About 10 days ago I spoke with Kevin O’Leary on air. It was our fifth or sixth interview I think. As soon as we began I sensed something different about the would-be next PM of Canada. The exact phrasing of the question I’ve forgotten, but the answer has stuck with me. Kevin O’Leary, not known to lavish praise on his fellow competitors to succeed Stephen Harper, spoke about how he would commit his support to the eventual winner and recipient of the keys to Stornaway, whether or not that person was himself.
The cool and confident newly minted CPC member didn’t hold court on how les Quebecois would forgive his lack of facility with the French language and would enthusiastically support him because of his personal history in the province.
There wasn’t enough to foretell raising the white flag by K.O. would take place in just days, but there was enough to cause me to remark to the studio crew “something’s different. Something’s going on.”
Kevin O’Leary’s decision-making timeline would suggest that my assessment was somewhere between prescient and a wild guess.
Regardless, the populist conservative movement in Canada has heard ‘no mas’ and witnessed their man tapping out in favour of Maxime Bernier, former cabinet minister whose dismissal from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s caucus front row was thought by some to have brought Bernier’s political ascendancy to a full stop.
That may yet prove true.
CPC members voting for their leader may direct their affections to Andrew Scheer, the youngest speaker of Canada’s parliament, or perhaps Erin O’Toole, the former Air Force Captain and Veterans Affairs Minister.
Dr. Kellie Leitch and the rest of the candidates remain hopeful it will be they who deliver an acceptance speech and vow to dispatch the current PM to the ranks of political afterthought.
We’ll see.
The fact is, Kevin O’Leary bragged and boasted. He wrote open letters about political failures, naming and calling out Justin Trudeau, Kathleen Wynne and Rachel Notley.
Some were toying with naming O’Leary “dragon slayer.”
Instead, the dragon has lost its fire and has returned to its den. Not by defeat. Rather by surrender.
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