CTV Inexplicably Invited a Squinty Potato on Air to Talk About Economic Policy

It's been a quiet, relatively blissful 14 months since Kevin O'Leary left the CBC's Lang and O'Leary Exchange and Dragon's Den in search of fame and even more fortune in the United States, where he's doing the exact same thing on ABC's DD rip-off Shark Tank that he did on the original. Actually, he's done the same thing on both those shows that he does every time he's in public: bloviate about economics as if he's an expert because of his business success (there's good evidence that success itself is a bit of a lie), and enthusiastically espouse the values of the most vile iterations of capitalism.

But, as we all know, Kevin O'Leary rarely has any idea what he's talking about, frequently with hilarious results. Time and again he has embarrassed himself by not reading material he's discussing, claiming that half the world living in poverty is "fantastic," and generally being a buffoon. With that in mind, we have to ask: why would CTV News allow this man to sit in front of a camera and discuss economic policy?*

It boggles the mind, to be sure, and yet that's what they did. Yesterday, O'Leary was on CTV News Channeldiscussing the "grave concerns" he has about the impending reign of Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party. He's there to speak for the Canadian business community, despite the fact that he doesn't work or live in Canada. (Summer cottage weekends don't count as living here.)

In a scant four minutes, K-money makes a number of egregiously wrong claims about Trudeau's fiscal policy, starting with the idea that the Liberals plan to raise taxes on people earning $90,000 per year (it's $200,000). O'Leary then says people begin looking for other countries to live and work "when you get to a point where you're taking more than half a person's income," which might be true, but that's really neither here nor there since the Liberals plan to raise taxes by just four percent, to a total of 33 percent, on the highest-earning Canadians. I'm no math whiz, but to me, 33 percent is not the same as 50 percent. (When you add in provincial taxes on the highest earners, taxation does jump above 50 percent in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Manitoba; but from the context of the interview it seems clear O'Leary is discussing federal policy.)

The cherry on top of this whole interview, though, has to be that CTV anchor Sandie Rinaldo allows O'Leary to make so many plainly incorrect statements on her show without correcting him. Unlike in some interviews, the ever-humble self-nicknamed Mr. Wonderful didn't talk over her until the end of the segment. She had plenty of time to correct his wildly inaccurate assertions, but she chose instead to ask him about energy policy and nod, brow slightly furrowed, as if she was listening to a serious thinker with some intellectual heft.

Anyway, Kevin O'Leary is still around, still unaware of basic facts, and still very much in love with capitalism.

*It turns out they had him on air because last year they hired him as a pundit, at which point you can say pretty much whatever you want.

Happy Early Valentine's day to the first love of my life…MOOOONEY!! #TilDeathDoUsPart #SoulMates #Valentines pic.twitter.com/znGD2EKjUd
— Kevin O'Leary (@kevinolearytv) February 13, 2015

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