Veteran B.C. MLA barred from federal Conservative run says Tories must fix nominations

Global News

9 hours ago

A longtime B.C. MLA who was barred from running for the Conservative party in the April federal election said the Tories need to do a deep dive into their nomination processes — but he has little faith that will happen.
Michael de Jong said too much power has been centralized with the party's leadership in Ottawa and he's not alone in feeling frustrated with the way nominations were run.
But he said the party's leadership has shown little willingness to acknowledge fault.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told a podcast this week that the party's support in the April 28 election 'didn't actually come down that much' compared to January, when it was projected to sweep to a huge majority.
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'The capacity to drink the bathwater is limitless. 'We almost won, we should have won, we will win, it was circumstances beyond our control,'' de Jong said.
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'There's an element of denial there, of denial that perhaps some of this result was the product of your own behaviour and your own decisions.'
De Jong, who was B.C.'s Liberal finance minister from 2012 to 2017, announced his intention to run for the Conservatives in the riding of Abbotsford—South Langley in April 2024.
He said he agreed with Poilievre's focus on fiscal restraint and a team of volunteers worked toward the goal of launching his candidacy for more than a year.
De Jong said the local riding association unanimously recommended him as the party's candidate. He said he was shocked when he got a one-line email from a party official saying he wasn't qualified to enter the nomination contest.
De Jong said he wasn't given a reason for the rejection and his appeal was denied.
The Conservative party held a nomination meeting in the riding on March 8.
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Sukhman Gill, a 25-year-old political newcomer, won the nomination and was elected MP.
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'Someone decided that the … only living finance minister with five balanced budgets under his belt was not qualified to run for the Conservative party. I don't know who that is,' de Jong said, adding he's been told the decision was made by the national campaign manager Jenni Byrne.
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The Globe and Mail reported during the campaign that Byrne was behind the candidate selection decisions in about 90 ridings, frustrating prospective candidates who spent time and money preparing to run.
The Conservatives did not respond to questions about Byrne's involvement.
The Conservatives had completed nominations in 275 of the 343 federal ridings by mid-March. The election was called on March 23.
Since April 28, a number of would-be candidates have spoken publicly about their concerns. De Jong said he's heard directly from others who had a similar experience.
'That's an odd approach for a party that fancies itself as the grassroots party,' he said.
He said 'this desire for completely centralized control of the candidate selection process' is part of a broader trend in Canadian politics involving parties of all stripes.
Leaders need some control over candidate selection to ensure the party isn't represented by people who turn out to have 'odious views,' said Alex Marland, the Jarislowsky chair in trust and political leadership at Acadia University.
'It's the leader who is concerned about the representation of the party and its reputation,' he said.
Marland said there is a question of trust in the matter of would-be Conservative candidates who acted in good faith.
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'So they were going around knocking on doors for weeks and months, thinking that they were going to be entering into a fair contest. Maybe sometimes they're taking time off work. Certainly it's a big effort to do all of this. And then only to have, at the last moment, something change,' he said.
Marland said nomination processes are rife with problems and political parties are effectively gatekeepers with a great deal of power to decide who gets elected.
'Political parties are private clubs, and these are things that are not handled by Elections Canada at all. So there's just no regulation,' he said.
He's calling for creating better opportunities for Independent candidates to run and have an actual voice in legislatures.
De Jong ran as an Independent in Abbotsford—South Langley. Even with his name recognition after a long provincial career and the endorsement of former MP Ed Fast, he lost to Gill.
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Conservative party spokesperson Sarah Fischer said in an email that the national council reviews the party's governance documents to ensure they 'meet the needs of the moment' after each election.
'Consequently, the Conservative Party of Canada's national council struck an ad hoc subcommittee to review our candidate nomination rules to make sure that these rules are relevant and timely to the work ahead,' she wrote.
The national council has scheduled a party convention for the end of January in Calgary, where Poilievre will face a leadership review and will be expected to hold an accountability session with delegates.
Poilievre told The Hub this week that the Conservatives just need to find a way to hold the new coalition of voters that helped them win 143 seats on April 28.
'Now our challenge is, how do we crystallize that? How do we keep these people inspired? How do actually deliver for them the best we can in opposition? And then add the two or three percentage points more of people who didn't come out for us this time,' he said.
De Jong said he has not heard from Poilievre or his inner circle since the election, and will not be at the January convention to raise the nomination issue himself.
'I think people should be very concerned, but I don't know that a guy like me is the best spokesperson because at the end of the day it's too easy for others to say, 'Well, you just didn't get what you wanted,'' de Jong said.
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Besides, he said, his Conservative party membership lapsed in the spring. He won't be renewing it.