Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, along with Green candidates and supporters, kicks off her campaign in Sidney, B.C., on Aug. 2, 2015.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
Green party Leader Elizabeth May says a former New Democrat MP from Quebec is joining her party.
May announced in Montreal today that Jose Nunez-Melo will run under the Green banner in the new suburban Montreal riding of Vimy.
Nunez-Melo was elected to the House of Commons in 2011 as part of the orange wave that swept Quebec.
But Montreal's La Presse reported this month that Nunez-Melo became embroiled in a dispute with the party over the nomination in the new riding, and quoted him as saying he was blocked from running by party brass.
May called him a man of great integrity and says while they were from different parties, they have the same spirit.
Nunez-Melo, who came to Canada in 1990 from the Dominican Republic, is one of only a handful of Hispanic Canadians who have sat in the House of Commons.
May says the Greens now have three members who were MPs in the last Parliament, one more than the Bloc Quebecois at dissolution, and is pushing for inclusion in all debates.