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The former Dragon’s Den star’s revelation to the CBC that he’s mulling an outsider bid for the Tory crown hit Canada’s chattering classes like a thunderbolt.

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O’Leary is scheduled to speak at the party’s convention this weekend. The reaction in Vancouver will go a long way to determining whether he enters the party’s leadership race.

In Toronto, he sounded serious about a political future but stopped short of declaring definitively that he will run in 2017.

“You call it the night before you have to,” he said.

The Donald Trump comparisons are inevitable. O’Leary admits “there are some similarities” but is keen to differentiate himself from some of Trump’s more odious social policies.

“There are no walls in Canada and there never will be. If there were, I wouldn’t be here. I’m half-Lebanese, half-Irish. I’m a very inclusive person, extremely liberal,” he said.

But like Trump, O’Leary says outrageous things for effect — everyone in government is “stupid,” “an idiot” or “insane.” He does it because he knows the media and voters lap it up.

He praised Trump’s “masterful” manipulation of the U.S. media to get $2.1 billion in free advertising, while candidates like Jeb Bush spent $120 million in real money and got nowhere.

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But for all the showmanship, O’Leary has some interesting things to say about the state of Canadian politics — and how things might evolve before the next election.

“In 36 months, three things will have occurred: No. 1, there will be no wage inflation in this country — zero. For the 14th year, working Canadians will not have had any appreciable increase in what they make,” he predicts.