It is 9am and Kevin O’Leary has just arrived back at his 17th-floor apartment in Toronto’s fashionable Yorkville district, fresh from a radio talk-show appearance to promote Redemption Inc, his latest reality television show.
Some irate callers to the show, he reports, were up in arms at the idea of tapping into the entrepreneurial talents of the former drug dealers, bank robbers, fraudsters and other ex-convicts who compete in the eight-part series to prove their skills in running a legitimate business.
But Mr O’Leary – who presents Redemption Inc and has invested in the show – sees the venture as a combination of good business, good entertainment and good philanthropy.