The federal Conservative Party’s incomprehensible decision to reject 30-year MLA Mike de Jong as a candidate looks like it is going to haunt them.
He sulked for a few weeks after he was cavalierly dismissed. But he’s a beer league hockey player from way back. He’s probably been cut from lots of teams before this.
So after the Conservatives punched him in the mouth, he put his helmet back on and signed up as an Independent. The buzz in the Fraser Valley is that he is doing well.
(Disclosure: I covered de Jong’s entire career in B.C. politics. In between policy criticism and occasional differences, we developed a friendly professional relationship.)
I do not care how he fares in the election. But the Conservative Party’s opaque, last-minute decision to dump him because he was “unqualified” ranks as one of the major blunders of this election campaign. It raises questions that go beyond de Jong’s career.
When a Conservative nomination opened in Abbotsford-South Langley last March, de Jong decided to finish his provincial BC Liberals-BC United career and run for it. He was a natural fit.
De Jong told the National Post this week that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had asked him for an endorsement during his successful 2022 leadership run, which he gave.
That led to an invitation to de Jong to consider running for them. After the incumbent decided to retire and the nomination opened up, he got all the required blessings, spent a year recruiting 2,000 new members to the party and prepared for a nomination contest.
Then five days before the vote last month, the party headquarters told him his application had been denied. A 25-year-old newcomer won the nod.
It’s not the gratuitous personal slight that rankles. It’s the dismissal of his entire career in B.C. politics that grates. That’s an insult to the entire province that makes you wonder about the mindset of Poilievre’s outfit.
They say dogs age an average of seven years for every human year. The Conservatives apparently use a similar measure in reverse. A year in the B.C. legislature counts as scarcely a week by their standard.
Unqualified?
De Jong was a star MLA, by virtue of beating the legendary Grace McCarthy, when Poilievre was 16 years old.
De Jong was a powerful cabinet minister (forests) when Poilievre was a 22-year-old gofer to former Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day.
He held six cabinet posts under two premiers from 2001 to 2017 and was an effective critic for the last seven years in opposition.
He won seven consecutive elections, most of them by outright majorities.
Dismissing those credentials makes you wonder if the Conservative brain trust has the slightest clue about B.C.
Even the former Conservative MP Ed Fast objects to this nonsense. He condemned the manipulation and endorsed de Jong as an Independent.
The “unqualified” reason is obviously spurious. The nominated candidate is so young, he scarcely has any qualifications at all. This is only the second or third election he’s been eligible to vote in.
Maybe it’s the “B.C. Liberal” uniform de Jong wore for most of his 30 years as an MLA. But if federal Conservatives can’t figure out the West Coast language differences (Liberal used to mean Conservative in B.C.) then there is no hope for them.
Plus, the Conservative candidate listed himself as a poll watcher for Trudeau’s Liberals since 2016.
The darkest mark on de Jong’s record, as far as the Conservatives are concerned, is that he was part of a government that introduced the carbon tax to North America.
But it couldn’t have taken them a full year to discover that.
Apart from the actual decision, the arrogant refusal to explain the move says a lot about the Conservatives’ attitude toward B.C.
They considered the seat so safe they could dismiss the obvious choice and grease the skids for someone else, for reasons that only make sense if you’re sitting in Ottawa.
The reason they aren’t defending it is simple: It’s indefensible.
Just So You Know: The tale of internal intrigue recalls a remark de Jong made in his farewell speech to the legislature last May: “I think of all the bruising and the cuts and the attacks – and then you leave caucus to come into the chamber.”
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