Canada's Question Period is theater with no real accountability. One proposal: randomly select three MPs daily to ask one question each, then require the government to answer within three days. A citizen panel of ordinary Canadians vets each response, and three dodges in a year triggers an election.
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Question Period is broken, and I know how to fix it. Question Period happens every day that Canada's Parliament is in session. Members of Parliament from opposition parties get to question the government. Sounds great. In reality, it's nonsense. It's absurdly theatrical, you never get an answer, it's like watching a bad improv class except no one ever yells "Scene!" so it just keeps going. So here's my proposal: Question Period will now literally just be questions. No answers during the session. 3 MPs are chosen by the Clerk at random each day to ask a question. They are chosen on the spot, so even the parties don't know who's gonna get asked. Maybe they luck out, they get their party leader. Maybe they get that backbencher from Goosefart, Alberta who keeps getting sidelined. Regardless, no shouting, no props, no fake outrage. You get one question and 30 seconds to ask it. Then the government has 3 days to answer it. Not feign shock, not tweet about it, but 3 days to come back with a real, researched, fact-based answer. You know, like a grown-up would do. But before it gets released publicly, the answer goes to a panel of citizens. Actual Canadians. Maybe a plumber, a nurse, a teacher, that one retired guy Dave who still writes actual letters to the editor. Hell, Dave still pays at the grocery store with cheques, so he's not falling for any fancy wording. They read the answer and decide: did the government actually answer the question, or did they just do a triple backflip of verbal gymnastics and land in a puddle of bullshit? If it's a real answer, great, it's released. The media get it. The pages make TikToks with more explanation. But if it's a dodge, That's one strike. A big, public, make-the-national-news strike. Why the news? Because 3 dodges in a year, and the Governor General puts on a fancy hat and dissolves Parliament. Pack it up! If this government isn't going to take governing seriously, we go to an election, and we vote in a new one that will.
Because if your kid came home from school and said, "You asked me to clean my room, and I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that I've been cleaning rooms since 2015." You wouldn't clap, you would ground them.
Why aren't we doing the same? We elect our representatives because we trust them to behave like adults. They should answer to us, not to political spin doctors cranking out talking points. If we're gonna keep pretending this is about accountability, we may as well replace the whole thing with a talent show and let the Governor General judge it. At least then when someone dodges a question, we get a tap dance number out of it.
