this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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There are no official requirements to be prime minister, just that they must lead with the confidence of the House. The government general could technically appoint whoever the hell they want, but by convention a prime minister should be an MP (or at least will soon to be an MP) who leads the leading party or coalition and it would be a complete political shitshow that'd likely lead to a constitutional crisis were it egregiously broken.
Edit: also to specify, the PM isn't elected by parliament, it's an appointed position by the governor general
It isn't required that they be an MP, only that they lead the party, have the approval of the governor, and have the confidence of Parliament. In this case, though, they can't vote on any laws, since they haven't been elected. The usual solution is for an elected MP of the party in a riding that is strong for that party to step down, triggering a by-election with the PM runs in. This has happened before, and will doubtless happen again.
That is convention, but is not a requirement. Canada's political system makes no special consideration for parties. It is entirely based on individuals. Freedom of association allows for individuals to belong to a party, of course, but that membership is only relevant to the worker who belong to it.
After all, political parties are just the labour unions of the political workers. It really wouldn't make any sense to involve union membership as a requirement in the hiring process. From the employer point of view, who cares what union a worker belongs to? It matters to the worker, but nobody else. If it were any other organization, you wouldn't think "Oh, this applicant must be better because he is a member of Unifor and not UAW." You are going to look at the qualities of the individual and what they can do for you as your employee. Government is no different.
But it stands to reason that the workers of a given union will prefer to see their union boss as Prime Minister as they already have a special relationship, so if a given union has control of the House they are going to push for that boss to be PM. Hence the convention that has been established.