Conservative leadership hopeful and former Dragon’s Den star Kevin O’Leary addressed a crowd of more than 400 people at the London Convention Centre for a luncheon on Tuesday.
During his speech, O’Leary talked about keeping young entrepreneurs in Canada, eliminating the carbon tax, and immigration policy — but he didn’t come up short in jabs at the opposition.
“In 2019, it will not be an election — it will be an exorcism,” the reality TV star quipped. The remark drew applause and a couple of cheers from the audience.
O’Leary began his speech by highlighting the importance of retaining young business people, particularly graduating engineers, who approach him about business opportunities in the United States after he attends schools as a guest lecturer.
“They’ll say ‘Kevin, you know the guys at Uber, can you get me an interview there? What about Apple?'”
HCL Logistics Inc. President Tim Van Holst says that kind of businessman attitude is what Canada needs.
Van Holst says O’Leary’s promise to eliminate carbon taxes is “bang on”. The businessman-turned-politician explained how such taxes don’t work by comparing two businesses: a large one with five smoke stacks and a start up with just one smoke stack — both in the same industry.
“Both have emissions issues. The rich one with the five smoke stacks doesn’t have to innovate at all. It can continue to pollute all it wants, because it simply has to take its balance sheet and buy carbon credits. The little company, that does not have that capital has to innovate.”
READ MORE: O’Leary promises to scrap carbon tax if elected prime minister.
During a question and answer session following the speech, Egg Farmers of Ontario director Diane McComb asked O’Leary how he planned to protect the agri-food industry in Ontario and was unhappy that while he wouldn’t do away with supply management, it would be part of trade negotiations.
“I don’t want to see supply management dismantled because it gives fair farm pricing to farmers, it employs our processors — and they’ve had steady jobs for the last 15 years with no layoffs — so I would work with him to encourage his understanding of my sector.”
O’Leary also promised to attract young voters that helped secure Trudeau’s majority towards the Conservative Party, by “twisting that knife” of how they’ll leave school with $60,000 in debt because of Liberal leadership.
He was scheduled to make a stop at Western University to “sold out stadium” crowd, after his appearance at the London Convention Centre.
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