Order Paper

Question Period: The Actual Rules — Including the One Where Nobody Has to Answer.

Oral Questions — Question Period — runs 45 minutes every sitting day in the House of Commons under Standing Order 30(5). Questions rotate among parties by a Speaker-administered formula weighted by party standings, with each question and answer conventionally capped at about 35 seconds. The rules require questions to concern the administrative responsibility of the government, but no rule compels a minister to answer the question asked: ministers "may respond as they see fit" — they may deflect, answer a different question, or decline, and the Speaker has no power to force responsiveness, only to police decorum and unparliamentary language. The structural complement most Canadians never see is written questions on the Order Paper (Standing Order 39): any MP may file up to four detailed written questions, and the government must respond within 45 days when a response is requested — a mechanism that produces the documented disclosures (travel costs, program spending, contract details) that drive much of Canada's accountability journalism, including several stories this site has covered. The daily theatre tests the government's composure; the Order Paper extracts its records.