Last Ont. Winner In Second Biggest Lottery Jackpot In Cdn. History Finally Comes Forward
Posted March 6, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
He’s 31.
He works at a food packaging plant in Mississauga.
He’s from Milton.
And he proclaims himself to be very level headed.
And yes, he’s engaged.
That might be all you need to know about Kevin Perron, except for this – he’s also Canada’s newest multimillionaire.
The Peel resident showed up at Ontario Lottery headquarters Friday to get his weekend off to a perfect start, claiming his share of the February 21st $50 million 6/49 prize.
He’s walking away with a cheque worth $12.5 million and becomes the last of three Ontario winners to claim part of the second largest jackpot in Canadian lottery history.
The big draw was actually held two weeks ago. What took him so long to come forward? It’s that practical side of the man that emerges as he explains the reason.
“At first I was flabbergasted, I was a little bit shocked, I took about two weeks to really digest this and get my ducks in a row.” He also needed time to process all that money.
“Twelve million is a big amount. You don’t know who’s out there. You don’t know what you need to do. So I just had to make sure we got our finances right and we felt prepared to walk in today.”
He spoke to close family members before finally emerging as one of the country’s newly rich.
His only plan for now is to buy a nicer home, but the big win won’t alter his upcoming honeymoon in a few month’s times. He hasn’t revealed the destination but says he and his bride-to-be are still heading to their planned spot, and won’t go high on the hog.
“We want to maintain a sense of normalcy in our lives. So who’s to say we can’t get a nicer bottle of wine one night?”
And there’s another thing that won’t change: despite his new found wealth, Perron has no intention of quitting his job, a fact he thinks his fiancée will appreciate since he won’t be hanging around their home “tearing her hair out.”
What do his co-workers think of his impending return? Perron doesn’t know – they only discovered his amazing secret on Friday. But he suspects there wasn’t “much productivity” going on at his place of employment this day.
And practical though he may be, the Milton man admits he likes to take a shot at games of chance – and he’s won before. A year ago, he scored a “huge” $10 cheque playing the lottery.
This time, his prize has a lot more zeroes attached.
