{"id":16855,"date":"2017-03-22T18:11:20","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T22:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16855"},"modified":"2017-03-22T18:11:20","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T22:11:20","slug":"oleary-offers-cocktail-of-celebrity-business-and-politics-to-oust-trudeau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/oleary-offers-cocktail-of-celebrity-business-and-politics-to-oust-trudeau\/","title":{"rendered":"O\u2019Leary offers \u201ccocktail of celebrity, business and politics\u201d to oust Trudeau"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

A public persona honed on reality TV is one of the biggest \u201cmisconceptions\u201d about Kevin O\u2019Leary, says the leadership candidate \u2013 but, if his celebrity can mix with business and politics to \u201ckick [Justin Trudeau]\u2019s ass,\u201d that is a bonus.
\nMr. O\u2019Leary, one of the frontrunners in the race to replace Stephen Harper as permanent leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, referenced this \u201capparently important cocktail of celebrity, business and politics\u201d as a winning formula during a campaign stop in Newmarket-Aurora on Monday night at Madsen\u2019s Greenhouse in Newmarket.
\nSpeaking to The Auroran after addressing a packed crowd of supporters, skeptics, and curious Conservative party members, he said telling the truth is key to harnessing the power of his millions of followers on social media and turning it into engagement and action in a very crowded leadership race.
\n\u201cWhat is amazing is it goes to telling the truth; social media is not a press release, it is a dialogue between two human beings, one at a time,\u201d says Mr. O\u2019Leary. \u201cYes, you reach millions, but you\u2019re having a dialogue with an individual person and they either trust you or they don\u2019t. I have built this relationship up over 12 years. It\u2019s a massive following and my attitude is: Don\u2019t lie to them. The first time you lie to someone you lose 50 per cent of your equity for the rest of your life. Just tell them the truth. Sometimes they don\u2019t like it, but it is the truth.\u201d
\nThis amassing of millions of followers over the 12 years is thanks in no small part to his role as a media personality both on the CBC here at home and on other networks abroad. Asked what the biggest misconception is about him during this campaign, Mr. O\u2019Leary says it comes down to his TV persona versus the message he presents directly to the people.
\n\u201cI have done close to 10,000 hours of television all around the world with five different networks and there is a difference between reality TV and policy,\u201d he says. \u201cI think, over time, you have only got 130,000 people deciding on this leadership race and I have to talk to them.\u201d
\nHaving 14 candidates in the Conservative race is an \u201cextraordinary outcome\u201d in Canadian politics, he says, but at the end of the day, for party members, it all comes down to who can beat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the polls in the 2019 Federal Election.
\n\u201cYou have to think, what political weaponry do you need now to beat someone that,\u201d says O\u2019Leary of Trudeau. \u201cMany people think he is unbeatable for a second mandate; I don\u2019t. I think I can really give that guy a very tough run. He and his cabinet would be accountable because I can actually read what they do and interpret it to the Canadian people. I think I am in good stead with the people.\u201d
\nIndeed, during his campaign stop, he repeatedly said he was going to make life a \u201cliving hell\u201d for Mr. Trudeau should he win the Conservative leadership race. What constitutes a \u201cliving hell\u201d for the Prime Minister? Mr. O\u2019Leary tells The Auroran that means \u201cgetting him to tell the truth.\u201d
\n\u201cHe actually doesn\u2019t know what that is,\u201d claims O\u2019Leary. \u201cHe\u2019s a terrible manager. I am going to have some fun with him.\u201d
\n\u201cI am going to ask him things like \u2013,\u201d O\u2019Leary adds, before trailing off for a moment as if in thought, \u201cI\u2019ll wait. I am getting ready to engage him on behalf of the Canadian people. He needs a lot of adult supervision.\u201d
\nAs he criss-crosses the country, he says the primary concern he hears in rural communities is, \u201cjobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs,\u201d particularly when it comes to young people, even those who have post-secondary degrees, still living on the farm. To this end, Mr. O\u2019Leary says a party can\u2019t win a majority mandate without the support of voters aged 18 to 35 and the person to do that, he says, is him.
\n\u201cI am just going to twist the knife on jobs,\u201d he says. \u201cThat is all I have to do. Justin Trudeau is actually going to elect Kevin O\u2019Leary. He just has to keep doing what he is doing. Those kids have no jobs. He lied to them. He broke that trust. Sunny ways? Bullshit.\u201d
\nDuring his campaign stop, Mr. O\u2019Leary faced a number of questions including his plans for the CBC.
\nHe says he would \u201cprobably cut\u201d the CBC outside of news both on CBC News Network and Radio Canada. The rest? They should \u201cdo PBS\u201d with pledge drives.
\nHe was also questioned on his residency, as well as his stance on \u201cCanadian values,\u201d a primary platform plank of leadership rival Kellie Leitch.
\n\u201cThe deal is this: you come to Canada, you want to raise your family here, and you want to work and build your business, build your family just like mine did, you have to live by the laws of our country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A public persona honed on reality TV is one of the biggest \u201cmisconceptions\u201d about Kevin O\u2019Leary, says the leadership candidate \u2013 but, if his celebrity can mix with business and politics to \u201ckick [Justin Trudeau]\u2019s ass,\u201d that is a bonus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/2017-03-23-08.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4nR","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 10:07:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}