Conservative leadership candidate Kevin O’Leary says when he takes over for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2019 “we’re not doing any stupid deals” with Bombardier.

Back from the U.S. and streaming live on Facebook from Toronto, O’Leary says if the aerospace giant asks him for money he’s going to get his “personal hands dirty.”

He says one of the reasons taxpayers “get screwed” is because career politicians have never brokered deals with Bombardier or similar companies. He says deals are complex and there are three elements: equity, mezzanine debt and longterm debt.

“I understand why we would want to support Bombardier as taxpayers, but I certainly don’t want to keep losing money as we have been over the decades.”

O’Leary says that often sovereign countries that want to buy a whole series of planes need to know the company will stay in business and they want to know it’s backed – “so Brazilians do it, pretty well every country does it. I’m not against doing it, but I don’t want to do a stupid deal so let’s be smart, lets be taxpayer investors, let’s do something smart.”

And he continued …

“What are the best private equity teams in the world? I’d go in and say guys go check out management, go look at work flow and see what’s right and wrong with company. Let’s sit down together and come up with an offer.”

He suggested the offer could look like this: “$330 million of equity, so we get shares as Canadian taxpayers, $330 million of mezzanine debt at zero per cent interest and maybe $330 million of long term debt, maybe 10 year debt at five or six per cent. Now that makes sense.”

O’Leary said the government continues to loan Bombardier money and then they fire employees. He said the whole idea is to grow the economy, but under “real market terms.”

“The government does not know what it’s doing. We’re not going to blow our brains out anymore that’s so dumb we’re going to support Bombardier.”

He added: “I promise Canadian taxpayers, when I’m in government no more student deals, no more Trudeau deals.”

O’Leary was an hour late for his own Facebook live event and so he went live from his vehicle while stuck in gridlock.

“Hey gang, crazy traffic in Toronto, trying to get to the office should be down there in about ten minutes, I’ll log on in again but wow this city is getting really big. I mean we haven’t moved in about 20 minutes. It’s crazy outside. See you soon.”