{"id":79537,"date":"2017-06-26T08:31:57","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T08:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/?p=79537"},"modified":"2017-06-26T08:31:57","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T08:31:57","slug":"how-a-rookie-mp-from-victoriaville-became-scheers-new-quebec-lieutenant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/how-a-rookie-mp-from-victoriaville-became-scheers-new-quebec-lieutenant.html","title":{"rendered":"How a rookie MP from Victoriaville became Scheer&#8217;s new Quebec lieutenant"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer\u00a0has chosen\u00a0Alain Rayes, the MP for Richmond-Arthabaska and the\u00a0rookie who helped him woo Quebec voters during his party&#8217;s\u00a0leadership race, as the new political lieutenant for the province.<\/p>\n<p>The recently minted leader celebrated Quebec&#8217;s\u00a0F\u00eate nationale\u00a0with Rayes in Victoriaville, a town 160 kilometres northeast\u00a0of Montreal, Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>After he was recruited by the Tories so that the party could regain lost seats in Quebec, Rayes was elected to the House of Commons in the 2015 election.<\/p>\n<p>Before that, the Victoriaville native served as mayor of his hometown from 2009 until his jump into federal politics. Rayes, 45, was also a candidate during\u00a0Quebec&#8217;s 2003 provincial election under the now dissolved Action d\u00e9mocratique du Qu\u00e9bec party.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p>Fantastic afternoon with our <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">@CPC_HQ<\/a> team in Qu\u00e9bec for F\u00eate nationale. Thanks <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">@AlainRayes<\/a> for hosting in Victoriaville! <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">pic.twitter.com\/Z0M7mUKnGg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014<br \/>\n <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">@AndrewScheer<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With deep ties to his hometown, the new\u00a0lieutenant also holds a Master&#8217;s degree in school administration and worked at as the principal of the Polyvalente Le\u00a0Bois\u00e9\u00a0school in\u00a0Victoriaville.<\/p>\n<p>Rayes\u00a0supported Scheer\u00a0throughout the leadership race, helping gain traction for his campaign in Quebec and winning significant votes away from Scheer&#8217;s primary competition, Maxime Bernier.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"><strong>Conservative MP endorsements made a difference in leadership vote<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In Rayes&#8217; home riding, Scheer took home 89 per cent of the votes.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.4177223.1498402982!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_620\/scheer-rayes.jpg\" alt=\"scheer rayes\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">Alain Rayes (left) supported Andrew Scheer&#8217;s (centre) bid for the Conservative leadership throughout the campaign. (Radio-Canada)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<h2>The role of\u00a0lieutenant<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Scheer\u00a0promised to name a Quebec\u00a0lieutenant early during his leadership campaign, following in the footsteps of his predecessor former prime minister Stephen Harper who had not one, but two Quebec lieutenants in the form of\u00a0Christian Paradis and Denis Lebel.<\/p>\n<p>Lebel recently announced he was <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">leaving federal politics<\/a>,\u00a0saying it was not an easy decision to make.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"><strong>Denis Lebel&#8217;s departure to put Andrew Scheer&#8217;s Conservative leadership to tough electoral test<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Andrew Scheer&#8217;s unlikely path to victory: Social conservatives and Quebec<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In a statement, Scheer credited Lebel for boosting the party&#8217;s popularity in Quebec.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Thanks to Denis&#8217; work before and during the last election, our party achieved historic results by electing 12 Conservative MPs in Quebec. We have a strong team in Quebec that plays a key role within our national caucus,&#8221; said\u00a0Scheer.<\/p>\n<p>Now, it remains to be seen how Rayes will adapt to his new role and the challenges that come with it, including advancing their goal of winning over Quebecers in time for the next federal election.<\/p>\n<p>Scheer is expected to announced the makeup of his shadow cabinet in the coming weeks.<\/p><\/p>\n<p>Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/montreal\/alain-rayes-andrew-scheer-quebec-1.4177190?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer\u00a0has chosen\u00a0Alain Rayes, the MP for Richmond-Arthabaska and the\u00a0rookie who helped him woo Quebec voters during his party&#8217;s\u00a0leadership race, as the new political lieutenant for the province. The recently minted leader celebrated Quebec&#8217;s\u00a0F\u00eate nationale\u00a0with Rayes in Victoriaville, a town 160 kilometres northeast\u00a0of Montreal, Saturday. After he was recruited by the Tories [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-79537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}