Deborah Coyne, ex-Liberal leadership candidate, now Green Party adviser

Former Liberal leadership candidate Deborah Coyne has joined the ranks of the Green Party as a senior policy adviser to leader Elizabeth May.

"As a lawyer, university professor, constitutional activist, public servant and writer, Deborahs skills and hard work have placed her inside the great public debates of our times, May said in a press release Thursday.

"Deborahs thoughtful approach...complements the vision of the Green Party of Canada," the Green Party leader said.

Coyne was expected to run for the federal Liberals following her failed leadership bid. She placed fifth in the 2013 leadership race, with fewer than one per cent of the votes.

In the 2006 federal election, she ran unsuccessfully as a Liberal against the late NDP leader JackLaytonin theToronto-Danforthriding. She filed nomination papers in a different Toronto riding in 2008 but later withdrew from the race.

The constitutional lawyerwas said to be interested in anOttawa riding for 2015, but didnot secure anomination.

Coyne hasa family connection to Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, whose father, the late Pierre Trudeau, is also the father of Coyne's daughter, Sarah. However, Coynehas written that Trudeau's two families were "separate" and she barely knew Justin Trudeau during her 15-year relationship with his father.

Coyne is also a cousin ofpolitical columnist and CBC At Issue panellist Andrew Coyne.