Project Montreal City Councillor Sophie Thiebaut will leap to federal politics and run for the NDP in the upcoming election in the Ville Marie-Le Sud Ouest-Ile-Des-Soeurs riding.
The NDP announced her candidacy Monday to run in the riding the NDP will try to retake after the party lost it to Liberal Marc Miller in 2015.
Thiebault decided to join Jagmeet Singh's party because of its stance on climate change that includes 100 per cent electric transit and free public transit, making zero-emission vehicles more affordable and eliminating single-use plastic.
"I felt the emergency to do a better job," she said. "In link with the remission of greenhouse gases, we must work at the federal level. This is the opportunity now to do it."
For Thiebaut, the NDP's stance on the environment was closest to her values.
"I read the different commitments and I think the NDP was closer to what I would like to do," she said. "We have some commitments and actions to reduce greenhouse gases, and I would like to show that we can do a better job and increase this goal."
Miller won the riding by over 50 per cent of the vote in 2015 defeating NDP Allison Turner.
Thiebaut has been a municipal councillor in Montreal since 2009.
with reporting from Julian Mckenzie and Angela Mackenzie
