Mr. Speaker, this is totally different. We are talking about the government, the party that is supposed to be giving leadership to the country. In other parties, including our own, when there has been a transition, we have arranged for interim leaders when appropriate. When the new leader was elected, within a day that leader was in place and the previous interim leader stepped aside.
Now we have a party that is pretending to lead the country. It is saying that it will have one person who ostensibly is the prime minister but not really, because by tradition for centuries in this system the leader of the party with the most seats is the one who is the prime minister. It is an aberration.
I think the purpose of the motion today is to correct that aberration and to make it clear that once the Liberal Party has chosen a new leader, that leader should then become the prime minister. It would not necessarily be the next day. We know that transitions take maybe five, six or eight days but then the new person should be sworn in as the prime minister and should carry on as the leader.
I would ask a very obvious question. We would not be here except for the fact that the Liberal members themselves pushed the Prime Minister out. He would not have resigned had it not happened that at the convention he was being threatened and then finally to kill it he promised that in February 2004 he would resign. It was the party members themselves who put pressure on him to step aside in order to give the new person a chance. If they will not have him, why should the rest of Canada have him?