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Canadians saw that chutzpah in July when she said prescription drugs should be accessible to all by 2020.

“I aspire to be someone who makes a huge difference in Canada the way (Saskatchewan premier) Tommy Douglas did,” said May, who argued Pharmacare is a necessary but unfinished component of Douglas’s universal health-care program.

She was elected Greens’ leader in 2006, but failed to win a parliamentary seat until 2011, when she defeated veteran Conservative MP and cabinet minister Gary Lunn in Saanich-Gulf Islands.

She was the first Green to become an MP. Former NDP MP Bruce Hyer jumped to the party in 2013.

Because the Greens lack official party status, May only gets one official question a week during question period. But because she uses her Parliamentary desk as her office and is always in the chamber, the Speaker frequently gives her more floor time.

In public opinion polls, the party hovers around five per cent support. But May has not let this stand in her way as she seeks out new ways to exert influence.

“She’s brilliant in that. She did prep work even before she got elected,” said Adriane Carr, a former deputy Green Party leader, now a Vancouver councillor. “She had people researching every single way she could legally have effect as a single member of parliament.”

Her interns attend committees and take notes, information she uses in the House. This was the case with Bill C-38, which the Harper government used to gut the Environmental Assessment Act. By the time it was passed, May had made more than 400 amendments.