Article content continued

On Tuesday, after Lloyd’s hoax was exposed by the CBC, party spokesmen could not even bring themselves to name Lloyd when they informed reporters by email, “This individual has resigned as‎ the Conservative party candidate.” The spokesmen did not respond to requests for additional comment.

Lloyd, who describes himself on Twitter as “personal confidante to the Prime Minister of Canada since January 1, 2001,” changed his profile Tuesday to read “former candidate.”

Originally from Saint John, N.B., Lloyd lives in Montreal and has a blog called Dear PM detailing his project of communicating with the prime minister daily, going back to 2001 when Jean Chrétien was in power.

The biography on the blog lists his occupation as “secret agent” and his interests as conservative politics and art.

At a talk Lloyd gave in March in Fredericton, he said he was committed to defeating Trudeau in Montreal’s Papineau riding. But he had other motivations.

“I’ve been telling the prime minister about this whole thing from, like, the get-go with all sorts of imaginings and fantasies and options, like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to become the candidate, I’m going to like mess with your party.’ I’m totally, like, going to wait till the writ is dropped then it’s going to be party time,” he said, according to the CBC report.

An article on Lloyd’s talk, in the St. Thomas University newspaper The New Brunswick Beacon, began, “With the intentions of outwitting the Conservatives’ public relations machine and (upstaging) Justin Trudeau in his own backyard, Montreal-based performance artist Chris Lloyd has hijacked his local electoral riding and become the Conservative candidate for Papineau.”