Source: Inside the CBC

This post is the result of a recent conversation I had with Kevin O'Leary about why he decided to leave BNN and what his plans are on the new business show with Amanda Lang. As he says below, after Lang decided to leave BNN to go to the CBC, O'Leary had no intention of joining.

But all of that changed after a breakfast meeting he had with Richard Stursberg. This is how O'Leary described the meeting and what convinced him to join the CBC.

When Amanda made her move to the CBC, she called me the night before and said ‘I'm going to move,' and I said ‘Good luck to you.' We'd worked together for six years and had a fantastic relationship because, you know, she views the world from, well, you've got to remember she's Otto Lang's daughter – a famous liberal.

I think the balance is to bring somebody that can bring her back to the side of light, which is the right. She needs me badly to help her with that. Because left alone she'd be dangerous to Canadians watching. So I felt the responsibility of the nation on me, to keep her in check, shall we say. So that was one compelling reason.

But I was concerned we wouldn't be allowed – in the context of the CBC's overall, what I call, left-wing agenda – to be what I am, which is a right-wing voice of reason. Richard [Stursberg] made it clear to me that that was not the case, I signed on that morning.

I went to that breakfast with no intention of going to the CBC.

I could see he was about to make material change. There's no question. Because prior to that I had no intention of moving over. To me the CBC was not an unbiased view, it tended to have a way too left-wing taint to it in my view. I always looked to the CBC to give me the left side of the story not the centrist. And after meeting with Richard it was clear to me that he was going to change all that.

He wanted both views, he didn't care if there was a conflict in it, he just wanted them both. And I was going to the part of what I call the right wing voice of reason. Now I'm very happy to take that position, I personally think of myself as slightly right of Attila the Hun, and I think we need a lot more Kevin O'Leary's at the CBC to balance off what traditionally has been a way too complacent view of the world.

Even though CBC is steeped in history and has been extremely successful in the areas of news making and documentary reporting, it still has a responsibility in my view to report both sides of the story, from the left, from the right, so that the individual that watches the content can make up their own mind…

I think we have too much government, we're over-taxed, we have to change that. We have to look at the role of the individual in this country. We don't need public medecine. We need a private opportunity as well. We need less of everything the government brings to the table. And we don't tell that story on the CBC and I'm going to start telling it now.

© Inside the CBC