Simon De Jong

Simon Leendert De Jong (born April 29, 1942) is a former Canadian parliamentarian. He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1979 federal election as an New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament (MP) from Saskatchewan. In 1989, he was a dark-horse candidate to succeed Ed Broadbent as the party's leader. He finished fourth in the leadership convention, surprising many. De Jong had agreed to be suited with a microphone in order to assist with a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) documentary on the convention, but forgot he was wearing it and inadvertently allowed back-room negotiations with fellow candidate Dave Barrett to be recorded. The CBC documentary used the tape as the dramatic centre-point of its convention coverage, giving it a sinister spin, as a "secret deal" cut amid "shady" back-room politics. De Jong always denied any deal was reached and Barrett remained silent about it. The documentarians re-enforced their characterization by mis-translating a second conversation thus gathered, a discussion in Dutch between De Jong and his mother, one of his advisors. The surrounding controversy hurt De Jong but was short-lived. De Jong remained an MP until 1997 when he decided not to run for re-election in that year's federal election. In 1968 Simon travelled from his Canadian hometown of Regina to Vancouver. Shortly after his arrival in Vancouver he began an association with The Greater Vancouver Youth Communications Center Society which better known as Cool Aid. It was at Cool Aid that Simon became involved with Mike Harcourt who would later become the Premier of the Province of British Columbia.