He’s a wheeler-dealer business tycoon, a television star and he wants to wrest power from an ultra-liberal leader who’s currently leading the country. That was President-elect Donald Trump a year ago and that’s Conservative Party of Canada leadership hopeful Kevin O’Leary Wednesday as he announced his candidacy on Facebook.

“You know why? I listened to you,” O’Leary says in his video. He claims 40,000 Canadians asked him to enter the race via website postings.

“What an opportunity we have in this country. Limitless bounty,” he said. “Such opportunity to turn it around. I’m so excited. It’s time.

O’Leary — dubbed “Canada’s Donald Trump” by both supporters and detractors of the president-elect — started a high-tech company that ultimately sold for $4 billion, is the star of ABC’s “Shark Tank” and lives in Boston.

Today’s announcement comes one week after O’Leary heard some good news from his campaign exploratory committee: he has “a clear path to victory.”

O’Leary talks a populist line somewhere between Trump and failed Democratic Party presidential nominee candidate Bernie Sanders. His politics are largely assumed to be conservative because of his business background but he has outlined few policy proposals. That bothers Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall who says O’Leary has to clarify his position on climate change and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national carbon tax.

Ontario Member of Parliament Erin O’Toole is also running for the Tory leadership. The former veterans affairs minister in the Conservative government of Stephen Harper told The Daily Caller that he doubts O’Leary’s conservative credentials.

“Apart from some fiscal issues, many of Mr. O’Leary’s views would be more at home in the Liberal party. His past comments on foreign affairs and the military show a profound lack of understanding of the issues and lack of respect for the people who serve,” he said, adding, “To enter the leadership race mere hours after dodging the Quebec City debate is not a demonstration of leadership.”

O’Leary did not participate in Tuesday night’s debate in Quebec City because he speaks only English — and has been criticized for his unilingual profile. Canadian federal leaders are implicitly expected to be bilingual though the language issue remains a hot button issue for many conservatives. Trudeau infuriated Canadians at a town hall event in Sherbrooke, Quebec Tuesday night when he refused to answer a question in English, because “we are in Quebec.” Many caught in the social media storm wondered if Trudeau would dare not answer a question in French in English Canada.

The Conservative Party leadership race has not attracted a single one of the presumed front-runners who many believed were poised to replace the retiring Stephen Harper, who was prime minister for almost 10 years. Most prominent and popular cabinet ministers have all left government for the private sector or retreated to provincial politics.

One former senior cabinet member who is in the race, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, has been highly critical of O’Leary. Raitt, who is often attacked as a “Red Tory” (the equivalent of a RINO in U.S. political parlance), has already accused O’Leary of “negative, irresponsible Donald Trump-style tactics.”

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