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Marble Pedestal: The Beaverton’s gofundme campaign to oust Kevin O’Leary

It’s pretty cool to see someone actually do something they said rather than just talk and leave it at that, like what The Beaverton, Canada’s version of The Onion, tried to do last week when the satirical publication tried to raise $1 million to get entrepreneur and right wing blow-hard Kevin O’Leary to “go away forever.”

The campaign started when Kevin O’Leary, the ex-Dragon’s Den panelist who is no fan of Premier Rachel Notley and her NDP government, betrayed his complete lack of understanding of how democracy works by promising to invest $1 million in Alberta’s economy if Notley resigned. I think’s it’s reasonable to say that O’Leary better take a civics course on how elections work.

In response to such lunacy, The Beaverton posted a humorous article about how Canadians would give O’Leary $1 million if he will go away forever. While they could’ve stopped there, The Beaverton tried to go above and beyond and started a gofundme campaign to actually raise that money in order to rid the country of what they saw as a negative influence on our public discourse (should O’Leary refuse The Beaverton‘s offer, the money was to be donated to charity). Alas the attempt was short-lived as the campaign was shut down less than 24 hours after it started as it was misinterpreted as a fundraising drive for Notley’s government, only managing to raise $620.00 in its short life.

Sadly we were denied the opportunity to see the campaign reach a conclusion many of us would’ve loved to see, regardless if it was unlikely that O’Leary would’ve actually accepted the offer, but the fact that The Beaverton actually tried to do it wins them a few points. Hopefully this failed but noble attempt doesn’t discourage any similar acts in the future, especially if O’Leary is serious about becoming a contender for the Conservative Party leadership.

Nathan Fung

Nathan Fung is a sixth-year political science student and The Gateway's news editor for the 2018-19 year. He can usually be found in the Gateway office, turning coffee into copy.

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