Between 2017 and 2025, the Canadian House of Commons operated a Prime Minister’s Question Period procedure, introduced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In a new published article summarised here, Ruxandra Serban explores how this procedure worked, and how it differed from the traditional Question Period model. 

Parliamentary questions procedures are highly visible and important democratic instruments, particularly when they involve the head of government. The UK’s PMQs is perhaps the most well-known procedure through which a Prime Minister answers questions from MPs. Other countries have attempted to follow this model, with the most recent case being the French National Assembly in 2024. Questioning the Prime Minister in the spotlight of the parliamentary plenary is seen as a powerful accountability tool.  

The Canadian House of Commons offers a new opportunity to study how this model works. In 2017, halfway through the 42^nd parliament (2015-19), the Liberal government introduced a Prime Minister’s Question Period (PMQP), alongside the traditional Question Period. This meant that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would answer all questions once a week on Wednesdays, compared to the previous model of answering a small number of questions at the start of Question Period every day, alongside ministers. The practice lasted for the rest of Trudeau’s premiership, but was discontinued in 2025 by his successor, Mark Carney. 

How did the reform come about? 

Question Period is the primary questioning procedure in the Canadian House of Commons. It is scheduled daily when the House is sitting, and conventionally the Prime Minister has to attend. The Prime Minister is questioned together with ministers, and answers ‘Leaders’ round’ at the start – questions from the Leader of the Opposition and other opposition party leaders and prominent opposition members. The remaining questions are answered by ministers. Question allocation is controlled by political parties. Each party has a Question Period leader and team that manages strategy, and also decides how questions are distributed among MPs. After ‘Leaders’ round’, the Speaker calls MPs from lists submitted by party whips. Proposals to change Question Period have been around for decades, and a notable recent initiative was by a Conservative MP, Michael Chong, who in 2010 proposed the introduction of a Prime Minister’s Question Period. This was unsuccessful.  

The idea of a PMQP returned with the Liberal Party’s 2015 election platform, which promised to ‘[r]eform Question Period so that all members, including the Prime Minister, are held to greater account’. In March 2017, the Leader of the House published a paper outlining the government’s Commons reform intentions. The proposals were criticised by both main opposition parties, the New Democratic Party and the Conservative Party, who argued that a PMQP would reduce the Prime Minister’s accountability to the House by requiring less frequent attendance. The government backed down on the wider package, but pressed ahead with PMQP. As a compromise, the Prime Minister would continue to attend Question Period on other days. On 5 April 2017, Trudeau answered all questions for the first time on a Wednesday – the beginning of a practice that lasted for the remainder of his premiership.  

Methods 

To evaluate the impact of PMQP, I looked at data from before and after it was introduced within the 2015-19 parliament. Studying the two formats within the same parliament is especially useful, because the overall political context and party balance remained relatively constant, allowing a clearer view of the reform’s specific effects. 

To measure attendance, I collected the total number of Question Period sessions during the parliament and recorded the times the Prime Minister attended. To look at who asked questions, as well as the topics and style, I selected a random sample of 30 Question Period sessions spread across the two periods (N = 708 questions). For each question, I coded the party and role of the questioner. I used Hansard labels to record question topics, and the Comparative Agendas Codebook to group similar topics together. I also grouped them into topics within the Canadian Prime Minister’s remit, shared with a minister, or further from the Prime Minister’s remit. I labelled each question based on whether or not it included a conflictual remark (i.e. any kind of rhetorical attack on the Prime Minister, the government, or its policies) . To explore how parliamentarians experienced and understood the reform, I conducted 10 interviews with former and current Canadian MPs. The sample included a valuable range of experiences in terms of parties, seniority, gender, and involvement in Question Period, including two former House Leaders for their parties. 

The PM’s attendance at Question Period remained the same 

One of the key issues around PMQP, also suggested by interviewees, was whether it would reduce the Prime Minister’s presence in the chamber. Trudeau’s attendance remained at just over 44% of Question Period sessions across both periods, when looking at both regular sessions and PMQP. Looking specifically at Wednesday sessions, he attended 74% of sessions in the period before the reform and 78% in the period after, when Wednesdays became PMQP. What did change was the number of questions he received. In a regular session, Trudeau answered about nine questions; in PMQP sessions, he faced an average of 38. Because he still attended on other days, the cumulative effect was that he answered more questions after the reform. 

More MPs got to question the PM on a wider range of topics 

PMQP widened access to questioning. MPs from a broader range of roles, particularly including government and opposition backbenchers, were able to put questions directly to Trudeau. Interviewees confirmed that this was valued by MPs and by their constituents. 

Figure 1. Questioners by party (left) and by role of questioner (right) 

In PMQP sessions, the Prime Minister was questioned on a range of issues: the median was 12 unique topics per session, compared to a median of four unique topics in traditional Question Period sessions. The Prime Minister became, like his British counterpart, a target for questions on almost anything. 

