Taleeb Noormohamed in his office in downtown Vancouver, Dec. 10, 2003.JOHN LEHMANN/The Globe and Mail
The federal Liberals have chosen tech entrepreneur Taleeb Noormohamed as their candidate in Vancouver-Granville, the riding won four years ago by former cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, now running as an Independent.
A party advisory says Mr. Noormohamed, previously involved in helping organize the 2010 Winter Olympics, will be acclaimed next Tuesday at a nomination meeting.
His arrival comes after both the NDP and the Conservatives had picked their candidates to run in the riding, created by redistribution ahead of the 2015 election.
Zach Segal, a public-affairs adviser of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. in Vancouver, is the Tory candidate. Climate activist Yvonne Hanson will be running for the NDP.
It’s Mr. Noormohamed’s third bid at elected politics.
Last May, the 42-year-old pulled out of the Vancouver mayoral race because he said he had had a “sudden cardiac event" during the campaign.
Previously, he ran for the federal Liberals in North Vancouver in 2011, but was defeated by the Conservative candidate, Andrew Saxton.
Still, the Liberals are optimistic about being competitive in the riding despite events around Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s departure as their candidate. “He has a proven track record of working with people from diverse backgrounds to accomplish common goals,” Gabe Garfinkel, the Liberals’ B.C. director, said in a statement.
Mr. Noormohamed, who was not available for an interview Friday, has previously worked in the Privy Council Office and as a director for the Air India Review Secretariat led by former Ontario premier Bob Rae. He was also a vice-president of strategy and partnerships for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
In Vancouver-Granville, Mr. Noormohamed is heading into what appears likely to be a tough political fight.
In 2015, Ms. Wilson-Raybould won the riding for the Liberals with 44 per cent of the vote compared with about 26 per cent each for the NDP and Conservatives.
However, she resigned from cabinet earlier this year after revelations in The Globe and Mail that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and top officials put pressure on her when she was attorney-general to abandon the bribery and fraud prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. In early April, both Ms. Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, former health minister and Treasury Board president, were ousted by Mr. Trudeau from the Liberal caucus.
In May, both former cabinet ministers said they would run in this fall’s election as Independents.
Ms. Wilson-Raybould said Friday that she is not preoccupied with her rivals.
I don’t see that I am taking on any of the candidates. I am going to continue to focus on our campaign,” she said in an interview.
Her team, she said, has been knocking on doors four times a week, has signed up about 200 volunteers, and will soon be opening a campaign office as she makes the case for being an Independent MP.
“There’s been a lot of feedback from people that have embraced the idea of independence and taking approaches to issues from a less-partisan perspective,” she said.