Kevin O’Leary, one of 14 candidates running for leadership of the Conservative party, spoke at Carleton on March 18.
The event, held in the Kailash Mital theatre, was co-hosted by the Carleton Conservatives, together with the University of Ottawa Campus Conservatives.
O’Leary spoke about Canada’s economy and how he would improve it, if elected prime minister.
O’Leary said he was motivated to run for the leadership when he saw Canada’s economic growth slowing. He referred to his own success as an entrepreneur out of university, and said “Canada was on fire . . . Today, it’s dead.”
He said he believes young people in Canada should have the same opportunities he had growing up, but said jobs are becoming harder to find as more businesses leave Canada due to high taxes.
“I’m coming out to talk to you and I’m learning you’re pissed. You don’t have jobs,” he said.
He said in his talk that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doesn’t have the skillset to run Canada, and said the upcoming federal budget, which was released on March 22, would put Canada $1.5 trillion in debt within 38 years.
“There’s no way in hell I’m going to let him do that,” he said.
He also criticized Trudeau’s actions in the first months after his election, saying that he gave away $4.2 billion “without creating a single Canadian job—not one. “
“I, like many other Canadians, have come to the conclusion he has no idea what he’s doing,” O’Leary said.
Stephanie Feldman, a Carleton alumna who came to the talk, said she attended because she heard a lot about O’Leary and wanted to see him speak in person.
“I was really impressed actually, I found him very engaging. He seems to be running for prime minister, not necessarily for leader [of the Conservative party],” she said.
O’Leary also criticized Trudeau for a lack of response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s election. He said that while Trump ran a campaign based on lowering taxes, Trudeau continues to add more personal, corporate, and carbon taxes.
O’Leary said his platform is based on one promise alone.
“I’m making one simple object mandate: grow this country at three per cent GDP,” he said.
He also said he believes in legal immigration, “a process by which you apply,” and immigration that supports the economy.
Adam Bradley, president of the Carleton Conservatives, said the group is bringing in all the different leadership candidates to talk to students.
“We want to make sure all our different membership has the opportunity to see the different ideas in the Conservative Party,” Bradley said.
Bradley said he was very happy with the turnout, and added it was one of the largest events the club has hosted over the last 10 years.
He said he credits this to O’Leary’s reality TV past.
“It’s the social media hype on it,” Bradley said. “Everyone knows Kevin O’Leary’s name.”
Julia Parsons, vice-president (communications) of the Carleton Conservatives, said the group rented the Kailash Mital Theatre for its standard fee.
“OttawaU was an equal partner in the planning of the event and we enjoyed working with them to get out the word and organize the event,” she said.
Several more leadership candidates are scheduled to speak in the coming weeks, including Rick Peterson, Andrew Saxton, Andrew Scheer, Steven Blaney, Pierre Lemieux and Chris Alexander.
– Photo by Amy Yee
