Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch has said she shares “common interests” with Donald Trump. Kevin O’Leary says he would’ve voted for him.

In an interview with Mark Sutcliffe on 1310 News Friday, the celebrity businessman — who has all but entered the Conservative leadership race — said he’s been very open about his opinion on the president-elect.

“I would’ve voted for Trump,” he said.

He also went on at length about the CBC, which has been targeted for elimination by Leitch and fellow leadership rival, Brad Trost.

“What would you do with the public broadcaster?” Sutcliffe asked.

In O’Leary’s discursive answer, he praises CBC as a “premier news gathering organization” and says he’s not for eradicating it.

Instead, he proposes what he calls an “over-the-top” approach that would make CBC ubiquitous while costing 60 per cent less.

He also suggests Jennifer McGuire, the current general manager and editor in chief at CBC, should take over the helm.

Below is his answer in its entirety:

You know, I worked there with Amanda Lang for almost a decade, so I know where all the rot is. But on the other hand, the CBC on the fourth floor has probably the premier news gathering organization in the world. They and the BBC are faultless in terms of how they manage the curation of news. I don’t think Canadians want to lose the CBC’s ability to tell their story from a news perspective, so probably what I would do is focus on that mandate. I think Canadians would want a French and an English channel that curates news for them — global and domestic — in every market. But because technology is changed so much, we could provide for that in what’s called over-the-top. In other words, if I gave you a CBC that you would get on the internet, on radio, on television and was ubiquitous and was everywhere in both French and English, and that’s all we did with it, that would be a good mandate. And I think I could convince Canadians to pay what that costs, which would be about 60 per cent less of what their spending now. I’m not for eradicating it. I just don’t want them advertising. I want it provided for free. I don’t want them competing with the private sector, and I want their mandate to be focused on the news and curation of Canadian and global news to Canadians. I think that’s important, as the BBC is. And if they want to do other things, they can go raise money any way they wish. But the bottom line is, there’s a woman there named Jennifer McGuire that I worked for, who runs news, I would put her in charge. I mean, that’s the kind of talent they’ve got there. That’s the kind of thing you have to focus on. But it’s not the big problem. The CBC isn’t going to solve our GDP growth problem, so I don’t want to beat up on them too much. I’m just saying my vision would be to get back to their original mandate. And the talent in there in news is world class, so let’s not beat those people up. They’ve done a hell of a good job.

Sutcliffe rounded out his interview with rapid-fire questions that revealed a few other things about O’Leary.

He was almost fluent in French as a seven-year old, and believes he can get it back quickly. He thinks Brian Mulroney was the best Canadian prime minister, and that honesty is the most important characteristic in a prime minister.

You can listen to the full interview here.