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Comment by fullshark | Hacker News Reader

That link says he's going to stay on as PM? In the video he says he "intends to resign."

Canada has a parliamentary system where the leader of the party with the most votes becomes prime Minister. So Trudeau can step down as leader of his party while remaining Prime Minister.

In this case he intends to stay on until his party selects a new Prime Minister

Technically the leader of the party with most seats gets first shot at forming government. If it is a minority parliament, another party could get a shot at forming government if the first place one fails.

One comment does not negate the other. It is traditional in most jobs to give notice before resigning. In government, it typically is the same unless for resignations. Being forcefully removed is closer to being fired/sacked with termination being much more suddenly

And even when they're forcibly removed (e.g. via a vote of no-confidence), they often keep on doing the job until a replacement is found, albeit with limited scope/powers. See France for instance recently.

He is going to stay until a new leader is chosen by the Liberal Party of Canada.

Why not hand over power immediately to the next person in line? Doesn't preclude the party choosing someone else when they get around to it.

There is no formal “next in line”. The closest potential successor would have been the deputy prime minister; Chrystia Freeland held that role until a few weeks ago when she dramatically resigned and sparked this chain of events.

Currently, this is “Working as Intended” in Canada’s political system.

Usually what happens when a party is not in power is that the leader will resign and an interim leader will be appointed until a new leader is elected through a leadership election. When a party is in power however, that interim leader would be an "interim Prime Minister" and is avoided because it's a lot of responsibility to give to an interim with no mandate from voters or the party.

There is no such thing as a "vice-PM" in Canada. There is no "next person in line", and parties choose leaders more or less independently of the election cycle, according to the party's needs.

So what happens if the PM has a heart attack and drops dead? There’s no defined succession?

The Governor General appoints a caretaker government with (ostensibly) limited powers until the party in power or the leading coalition select the next PM and create a new government.

Absolutely not. Just like every developed country, there is a continuity plan in case of issues. The deputy leader of the party in power is supposedly that person. That the Governor General then appoints that person Prime Minister is an implementation detail.

It's just that in Canada, that continuity plan is reserved for unfortunate deaths. When a PM wants to resign, they basically do what Trudeau did; they announce their party will do a leadership race while they stay on as PM.

The nuance here is that the Governor General by convention follows the advice of the PM, who establishes their continuity plan at the start of their government (IIRC it’s a standard party document and they just update the names).

It’d cause a crisis with the monarchy but they’re not legally bound to appoint the deputy. Like you said it only applies to special circumstances, I was just addressing the legal mechanism by which it happens (as the OP talked about a PM dropping dead).

In the Westminster system, being bound by tradition and being bound by law (written law that is) both have the same legal weight. Our courts can render decision on the necessity of following tradition.

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