Stefan Marquis — who was running for the Conservatives in the Montreal riding of Laurier—Sainte-Marie, held by Liberal cabinet minister Steven Guilbeault since 2019 — wrote in a post on social media that he is no longer a candidate for the party.

“In a call received this morning from one of Quebec’s operations managers for the party, I was told without further note that ‘certain’ individuals within the party had consulted my recent posts on Twitter-X and deemed these sufficient reason to end our political collaboration,” Marquis wrote on X, along with a cartoon image of a hand pressing a button on a person’s head to get them to speak. “The call lasted less than a minute.”

Recent social media posts by Marquis promote popular right-wing conspiracy theories, including that Bill Gates is trying to manipulate public health for profit through vaccines, and that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “provoked” by the expansion of NATO.