February 14, 2013

Question Period would be a lot more meaningful if the government would stick to an orderly structured QP by simply answering the Oppostion's questions in a direct and pertinent way rather than by responding to it with both irrelevant counter questions and statements which don't address what is solely the government's responsibility on the issue. The Speaker should caution the government not to deviate from answering the questions posed to them by bringing up issues that are not germane to the government's accountability on a given issue. Furthermore, the Speaker ought to treat government MPs with the same standard as those of the Oppostion MPs with regard to the rule of avoiding directing questions to the member and not the Chair. Government MPs' like Pierre Poilievre and Vic Toews habitually turn away from the Chair to look directly at Opposition MPs only to give responses to questions that are completely irrelevant and don't serve any purpose other than to obfuscate and stall on the government's role on the given issue.