Jon Malloy talks about the hybrid approach to question period.
Ever since the Canadian Parliament switched to hybrid virtual/in-person meetings in March 2020, the ambience of the House of Common’s daily Question Period has been restrained, sedate…even polite.
“Question Period is not necessarily supposed to be polite,” says Jonathan Malloy, a professor of Political Science and the Dick and Ruth Bell Chair in Canadian Parliamentary Democracy. “Heckling, for better or for worse, has a very long tradition in the Westminster system of government and you can’t build that same sense of an atmosphere virtually.”
The Conservative and Bloc Quebecois members in Canada’s parliament certainly agree. The traditional sound of opposition MPs drowning out the Prime Minister in “QP” has been reduced to a muted outcry over a video call. Prior to the emergence of the Omicron variant, the opposition parties voted for Parliament to return to exclusively in-person sittings in January—a vote they lost.