Sixty-year-old Mike de Jong served longer in the provincial legislature (30 years) than his federal Conservative opponent Sukhman Singh Gill (24 years) has lived.

But that experience might not be enough to win him the riding of Abbotsford-South as an independent.

De Jong Thursday (March 27) formally announced his decision to run without party label after he had revealed on March 3 that federal Conservatives had rejected his application to be that party's standard-bearer even after the local electoral district candidate selection committee had endorsed his candidacy. 

That sting of rejection, whose reasons remain publicly unknown, rang through in a statement on his website announcing his candidacy.

鈥淭his isn鈥檛 the campaign I expected to run," he said. "But when Ottawa insiders shut me out of the Conservative nomination, I knew I couldn鈥檛 stay silent. I鈥檓 running to give this community back its voice.鈥�

De Jong expanded on these comments in an interview Thursday afternoon. "The reaction and the response from members of the community that I have lived in and represented for 30 years has been really overwhelming and people were upset," he said. "Some of them were very angry (about the nomination process) and their preferred means of expressing that anger was to say, 'Mike, you can't just go away. Local democracy is important and...if you stand as an independent, we will support.' Many of them were long, long-standing members and supporters of the Conservative Party." 

These comments point to one of his perceived main strengths: his deep connection and knowledge of the region. 

While the ridings have changed over the years, de Jong had represented the region in the provincial legislature since 1994 when he upset then-Social Credit Leader Grace McCarthy in a by-election. But if de Jong is a "very well-known commodity", running as an independent will be "tall order," Hamish Telford, associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, said in an interview with Black Press Media. 

"It is always a long shot to win as an independent," Telford said. "We saw this in the provincial election." 

Four former B.C. United colleagues of de Jong 鈥� Mike Bernier, Dan Davies, Karin Kirkpatrick and Tom Shypitka 鈥� ran as independents following the decision of B.C. United to suspend its campaign. All four lost to the candidates of the Conservative Party of B.C.

"They got crushed by unknown people who were running for the (provincial) Conservative Party and Abbotsford is a party town. People like their conservative parties here." 

Telford said de Jong had been working on his bid to become the federal Conservative candidate for about a year following his announcement in February 2024 to retire from provincial politics. 

"He (de Jong) has an organization in place to carry him forward, but of course, he does not have the resource of party branding and that matters, particularly when people go into the ballot box and there is no party name," Telford said. 

Telford added that de Jong would stand a better chance of winning if he ran as a (federal) Liberal.

"Just being associated with a party makes a world of difference," he said. 

De Jong played up his experience when the B.C. Liberals 鈥� the party that became B.C. United 鈥� had held power between 2001 and 2017. During that time, he held multiple ministerial portfolios, including finance, health and attorney-general. His website speaks of the Conservative candidate as "a young man with no real experience." 

But that history might have also played a part in the Conservatives' decision to ultimately reject de Jong's candidacy.

"We still don't have a clear explanation of why he was rejected," Telford said. "We can only speculate. The only thing I can think of for why somebody of his stature and experience was rejected was that his political experience was the (B.C. Liberals), which of course, was a centre-right party." 

Telford added that everyone in the region knew that the B.C. Liberals were the conservative option.

"But perhaps, the party (federal Conservatives) is worried that bringing someone over from the B.C. Liberals weakens the brand nationally, particularly perhaps with Mike de Jong's association with (former B.C. premier) Christy Clark."

Notably, federal Liberals rejected Clark as a candidate, with some experts pointing to her past association with the federal Conservatives as a potential reason. 

"Maybe everyone thinks she is toxic," Telford said.

De Jong himself said he is not in a position to explain why the party ultimately rejected his candidacy. "But someone in Ottawa decided to impose their own view," he said, adding that he won't speculate on the reasons. "I'm not sure, I will ever find out the real story." 

When asked about Telford's argument that de Jong was too closely associated with Clark, de Jong said he had heard that argument. "But of course today, Mr. Poilievre is standing on the stage with two other (former B.C. Liberals) Ellis Ross and Iain Black. So it is an interesting theory, but at the end of the day, I think it has more to do with someone in Ottawa wanting a particular result." 

Experts have found the rejection of de Jong's candidacy puzzling, especially when held up against the fact that both Black and Ross have shorter tenures and far less ministerial experience than de Jong. 

"I have no explanation for it," Telford said, when asked specifically asked about Black's candidacy.  

De Jong for his part called both good people, when asked how he thought about their candidacy. "I am a great admirer of both of them and Ellis Ross is a leader in his own right," de Jong said in pointing to Black's business experience and Ross' role in uniting various First Nations to support energy projects in northern B.C. 

"They are eminently qualified to seek federal office and I hope they succeed," de Jong said. 

Whether de Jong succeeds in his bid as an independent won't be decided until April 28 and Telford left no doubt about the hill that de Jong must climb.

In 2019, former federal Liberal Jody Wilson-Raybould was the last person to win her race as an independent.

"She stood up to (then-prime minister Justin Trudeau over the SNC-Lavelin affair) and was rewarded for that," Telford said. "The other examples I can think of off-hand are all of that variety: somebody, who was initially elected with a party, was the incumbent, but fell out with their party and were rewarded by constituents for fighting the good fight." 

But that is not the situation with de Jong, he added. 

De Jong might be not be the incumbent, but has stressed his ideological compatibility with the platform of federal Conservatives on issues such as fiscal conservatism among others, with one added benefit.

"(On) a policy basis, I still think there is a sound alignment," he said in an interview with Dan Ferguson of Black Press Media. "But I do have one additional policy that apparently some people in that party do not share and that is the basic notion that local people should be the ones selecting who their candidates are, not some party hack in a back room in Ottawa."

De Jong also used that interview to signal that he would play up the current trade dispute in describing Abbotsford-South Langley as "both economically and geographically on the front lines of an attack from a deranged"  U.S. president. 

"As someone who negotiated with the Americans the last softwood lumber agreement, this is a time for serious discourse and serious decisions," de Jong said. "But I'll tell you this, at some point in the next few weeks, we'll stick a big sign up on 0 Avenue and it'll be pointing south, not north. And it'll say, 'Dear Premier Donald, we're having an election in Canada, and you're not invited.'"

De Jong acknowledged that running as an independent is very difficult and very challenging. "You don't have the resources of a party, but I think there is a way to overcome that and at the end of the day, the magnitude and the passion present in the support that has been expressed to me, tells me that there is a chance."

In fact, de Jong said elsewhere that this run in 2025 might be more difficult than the campaign of 1994 when he upset McCarthy by 42 votes. "May be that means we will only win by 20 instead of 40 votes," he said with a chuckle.

He acknowledged that part of his optimism stems from intuition. "One has to be cautious about relying on intuition, but I get the sense that today, with all of the challenges we are facing with a crazy president in the White attacking our country, people want to reclaim their democracy and I hope that is the case. I don't want people to give up on democracy." 

鈥攚ith files from Dan Ferguson