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HALIFAX — Conservative leadership frontrunner Maxime Bernier says other candidates, including Kevin O’Leary, are “afraid” of free market policies that some regions or special interests won’t like.

Despite the perceived opposition, he’ll still put them in his cabinet if he becomes prime minister, he told the National Post on Sunday.

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While opponents were attacking O’Leary for spending too much time in the U.S. or not being Conservative enough, they were hitting Bernier on his ideas about reforming federal equalization payments to provinces.

“They are afraid,” he said. “I think they think that they won’t be able to have support in Quebec and in Atlantic Canada.… My policy, it’s on principle.”

Bernier said he wouldn’t end equalization payments, which help poorer provinces compensate for their economic woes, relative to wealthier provinces.

I want to reform the equalization formula… What I’m saying is the formula is not fair.

“I want to reform the equalization formula,” he explained. “What I’m saying is the formula is not fair.”