Long-time N.B. Grit turns Green

A long-time New Brunswick Liberal party organizer, who once ran for the leadership of the provincial party, has gone to work for the Green party.

Jack MacDougall, of Fredericton, has been hired as the Green partys organizer in the Maritimes for the next federal election.

Hechanged allegiancesafter being associated with the Liberals since 1984. During that time, he worked as a senior adviser in the premier's office under former premier Frank McKenna, and was executive director of the Liberal association.

MacDougall said he left the Grits on good terms, but he felt out of step in the party.

"Ifelt there was a kind of awkwardness. There really wasnt a place for me to fit in with the Liberal party. Not that anybody kicked me out, but there really wasnt a role for me," he said Tuesday.

"So, I became a free agent, you might say, and said, 'Well, Im going to go and do something that I believe in,' and this opportunity came along. I just latched onto it heart, mind and soul."

MacDougall publicly questioned the Liberals campaign strategy after the party's loss to Progressive Conservative Bernard Lord in the June 1999 provincial election. MacDougall resigned as party executive director five days into the election campaign.

In January 2000, MacDougallsaid thatthen Liberal leader Camille Theriault should step down because heblew a 45-seat majority through nepotism.

MacDougall ran against Premier Shawn Graham for the Liberal leadership in 2002.