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Leadership hopeful Kevin O’Leary is promising a majority for the Conservative Party of Canada in 2019.
In an interview Thursday on Gormley, the recently anointed frontrunner in the 14-deep field of candidates vowed to oust current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“It will not be an election. It will be an exorcism. I will remove everything about Trudeau out of Ottawa. You will not remember his name 100 days after I’m there. Every policy he puts in place, I’ll reverse,” he said.
O’Leary brushed off criticisms that he might be unpalatable for some diehard Conservative members, given his lack of concern on social issues like abortion and his refusal to condemn the CBC.
“Wherever you are in the party, you want one thing: a majority mandate in 2019,” he said.
Asked about a May 2016 interview with the CBC’s Rosemary Barton where he supported a carbon tax, O’Leary repeated his position that the things he’s said on television before entering politics should be disregarded.
“That’s not policy. It’s television. This is the real world,” he said, before doubling-down on his now anti-carbon tax stance by vowing to abolish the tax right across the country — including jurisdictions that have introduced them on their own.
“Any province that even wants to keep a carbon tax, I’ll be very punitive to in transfer payments – so don’t mess with me,” he said.
O’Leary said he believes he can bring the Conservative party back into government by taking younger voters from the Liberals.
“We cannot have a majority mandate ever again in the Conservative party if we can’t get 60 per cent of the vote of people between 18 and 35 years old,” he said.
But O’Leary’s first step on the road to challenging Trudeau will be convincing party members to choose him as their leader in May. He said he thinks one thing above all else should separate him from the crowded field of contenders.
“I’m not a politician, I’m not a politician and I’m not a politician. I’m the only person on that stage that’s ever created a job,” he said.