O’Leary right to step aside

Kevin O’Leary’s bid to lead the federal Conservatives and become the country’s next prime minister was like a meteor that sizzled then fizzled.

The millionaire businessman turned reality-TV star suddenly streaked across the Canadian political sky, grabbed everyone’s attention and just as suddenly slammed into the earth.

That’s O’Leary’s only legacy in the wake of Wednesday’s announcement that he was pulling out of the Tory leadership race and supporting Maxime Bernier, a candidate he’d previously trashed.

O’Leary seems to have just twigged to the fact that his inability to speak French made him unelectable as prime minister. That’s strange. People have said that for months.

But that wasn’t his only shortcoming. O’Leary’s utter lack of experience as an elected politician, his residency for much of the year in the United States, his inclination to run the country like a business and a personal style as rough as 40-grit sandpaper always made him an unlikely successor to Stephen Harper and an even more improbable victor over Justin Trudeau. Moreover, his desire to return to Canada full-time and leap into one of its top political jobs seemed more in his interest than the country’s.

Now, rather than stepping aside for the good of the Conservatives, as he suggested, O’Leary’s withdrawal seems more likely motivated by his recent discovery that 239,000 voters are eligible to pick the new leader. His campaign sold just 35,335 of those memberships. Winning wasn’t as sure a bet as he had thought.

That someone as unqualified as O’Leary was declared a front-runner so quickly after entering the race in January shows how much the Tory B-Team dominates the list of leadership candidates. But he has done the party a couple of favours. First, he brought more national attention to the Conservative leadership contest than the previously lacklustre affair had been getting. Clowns always get people talking about a circus. Second, by exiting the race, Bernier makes the choices clearer than ever.

By most accounts, Maxime Bernier now heads the pack. A libertarian who advocates a flat income tax, an end to federal subsidies for businesses and scrapping milk marketing boards, he would certainly lead the Conservatives in a new direction. But would Canadian voters follow? A more moderate option — such as the ones offered by Andrew Scheer or Michael Chong — makes more sense.

Perhaps others in this overcrowded bus of a leadership race will step off, too. Kellie Leitch, the leadership candidate who favours screening immigrants for “Canadian values” could nicely follow O’Leary’s example.

As for O’Leary himself, he will go down as a footnote in the history books — an oddity, a momentary diversion and a faint, northern echo of Donald Trump.