A long-time B.C. politician running federally as an independent said federal parties have been dropping the ball when it comes to the selection of candidates in pointing to various organizational and democratic deficits.

"I think of all the major parties should be embarrassed," Mike de Jong, independent candidate, Abbotsford-South Langley. "We are a week into the campaign and these parties still don't have candidates selected," he said. 

De Jong, who served 30 years in the provincial legislature, made these comments Thursday afternoon after officially announcing his federal candidacy. De Jong is running 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. 

Parties have until April 7, 2 p.m. to nominate candidates and de Jong rejected suggestions that last week's election call has caught parties off guard. Liberals cannot claim that the election has surprised them because they control the timing of an election by virtue of having being in government for almost 10 years. Federal Conservatives are not much better. 

"The Conservative Party has been calling for an election for the better part of a year and a half," de Jong added.

At the same time, de Jong criticized the growing centralization of the candidate selection process. "These parties and the folks that run them centrally want control and they are slowly but surely wrestling control away from the people whose communities are supposed to be represented by MPs and MLAs," he said. "It's wrong and it's a trend that needs to stop and I don't know to what extent I will be successful highlighting that issue." 

De Jong's argument appears to have received supporting evidence from the federal riding of Similkameen-South Okanagan-West Kootenay, where the federal Conservatives announced current Penticton Coun. Helena Konanz as the candidate for the riding despite the fact that she was not among the four candidates officially vying for the nomination. 

Speaking to Black Press, Konanz did not specifically address the question of how she ended up being the nominee. 

"I was honoured to have been asked to run as the Conservative Party candidate after this snap election was called on Sunday [March 23]," she told the Penticton Western News. "I will be working hard to earn the votes of the good people of Similkameen-South Okanagan-West Kootenay so that I can join Pierre Poilievre in Ottawa to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime, and put Canada first, for a change."

De Jong said earlier that he is running because he does not want people to give up on democracy. He acknowledged that running as an independent won't be easy, but the absence of a party label also offers institutional freedoms not available otherwise. 

One of those freedoms is the freedom to freely criticize the current U.S. President Donald Trump. But de Jong said his campaign will go beyond addressing Trump. He said it is ultimately about addressing the weakness that has "descended upon our country and that bullies like Donald Trump prey upon." 

He specifically pointed to Canada's fiscal position as a self-inflected wound.

"We are fiscally so much weaker today than we were 10 years ago with the level of debt and structural deficits that are not going to be easy to eliminate," he said. "Our economy is stagnant, we have chased investment from this country, opportunities to develop resources have been ignored and there has been a hostility toward that and it has impacted Canadian families." 

De Jong added that he has been hearing from families who are thinking about leaving Canada some 20, 30 or 40 years after coming to the country.

"That is not something that I find acceptable," he said. "My parents came here (from the Netherlands after the Second World War) because of the opportunities that existed in this country. It is treated us very well and I'm intensely proud of being Canadian and the fact that, unbelievably, we are now confronted by a U.S. president that doesn't think we should exist as a country. (We) need to do whatever we can to strengthen ourselves economically and even militarily, to ensure that we can defend our sovereignty. I don't think the world has felt as unsafe as does today in a long time." 

While de Jong did not want equate the experiences of his parents during and after the Second World with current developments, he also sees parallels. 

"The potential for arriving at something comparable is very real and which is why I am candidly so critical (of Trump)," he said. "It's disrespectful, it is unfathomable what Donald Trump is doing and saying about Canada, but the impact, he is having in the world and making the world a less safe place for countries is every bit as troubling."

Canada has squandered a lot of its economic power, he said. "I hope we can, I think we can rebuild it."