Kevin O’Leary running for Conservative leader? Oh, yes please

Kevin O’Leary will not become the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Although he says a campaign is under serious consideration, in the end there’s little likelihood O’Leary will actually run. His prospective candidacy is an amusing but obvious vanity play as the entrepreneur-turned-expert-inall-things soaks up some free publicity and inspires fantasies of a northern, hairless Donald Trump. Honestly, when was the last time anyone rose to political heights with a cry of “We need to run this country like a hedge fund”?

Consequently, the political ambitions of the self-styled Mr. Wonderful are almost certain to be a passing fancy, soon to dissipate and drift away. But let’s pray that turns out to be wrong. Let’s hope he gets caught up in his own rhetoric and opts to run after all. Because the spectacle of seeing O’Leary get devoured in the shark tank of federal politics would be the most entertaining reality program of all time: Keeping Up With The Kardashians meets CTV’s Question Period.

It would also be a welcome reminder that government isn’t a game show. The people who actually dedicate themselves to running for office, to developing public policy, to governing in the broad public interest and to balancing our country’s diverse needs are not unremarkable contestants.

Overwhelmingly, they’re talented, well-motivated and extremely hard-working people. Some are brilliant. Some are not. They get things right and, upon occasion, they get things wrong but they’re not the drooling morons O’Leary would have you believe. What’s more, shocking though it may seem to some, their jobs are not absurdly easy.

O’Leary thinks otherwise. “I could do better,” he boasted to CFRA’s sister-station in Toronto, Newstalk 1010. He complains that our nation — at both the federal and provincial level — is drowning in “poor policy.”

To hear him describe it, you would think that Canada is a failed state, on the brink of social and economic disintegration.

He believes our current leadership is running the country into the ground, chasing young talent to foreign destinations, robbing the richest among us of their right to even lower taxes and, above all else, failing a test of loyalty to big oil. His solutions are profoundly uncomplicated: lower — or even eliminate — corporate taxes, abandon any policies that support a postcarbon economy and prop up private sector oil companies. Asked if that meant subsidies to some of the largest and still most profitable corporations in the country, would-be candidate O’Leary told Newstalk 1010, “Absolutely.” It all might seem slightly reminiscent of Reagan’s trickle-down economics. But O’Leary doesn’t even promise that the trickle will reach the rest of us. His ideas seem aimed pretty much at preserving the wealth of those who are already wealthy. It’s enough to make a one-per-centre blush.

O’Leary’s real targets, though, are the politicians we elect. With more than a smidge of hubris he declares them to be broadly unqualified and ill-advised. Kicking off this entire carnival of speculation on Monday, O’Leary slammed Alberta’s NDP Premier Rachel Notley. Calling her unfit to govern, he offered to invest $1 million (best pronounced as “one meeellion” in the voice of Dr. Evil) if she resigned. The premier declined his generous proposal.

In fairness, it’s hard to argue that the NDP’s time in power has been unblemished for Albertans. The long-delayed announcement of a new royalty resource regime has surely not helped stabilize investment. But, even the premier’s toughest critics would acknowledge, her greatest fault is being in the wrong place at the wrong time as commodities suffer from a global hemorrhage. Blaming Rachel Notley for $30 oil is like blaming Leonardo DiCaprio for the Titanic sinking.

All that said, O’Leary has every right in the world to take a tumble at politics if he so wishes. Comparisons to the bombast and wealth of

Politics isn’t as easy as Kevin O’Leary thinks. Elected leaders aren’t as foolish as he claims.

Trump will be widespread. But give the dragon his due, O’Leary didn’t inherit his wealth and there’s never been a hint of the race-baiting and Islamophobia you get each day from Trump. His shtick is a Gordon Gekko celebration of consumptive greed and a haughty dismissal of elected leaders as dumb-dumbs. That might grate on some but it’s a long way from the bare-teethed ugliness we see in the GOP race to our south.

O’Leary also belongs to a long tradition of those who assume their business success will naturally translate to triumph in what they deem to be the far less challenging field of politics. Remember Peter Pocklington’s bid to be prime minister? That’s OK, no one does. These dilettantish types usually present their candidacies as a sort of charitable donation — a generous sharing of their genius to help snap things into shape and teach the political class what a real go-getter can achieve once unleashed. As O’Leary humbly brags, “I just want to fix my country.” In case you missed the implication, he’s pretty convinced that he’s the only one up to the task.

That’s why we should hope for him to run. Not only would an O’Leary candidacy inject a dose of electricity into a Conservative race that would otherwise rely on Tony Clement for its buzz factor, it would offer the opportunity to witness an epic humbling.

Politics isn’t as easy as Kevin O’Leary thinks. Elected leaders aren’t as foolish as he claims. And governing isn’t as simple as he suggests. So let’s call his bluff. Let’s see how the dragon does when he’s the one tossed into the den.