Mr. Speaker, I will not reconsider my comments. It is there. It is seen by Canadians on a daily basis that in fact the current Prime Minister has absolutely nothing good to say with respect to the new prime minister coming in. If he did, he would quit on his own volition. He would be out of the chair once the new leader of the Liberal Party was chosen on November 15. That would be the right and honourable thing to do.
I cannot for the life of me understand why the timeline of November 15 to February has to be taken by the current Prime Minister for the transition of power. I cannot for the life of me understand that.
The prime minister elect has already had plenty of time to put into place his people, his systems, his programs and his visions. It is not going to take five months to get that in place. The only thing I can understand as to why the current Prime Minister would stay is to try to finish what he considers to be his minefield for the prime minister elect. That scares me.
I will not apologize for that, because that is a serious concern that Canadians have. Do not put into place budget constraints that we cannot deal with after the fact, after the Prime Minister has left. Do not put in policies, do not make decisions that have to be lived up to after the Prime Minister leaves office. Canadians are begging that the Prime Minister leave after the leadership convention. Make no mistake about that. I will not apologize at all for those comments.