restraint, the energy sector, immigration, foreign policy (he’s no friend of the chi-coms, military, and law and order. He’s not a social conservative but he promised he wouldn’t silence them in the party. That last point remains to be seen. Former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the same promise in 1994, then prevented his party from having any serious debate over issues such as abortion.