Alain Rayes, who now represents the Richmond-Arthabaska riding as an Independent, says he received a text message around noon Wednesday asking him to call his riding office and ask for Rayes’ resignation because he “decided not to fight the Trudeau’s inflation with Pierre Poilievre’s united team.” “I had to look and I asked myself if it was really real or if it was sent by mistake,” Rayes told Radio-Canada. Rayes is still a member of the local conservative riding association and believes the text was sent to all its members. The 50-year-old MP said that since then his voicemail has been flooded with messages, to the point where he cannot contact his staff or do his job properly. While he initially thought the text might have been fake or sent by mistake, Rayes now believes it borders on harassment. “They’re telling people, ‘Call him and flood his voicemail with demands that he resign.’ It is not up to a few members to decide whether I will resign or not, that is up to me or during elections the people will decide,” he said. Members of the Conservative Party of Canada received a message urging them to call Alain Rayes’ office and ask him to resign on September 14, 2022. (Submitted by Alain Rayes) The text campaign shows why Rayes left the Conservative Party of Canada, he said, as he doesn’t see his values ​​reflected by the party. “Now they are taking money from members of the Conservative Party to ask them to call me. Is this a tactic that Poilievre supports?” Reyes said. “What it says to my colleagues is that if they don’t fall in line with their tails tucked between their legs, you’re out and you’re not a real Conservative.” Charlesbourg-Haute-Saint-Charles MP Pierre Paul-Hus, who was named Poilievre’s new lieutenant in Quebec on Tuesday, said the situation is delicate and he “doesn’t want to go to war” with someone he worked with to seven years. But he said Rayes’ departure sparked anger within the party. “It’s normal,” Paul-Hus told Radio-Canada. “It gets the party going.” “But what we want is to focus on our main mission, which is to fight Justin Trudeau, inflation and the glaring economic problems we have.” Poilievre’s office did not respond to CBC’s request for comment at the time of publication.