Kevin O’Leary may be running for Canada’s Conservative Party leadership, but his heart and soul live in Boston.
Indeed, O’Leary’s a Bostonian to the core — and despite wanting to be Canada’s next prime minister he has zero plans to move back to Canada any time soon.
He’s lived in downtown Boston for more than 20 years, most of his work is based there, his favourite restaurant is just five blocks from his home, his favourite business meeting spot is nearby and he loves watching his favourite Boston sports team on TV regardless of where he is in the world.
“Boston is a really special place for me” O’Leary told Boston Magazine last October. “There’s no town like Boston.”
Although he maintains a home in Toronto and a cottage in Muskoka, O’Leary won’t commit to moving to Canada full-time if he wins the leadership, won’t promise to run as a Conservative in the 2019 election if he loses the leadership contest, and won’t commit to no longer appear as a panelist on U.S. television program Shark Tank if chosen as Tory leader.
Can an ego-driven Boston resident with seemingly no true commitment to the Conservative Party — or for Canada for that matter — really be the best hope for the Tories, who are in the midst of a 14-person leadership race?
A look at his life in Boston shows why O’Leary still calls the city home.
O’Leary and his wife first moved to the city in the early 1990s. Since 1999 he has lived in a brownstone condominium on fashionable Marlborough St. in the expensive Back Bay area just two blocks from the Boston Public Garden. The condo has more than 2,300 square feet of living space.
“I have homes in Toronto, Geneva, and other places, but Boston is home. In fact, my favourite home of them all is on Marlborough Street,” he told Boston Magazine.
He also told Boston Business Journal that he loves “the uneven bricks in front of my place. I don’t have a car. I walk everywhere, and I love Boston for that, and that’s one of the great things about our city.”
His favourite restaurant is Grill 23 and Bar at 161 Berkeley St., a trendy steak house just a five-block walk from his home. He sits across from the upstairs bar so he can watch sports on TV.
His top spot for conducting deals is a special table in a back corner of the Taj Boston Hotel, where he can watch the front door to see his guest arrive.
And his favourite sports teams aren’t the Toronto Blue Jays or the Montreal Canadiens. Rather, he likes the Boston Red Sox and is a huge New England Patriots football team fan, bragging that he never misses watching a game.
Importantly, since he entered the leadership race two weeks ago, O’Leary won’t talk about his future residency plans. Through his spokesman this week, I asked only three questions: Will he continue to split his time between here and Boston if he becomes leader; will he run in the next election even if he loses the contest; and will he still appear on Shark Tank if elected leader?
Not one question was answered. Instead, here is the entire reply:
“Mr. O’Leary is committed to Conservatives and Canada. We are focusing our attention on signing up more members to help us build a strong campaign to form a majority Conservative government in 2019.
“Kevin is focused on winning the Leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada and the response to Mr. O’Leary’s candidacy is energized. Conservatives in Canada are tired of hearing the same double talk from Justin Trudeau. He ran on promises to be an open and transparent government — but we have only seen evidence to the contrary.
“As I mentioned before Mr. O’Leary is committed to the Conservative Party of Canada and is focusing on winning the leadership and subsequently the General Election in 2019.”
Telling, eh?
Leading up to the 2011 federal election, the Tories ran a series of brutal, but effective, attack ads against Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff focusing on his having lived 34 years outside Canada. With a tag line of “Just Visiting,” the ads blasted Ignatieff, saying “He’s not in it for you or for Canada. He’s just in it for himself. It’s the only reason he’s back.”
At least Ignatieff moved back to Canada full-time before entering politics. O’Leary won’t even promise to do that if he becomes Tory leader.
Is he “just visiting” even more than Ignatieff was?
Bob Hepburn’s column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.ca
Bob Hepburn’s column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.ca
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