Frank de Jong

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Frank de Jong (born 1955 in Luther Township, northeast of Arthur, Ontario) is a Canadian politician, environmentalist and elementary school teacher. He joined the Green Party of Ontario in 1987 and became the party's first official leader in 1993 – a position he continues to hold to this day.

De Jong most recently ran as a Green Party of Ontario candidate in the September 14, 2006 Parkdale—High Park provincial by-election, where he received 6.2 percent of the vote.^[1] On November 7, 2006, he was nominated as the GPO candidate in the riding of Davenport for the upcoming October 2007 general election.^[2]

De Jong has also campaigned for federal office as a member of the Green Party of Canada.

1 Biography
2 Footnotes
3 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Education and activism

De Jong earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1978, and a Bachelor of Education from University of Ottawa in 1979. After graduating, he worked as an elementary school teacher. He developed an interest in environmental concerns during the mid-1980s, and became involved in campaigns to save Ontario's old growth forests. He was also involved in the anti-nuclear, renewable energy and pro-choice movements. De Jong now resides in Toronto with his partner, fiction writer Kelley Aitken.

[edit] Politics

The Ontario Green Party did not originally have a formal leadership structure, and was run in a very decentralized manner (nominal leaders were sometimes chosen for elections, but they had no personal authority over party decisions). De Jong and others opposed this approach, and successfully campaigned for a formal leadership contest in 1993. De Jong himself entered this contest, and defeated Jim Harris, who later became leader of the Green Party of Canada. De Jong supported Harris's leadership of the federal party until Harris did not run in 2006, at which time de Jong supported David Chernushenko's leadership bid. He was challenged for the leadership of the Ontario Green Party by Judy Greenwood-Speers in 2001.

Like Harris, De Jong is an eco-capitalist. He defines his political philosophy as "socially progressive, fiscally conservative, and environmentally aware". He has long supported conservative economic policies, including a gradual shift from the taxation of incomes to the taxation of natural resources. Recently, he has also spoken against extensive government subsidies and funding for crown corporations.

At the October 2005 Green Party of Ontario AGM, De Jong narrowly avoided a "leadership review" when 67% of voting members voted against it. If more than one-third of voting members had opted for a review, a leadership race would have been held in 2006.

[edit] Election campaigns

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De Jong has campaigned for federal and provincial office several times. His best showing was in the provincial election of 2003, when he ran against sitting Premier Ernie Eves and finished third, ahead of the New Democratic Party candidate. On all other occasions, de Jong has finished well behind candidates of the major parties.

During the 1995 provincial campaign, de Jong cycled on a "leader's tour" from Ottawa to Sault Ste. Marie, Windsor and Niagara Falls before returning northward to Ottawa. Subsequently, he was involved in creating constituency contact lists throughout the province.

His electoral record is as follows: