O’Leary coy on his bid for leadership of Tories
Silence amid reports that the television star will announce bid for leadership Wednesday
OTTAWA— Kevin O’Leary is refusing to confirm he’s ready to join the Conservative leadership race Wednesday after months of testing the waters.
But the possibility that O’Leary, a businessman and reality television personality, will enter the race is being taken seriously by candidates vying to replace Stephen Harper.
The CBC reported Tuesday night O’Leary would formally enter the race Wednesday.
Amy Mills, a spokesperson for O’Leary’s leadership “exploratory committee,” refused to confirm or deny the report when reached by the Star on Tuesday. Mills did confirm O’Leary is scheduled to give a number of media interviews to react to Tuesday night’s Conservative French-language debate.
Reached by The Canadian Press Tuesday evening, O’Leary refused to discuss the CBC report. Instead, he vented his “frustration” that the Conservative leadership field still has 13 people vying to replace Stephen Harper.
Those 13 candidates gathered in Quebec City Tuesday evening for the leadership contest’s all-French debate. O’Leary, who does not speak French, has been accused by his rivals of avoiding the Quebec debate.
Each candidate read a 30-second opening statement at the debate with varying degrees of proficiency in French.
Kellie Leitch quickly fired a salvo at rival Maxime Bernier, accusing him of being a liar for supposedly giving big corporations more than $200 million when he was industry minister while at the same time championing himself as someone who wants to end corporate welfare.
MP Steven Blaney also targeted Bernier early on, criticizing his rival’s promise to get rid of the supply-and-demand system in agriculture. Blaney, one of only two francophones in the debate, said farmers work hard while Bernier likes to “go jogging.”
Many of the anglophone candidates, including Lisa Raitt, Deepak Obhrai and Brad Trost, appeared to struggle in the debate and read preprepared answers.
O’Leary recently pledged that he would try to learn French before the 2019 election, if he’s chosen as the party’s leader.
The other participants in the debate were Chris Alexander, Michael Chong, Erin O’Toole, Andrew Scheer, Pierre Lemieux, Rick Peterson and Andrew Saxton.