Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Brandon—Souris, who has quite eloquently laid out the case as to why the current Prime Minister should be leaving office and allowing the incoming prime minister to sit here and be accountable to the people of Canada.
I would like to make a few remarks on this motion by the Bloc that calls upon the Prime Minister to leave office as soon as possible after November 14. I know it must be difficult for an individual like the current Prime Minister of Canada to leave office. He has been in political life in this nation for a 40 year period. Many of us, who have had a much shorter of period of time in office, can readily understand how difficult it is to leave political life and seek another direction.
However the current Prime Minister of the country is in grave danger of destroying any legacy he might have built up over the last 40 years in office by remaining too long. I think it is safe to say that the people of Canada want the current Prime Minister to step down as quickly as possible. As a matter of fact, I recently saw a television survey rolling across the bottom of my TV screen indicating that 57% of the people of Canada feel it would be in the best interests of the country to have the current Prime Minister leave office as quickly as possible.
In our parliamentary system of government, as we all know, the Prime Minister is generally the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. The current Prime Minister, as we are all aware, said that he would leave office in February 2004. The Liberal Party, however, decided to hold its leadership convention, as the member for Winnipeg—Transcona rightly pointed out, in November 2003.
That leaves us now in the very unique position of seeing the new leader for the Liberal Party not becoming the prime minister until some time in February, which is very inappropriate because between November 2003 and February 2004 Canada will have both a Prime Minister and a prime minister in waiting.
We have to ask ourselves if it is in the best interests of Canadians and if it is good government to have that kind of situation in our country. This country deserves better. As I said a moment ago, if the Prime Minister has any legacy to leave the people of Canada, that legacy will be destroyed if he hangs on to power too long.
Only the Liberal Party of Canada would have the monumental arrogance of foisting that kind of awkward arrangement upon the Canadian people. We have already been treated to scenes of unofficial Liberal Party caucus meetings taking place on Tuesday nights and the official Liberal Party caucus meetings taking place on Wednesday mornings like the rest of us.
Obviously the Liberal Party is so sure of its unassailable position that it can play out its internal workings on the national stage. It is not in the best interests of our country to be witnessing that kind of disagreement between the Prime Minister and the prime minister in waiting.
Simply put, the Liberal Party feels that it can play fast and loose with the parliamentary system and has absolutely no fear of retribution from the people of Canada for the actions it has taken.
As so many speakers before me have pointed out, the member for LaSalle--Émard, who will become the prime minister of Canada, should be accountable to the people of Canada after November 13. He should be in the House of Commons to be accountable and to answer questions from the various opposition parties regarding his actions when he was minister of finance.
Is it any wonder that citizens have been demanding that the various opposition parties in Parliament get their act together and present some kind of a unified alternative to the present government? What I have been hearing from my constituents all across St. John's East is that there should be a better and more unified alternative to the government. They feel that the government is becoming arrogant by the very actions it is displaying with its leadership process.
Word has it, and I think we are all aware that the word is accurate, that the House will be closing soon and we will not be called back until the new Liberal leader is ready for a throne speech and a spring budget. I am sure, as the country is sure, that a general election will soon follow after that.
However, in the interim, which is very important, the country will not get a chance to put the new prime minister to the test here in the House of Commons. We will, in effect, have two prime ministers between November and February.
The Liberals have indicated that they intend to avoid that kind of awkward arrangement by closing down the House for the period between November 7 of this year and the middle of February next year. It is unheard of that the House should be closed for that long a period of time. In the meantime, we will have two parallel administrations in place in Canada, one in the House and one behind the curtain of the House. That simply is not good enough for the people of Canada and it is not in their best interests.
Over the last number of months we have been treated to the spectacle of the Liberal Party washing its dirty linen in public. The outgoing Prime Minister and incoming prime minister have made no secret of the fact that they dislike each other. They seem to have absolutely no shame in letting their personal disputes dominate the public arena. With the two feuding, overlapping prime ministers, the Liberal Party's answer now is to wash its dirty linen in private by closing the House of Commons and not opening up again until some time in February.
I think it is fair to say that Canadians want leadership, not arrogance, from the prime minister and the majority party here in the House.
Nobody is saying that there should not be a reasonable transition period for the outgoing Prime Minister and the incoming prime minister. Given the fact that we have known for quite some time who the new prime minister will be, one would think that a period of a few weeks would be enough for the incoming administration to take office. However, what we are talking about here is a number of months, and that is not good enough.
An election was held recently in Newfoundland. There were two parties of different political stripes and the new one will be taking office. That will be done quite smoothly in a matter of probably a week or so. Since we have known for about two or three months who the incoming prime minister of Canada will be there is absolutely no reason the transition could not have taken place within a couple of weeks.
As I said, the current Liberal government does not have to worry about the niceties of governance. It feels as if it has a divine right to govern because its parliamentary opposition is so fractured and there are so many different parties. I think we will see that coming to an end fairly soon. The incoming prime minister has every reason to worry that he will have a unified opposition going into the next election.
In the meantime, I call upon the Liberal Party to treat Canadians and their parliamentary institutions with a little respect and to provide for some kind of timely transition, yes, but certainly not a two or three month period in which the nation is held to ransom by the government.