Jody Wilson-Raybould’s former party has named who will take on the now-Independent MP in October’s federal election.
The Liberals on Tuesday are set to acclaim Vancouver tech entrepreneur Taleeb Noormohamed as their nominee for the Vancouver-Granville riding, where Wilson-Raybould is seeking reelection.
Noormohamed has been a federal Liberal candidate before, when he ran to represent North Vancouver in the 2011 election before losing to Conservative Andrew Saxton.
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Beforehand, he worked in the Privy Council Office under former Liberal prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.
Recently, Noormohamed ran to become the Vision Vancouver candidate in last year’s mayoral race, but was forced to drop out after he was hospitalized due to a “sudden cardiac event.”
Global News has reached out to Noormohamed for comment ahead of Tuesday’s nomination event.
The 41-year-old and the Liberals will be looking to unseat Wilson-Raybould, who is seeking another term without a party to back her.
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The former minister of justice and attorney general was kicked out of the Liberal caucus in April for accusing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his senior advisers of attempted political interference in the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
Wilson-Raybould, a former Indigenous political leader, has sat as an Independent MP since her ouster.
She resigned as veterans affairs minister in February, following a report she faced pressure during her time as attorney general to interfere in the corruption case against the Quebec engineering giant.
She would later testify to the House of Commons justice committee that she faced a sustained effort from several key officials in the Trudeau government to override a decision from the director of public prosecutions not to grant SNC-Lavalin a legal deal known as a remediation agreement.
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It’s remains unclear whether Wilson-Raybould could be reelected as an Independent; only a few MPs have successfully done so in Canadian political history.
Fifteen years ago, Chuck Cadman won reelection as an Independent in Surrey-North after losing the nomination for the Conservative Party of Canada, which had been formed by merging Cadman’s former Canadian Alliance party with the Progressive Conservatives.
The NDP has already nominated Yvonne Hanson to run for the riding, while Zach Segal will run for the Conservative Party and Louise Boutin will be the Green Party candidate.
—With files from Amanda Connolly and Kerri Breen
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