In the interest of making all this even more complicated (fun), please recall the you don’t need to be a parliamentarian to be PM or a minister, but by convention you should try to get a seat in Parliament ASAP. ctvnews.ca/politics/elect…
In fact, the reason you can be PM but not a parliamentarian is link to the same legal reality that allows a PM to stay on and test confidence regardless of the election results. The office of PM is an executive one bestowed by the Crown independent of Parliament in law.
More precisely, the PM can stay confidence because, in law, their position doesn’t change owing to what happens in the Commons. It’s convention that determines on what conditions they hold that office, namely the confidence convention.
