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

A longtime B.C. MLA who was barred from running for the Conservative party in the April election said the Tories need to do a deep dive into their nomination processes — but he has little faith that will happen.

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.

“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.

“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.