Currently the PM doesn’t have a seat in the house. If he visited the house, he’d have to go to the visitor’s gallery.
It’s an interesting situation. The PM is the leader of the federal liberal party, but he’s not a member of parliament. But, does he need to be? Is the PM sitting in the house of commons just a tradition that nobody has challenged yet? Could the PM delegate things inside the house of commons to their deputy-PM and then do things like give speeches, attend diplomatic functions, etc.?
The US has a very different system where the president isn’t part of the legislative branch at all. But, typically presidents don’t twiddle their thumbs waiting for something to do. Being the head of state keeps most presidents busy. It makes me wonder if technically Carney could choose not to run for office, and just spend his time doing head-of-state things rather than legislative things.
By-elections, yeah. When one quits or dies or somehow leaves an office empty. That means that even if there’s no immediate election, there will be one for Papineau to replace Trudeau. Also, if there isn’t an election called right away, most likely another Liberal will quit in a riding where Carney will be elected easily.
But! AFAIK he could also just choose not to be an MP. He won’t, but I think technically he could.
He absolutely could remain PM without being an MP but I believe he then wouldn’t be allowed to actually sit or speak in the House which is obviously not ideal.