Simon De Jong

Simon Leendert De Jong (April 29, 1942 – August 18, 2011) was a Dutch-born Canadian parliamentarian. He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1979 federal election as a New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament (MP) from Saskatchewan. He would spend five terms and 18 years in the House of Commons.

Simon De Jong was born in Surabaya, Indonesia, spending the first three years of his life, with his mother Dirkje and older brother Hielke in a concentration camp. Of 3,000 women and children who were incarcerated by the Japanese during the occupation of Java, only a third survived. Simon's father, a Dutch mariner, was also a prisoner-of-war. The family were reunited after the war and returned to the Netherlands. They came to Canada in 1951, and Simon spent his formative years in Regina. Despite being an immigrant and non-English speaker and stutterer, De Jong trained himself in public speaking, at which he became a provincial champion. In 1964, he became head of the student union at the University of Regina, where he wrote a constitution that empowered students and sparked campus unrest.

After graduating, De Jong turned to painting, receiving international notice as a visual artist. However, through a series of sessions with LSD researcher, Dr. Duncan Blewett, De Jong became fascinated with the possibilities for societal change represented by the burgeoning youth counter-culture of the late 1960s. In 1969 he left Regina for Vancouver, where he went to work for The Greater Vancouver Youth Communications Center Society, better known as Cool Aid. At Cool Aid, De Jong, Ray Chouinard and other street workers organized alternative health, work, housing and cultural programs that influenced the future of the city. One of De Jong's colleagues in those days was Mike Harcourt, who would later become the Premier of the Province of British Columbia.

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