Another way of understanding how the Prime Minister is questioned under the different models is to look at whether questions target areas that are considered within the Prime Minister’s remit (e.g. appointments, machinery of government) or shared between the Prime Minister and a minister (e.g. foreign affairs, defence). As the number of questions increased, the proportion of questions that are within the Prime Minister’s remit, or shared with a minister, decreased (Table 1). This is also supported by regression analysis evidence explored further in the article. In scrutiny terms, the PM received more questions, but topics became more varied, including more questions on topics that would have previously been addressed to ministers.  

Table 1. Questions within the Prime Minister’s remit 

	Traditional Question Period	%	PMQP	%
Topics within a minister’s remit	40	29.6%	323	56.4%
Topics that the PM shares with a minister	53	39.3%	111	19.4%
Topics within the PM’s remit	42	31.1%	139	24.3%
Total (N = 708)	135 questions (15 sessions)	100%	573 questions (15 sessions)	100%

PMQP remained just as adversarial as Question Period 

PMQP did not result in fewer conflictual questions. In the period before the reform, around 86% of questions to the PM included some form of conflictual remark, and this remained at a steady level of 80% of questions after the reform. Question Period remained an adversarial procedure regardless of whether the Prime Minister is questioned alone or alongside the cabinet. All interviewees also confirmed that an adversarial style is part of the culture of Question Period. As one interviewee put it, ‘[Question Period] is not a place to be kind’. Other MPs conceded that being adversarial is part of the job, but that politics would be better if the tone was different. 

Perceptions and experiences of Question Period and the reform 

Interviews provided important insights into how the reform was perceived and experienced by parliamentarians, and how it clashed with their conceptions of prime ministerial accountability. Daily questioning was much preferred to a PMQs-style once a week event, even if it meant fewer questions. Commenting on the initial proposal to limit questioning to Wednesdays, some opposition MPs suggested that this would have changed the PM’s relationship with the House of Commons, and limited the opposition’s ability to ask questions as well as to socialise informally with him. It was also seen as Trudeau’s intention to use the House as a personal campaign platform.  

Some interviewees were sceptical that the reform had had any tangible impact. Firstly, the internal party process of preparation for Question Period remained the same. Additionally, Wednesday had always been an important day in the parliamentary week because parties have their caucus meetings on Wednesday mornings, so the Prime Minister was already usually present on Wednesdays. These caucus meetings also made Wednesday Question Period more politically charged, so some interviewees noted it was hard to know whether the new PMQP felt more intense because of the reform itself or simply because Wednesdays were always a high-stakes day. 

The reform ultimately left the fundamental features of Question Period untouched. In particular, close party management means scripted questions and staying on message, and less room for backbench MPs to ask their own questions. Parties adopt these strategies in response to the media environment: questions and answers are scripted in order to generate favourable media clips, but also to avoid making mistakes, which may result in a ‘damaging clip’. Interviewees across all parties pointed out that ‘clip culture’ is counterproductive when complex issues are at stake, for which nuance and deliberation are needed.  

Lessons from PMQP 

The reform introduced a model of questioning that successfully stuck during Justin Trudeau’s time in office. Looking at whether or not the reform achieved its aim of making the Prime Minister more accountable to the House of Commons reveals a mixed picture.  

As the new procedure would place the Prime Minister in the spotlight once a week, there was a concern that it would mean more selective attendance. This proved not to be the case, at least for the second half of the 2015-19 parliament. By keeping the same rate of attendance, the Prime Minister answered more questions in the second half of the parliament compared to the first.  

PMQP introduced a different model of prime ministerial accountability more similar to the UK’s PMQs than to the traditional Question Period: it allowed MPs in both leadership and backbench roles to question the Prime Minister, and the scope of questions broadened. But important features of PMQP remained the same. Backbench MPs were still constrained in what questions they could ask by party management. The party list system was still in operation, so it remained a model that was less focused on the individual MP’s questions, and more on delivering party lines. Questioning was also just as adversarial as before.  

The outcomes of the reform are closely tied to its origins: it was a government initiative introduced without much political support, and clashed with beliefs about what Question Period is for. It was seen as driven by Prime Minister’s Trudeau campaigning style. It also did not build on previous reform attempts, which sought to address party lists and short time limits for questions and answers. As PMQP was a relatively light-touch reform and the result of compromise, it could only produce limited changes, with no effects on the incentive structure within which parliamentarians operate. This also meant that the reform’s durability ultimately depended on politics. For In the later part of his premiership Trudeau faced Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre at PMQP (2022-2025), who was regarded within his party as a strong Question Period performer. Some interviewees suggested that keeping PMQP might even have benefited the Conservatives if they were to win the 2025 election. In the end, however, Trudeau’s Liberal successor as Prime Minister chose not to continue with it. 

The Canadian case offers a cautionary lesson for reformers in other parliaments. Without addressing aspects such as the role of party control over questions, and the adversarial culture in which MPs are socialised, the PMQP reform remained largely superficial. Ultimately, as studies on parliamentary reform have argued, introducing reforms without broad political support limits what kind of change they can achieve. 

The article titled ‘Questions to the Prime Minister in the Canadian House of Commons: Transformation or tweak?’ was published recently in the journal Parliamentary Affairs. 

About the author 

Ruxandra Serban is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science at UCL.