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Say this for Kevin O’Leary — he’s entertaining. In that respect, he’d add a lot of sizzle to the coming Conservative leadership race.

O’Leary offered a preview of his putative candidacy at the weekend’s annual Manning Conference in Ottawa, where five potential leadership aspirants were invited to show their stuff in solo stand-up presentations prior to quick Q&As with Preston Manning.

The investor and reality show host delivered a good-natured rant about deficits and debt in Ontario and Ottawa. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has “has a monopoly on mediocrity in fiscal policy.” Ontario’s budget on Thursday was “a load of crap.” Alluding to Ontario’s debt having doubled under the Liberals to over $300 billion, or nearly 40 per cent of provincial GDP, he said Queen’s Park has turned its budget into “a slush fund.”

Looking ahead to the federal budget, and the expectation of a $30 billion federal deficit, O’Leary said he met Finance Minister Bill Morneau at a reception recently and offered a warning.

“I’m going to be your worst nightmare,” O’Leary claimed he told Morneau. “I’m going to tear your budget to pieces.

“I’m sick of seeing my money wasted. I’m really pissed off.”

“Tell us what you really think,” shouted a voice in the audience, to laughter and applause.

Getting serious, O’Leary said his economic program would be “jobs, jobs, jobs” — a direct lift from Brian Mulroney’s line in the 1984 election campaign.

O’Leary followed Ontario MP Michael Chong on stage. Chong is known as one of the most diligent MPs on Parliament Hill and has the unusual distinction of seeing his private member’s bill, the Reform Act, actually passed by Parliament. He’s seen as one of the more progressive voices in the Tory caucus.

Most people know little about Chong; on the Manning stage, he told the compelling story of his parents coming to Canada after the Second World War. His father was Hong Kong Chinese and his mother was Dutch — both were liberated by Canadian troops, which was how they found their way to Canada, where they met and married. As Chong put it, he’s a child of freedom. It was a personal, and personable, side of Chong that could move him into the first tier of candidates in what’s expected to be a very crowded race. He made a very good impression on the several hundred attendees at Manning.

Three other prospective candidates — Maxime Bernier, Tony Clement and Lisa Raitt — closed the conference on Saturday afternoon. Bernier railed against government subsidies to business, including Bombardier’s request for federal investment in its C-Series jet, built in his own home province of Quebec.

“Last November,” he said, “when Bombardier came knocking on the door of the federal government to ask for another billion dollars in help, I instead proposed to abolish all government subsidies to business.”

Tony Clement was frankly critical of the Conservatives’ failed 2015 campaign. The party’s rank and file, he said, has “more common sense than the central campaign exhibited.” Did he mention the snitch line? He didn’t have to. Tony Clement was frankly critical of the Conservatives’ failed 2015 campaign. The party’s rank and file, he said, has “more common sense than the central campaign exhibited.” Did he mention the snitch line? He didn’t have to.

He also had his elbows up on O’Leary for saying he “didn’t need to learn French to become prime minister.” You can go to Quebec City or Rome and be served in English in a restaurant, he said. “It doesn’t mean you can govern Italy without speaking Italian.” It was the best applause line in his speech.

There’s no doubt where Max is coming from — he’s from the conservative wing of the Conservative party. “The Liberals,” he said in the follow-up conversation with Manning, “elevate the government and downgrade the freedom.”

Tony Clement, the former Treasury Board president, also spoke against government subsidies, notably “$1 billion to the CBC.” That’s red meat for a conservative audience, and it was his strongest applause line.

But he also was frankly critical of the Conservatives’ failed 2015 campaign. The party’s rank and file, he said, has “more common sense than the central campaign exhibited.” Did he mention the snitch line? He didn’t have to. And on digital media, he added, “our message and campaign were MIA.”

Lisa Raitt chose to open with her personal narrative — a Cape Breton girl from the hardscrabble mining town of Whitney Pier. “At 11 years old,” she said, “I began my 17-year tenure at Dairy Queen.” She became a lawyer, and eventually the head of the Toronto Port Authority, and has been in the House since 2008 representing the Greater Toronto Area riding of Milton. She’s now a GTA hockey mom with her two boys. “There is,” she said, “not a sport that my family doesn’t participate in or drive to.” Cape Breton clearly remains her reference point, but she will be the only leadership candidate from the GTA, with its 54 seats in the House.

The mood of the Manning Conference was quite subdued compared to previous years, when the Conservatives were in power. In opposition, the conservative movement is in a period of reflection. And in that sense, the Manning Conference provides an important public service, as the Broadbent Institute does for the NDP and Canada 2020 does for the Liberals.

“A party’s job is to win an election,” said Manning Foundation Chair Chuck Strahl, a former minister in the Harper government. “They don’t do this kind of reflection.”

In more than two dozen plenaries and breakout sessions at the Shaw Centre, the conference heard a lot of ideas on issues ranging from electoral reform, to green conservatism, to the aging population.

On democratic reform, pollster Heather Scott-Reid presented data from Mission Research indicating that while this is not a high priority for Canadians, they want to have their say on it. An Internet poll of 1,500 participants in early February revealed that 77 per cent of Canadians want a referendum on whatever parliamentary reform plan is proposed by the Liberal government and presumably adopted by its majority in the House.

The Mission poll also confirmed that the Liberals are, most decidedly, still on their honeymoon. Fully 50 per cent of respondents thought the Liberals were the best party to manage the economy, while only 26 per cent chose the Conservatives and just 11 per cent chose the NDP. On the mood of Canada, 54 per cent thought the country was on the right track, while only 35 per cent thought it was on the wrong track.

The Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, former chief speechwriter to President George W. Bush, easily made the best and most stimulating presentation of the conference.

Speaking of Donald Trump hijacking the Republican party, Gerson called it “the attempted hostile takeover of a great political party by a pernicious force.”

Gerson scathingly dismantled the Trump platform — deporting 11 million undocumented Hispanic workers, building a wall on the Mexican border (and making Mexico pay for it), banning Muslim immigrants, refusing Syrian refugees. “On foreign policy,” Gerson said, “Trumpism is Putinism by another name.”

And yet, as Gerson freely acknowledged, Trump’s message is resonating through the Republican primary season. In South Carolina, for instance, Muslim immigration wasn’t an issue with anyone. By the time of the GOP primary, Gerson said, 80 per cent of voters agreed with Trump’s rant on banning Muslim immigrants. Gerson called Trumpism “the perversion of conservatism.”

So what happens if Trump clinches the Republican nomination, perhaps as early as Super Tuesday? Gerson cited the concession speech given by Republican Dick Tuck after losing a California Senate race in 1966. “The people have spoken,” Tuck said. “The bastards.” Gerson rocked the house.

L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy, the bi-monthly magazine of Canadian politics and public policy. He is the author of five books. He served as chief speechwriter to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from 1985-88, and later as head of the public affairs division of the Canadian Embassy in Washington from 1992-94.

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