Albert Einstein once said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, but federal Green party Leader Elizabeth May doesn't think there's anything crazy about once again, running against a Conservative cabinet minister in the next election.

May announced Tuesday she's switching coasts, moving from her Nova Scotia riding to one on Vancouver Island, where she will take another run for Parliament in a campaign she says will be different enough to ensure she doesn't end up with the same results.

The last time, she challenged Defence Minister Peter MacKay in Central Nova. This time, she'll face Minister of State for Sport Gary Lunn, who has held the Saanich-Gulf Islands through five elections since 1997.

"The reality is that voters in Canada are also sick of doing the same thing over and over again, electing old-line parties who keep playing the same predictable game," she said in an interview Tuesday.

For the first time in its history in Canada, the Green party has decided that it is a priority that the leader should win a seat in Parliament, said May.

"We are not doing anything the same as last time."

May has already moved to the riding which covers part of southern Vancouver Island and many of the tiny islands dotting southern Georgia Strait west of Vancouver.

But first she'll have to win her own party's nomination after Stuart Hertzog announced he'll run for the Green nomination, taking the wind out of May's plans for an easy parachute into the riding.

May said her decision to run in B.C. came after consultation with the Federal Council of the Green party and from many, many pledges of support from people in the riding.

But she failed to consult with Hertzog and that's resulted in a sticky political mess.

"Who would have known Mr. Hertzog was interested? He doesn't live in the riding," she said.

Hertzog isn't going down without a fight and launched a complaint to Elections Canada alleging illegal transfer of funds from the party to help her win the nomination.

May denied she was getting money from the sources he named in his complaint and said Hertzog has embraced the tactics of the worst sort of politics by making unfounded allegations.

"He's playing dirty politics," she said of her opponent. "That's not what Greens do and he should be ashamed of himself."

Hertzog was unavailable for comment.

May saved the other part of her criticism for Lunn, saying he would have to explain his part in creating nuclear-medicine crisis when he was minister of natural resources during the controversial shutdown of the Chalk River nuclear reactor in Ontario.

May pointed out that the federal government fired Linda Keen as president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission while the commission was under Lunn's watch.

The government blamed Keen for unnecessarily closing the facility, which resulted in a shortage of medical isotopes.

"I think he has to answer for that record," May said.

May admitted the party has done some polling about the Greens' chances in Canadian ridings, but she wouldn't release the details.

However, Hertzog's complaint to Elections Canada claims the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding has the highest ratio of voters who would consider voting Green in the upcoming election.

May, who's been the leader of the national Greens since August 2006, agreed the riding has a record of voters who are prepared to cross party lines, pointing out that in the last election, both the Liberals and NDP recruited their candidates from the Green party.

"That kind of independence of mind, that willingness to say who's the best candidate regardless of party affiliation, is why I think that I've got a very solid chance in this riding to get elected."

In the last three federal elections, the closest a Green candidate has come to the winner is within 12,000 votes. In two of the three elections the Green candidate came in fourth place.

The Greens will hold the nomination meeting in the riding Sept. 19.