Mr. Speaker, my colleague points out the truth of the matter, which is that there is a parallel government in place right now. It is simply behind the scenes.
We see the member for LaSalle—Émard, the next Prime Minister, travelling around the country, visiting disaster sites and doing the kinds of things a Prime Minister would normally do while in office.
Earlier we heard from the government House leader. He was making the assertion that because the motion was before the House today, it was a confidence motion and that because members would possibly support the motion, this would replace the government with the same kind of government.
Something that the House leader forgot to mention was that members of the Liberal Party have called on the current Prime Minister to step aside. He must apply that same argument to his own colleagues if he is saying that about opposition members, which he did not allude to. That is surprising.
We will have an unusual situation here. We will have the leader of the Liberal Party who will take the reins of his party likely on November 14 yet not take the office of the Prime Minister until February some time. There will be a lag time of several months, unprecedented in Canadian history, when these kinds of important decisions will have to be made. How will that be operationalized? It is for that reason that the motion is before the House, so that democracy can be served.
My colleague alluded to that. I was wondering if he might be able to elaborate specifically on how the country will operate during the lag time between the time the next leader is leader of his party and when he formally becomes Prime Minister, even though he is acting as the Prime Minister behind the scenes now?