According to a new survey, 65 per cent of Canadians think question period is 鈥減olitically charged theatre that should be improved.鈥�

鈥淨uestion period is a show -- I think that鈥檚 how most Canadians would describe it,鈥� Nik Nanos, chairman of , told CTV Power Play on Monday. 鈥淎t two out of every three saying it needs improvement, this speaks to an opportunity.鈥�

The survey, which was commissioned by CTV and conducted by Nanos Research between Dec. 27 and 29, 2017, heard from 1,000 people across the country and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

鈥淲e asked Canadians whether they thought question period was politically charged and whether it should be improved, whether it鈥檚 an effective way to hold government to account, or whether it鈥檚 irrelevant,鈥� Nanos said. 鈥淭he top response was that it was politically charged theatre that needs to be improved.鈥�

In the survey, 24 per cent of respondents thought that question period 鈥渋s an effective way to hold government to account鈥� while only five per cent said that it is 鈥渋rrelevant.鈥� Six per cent were unsure.

According to the , the 鈥減rimary purpose of Question Period is to seek information from the Government and to call it to account for its actions.鈥� Officially known as 鈥淥ral Questions,鈥� it occurs each sitting day of parliament.

鈥淎s some people joke, it鈥檚 question period, but it鈥檚 not necessarily 鈥榓nswer time鈥� for the government,鈥� Nanos said. 鈥淏ut it speaks to the fact that this is a critical part of our democracy. Every party has an interest in making this work, but when Canadians tune in and think about question period, they just think of drama and political partisanship, and they think that it needs to be improved and that it鈥檚 not good the way it is.鈥�

Nanos said that popular perception of question period could be improved if Canada were to adopt a system similar to Britain鈥檚 parliament, where under a constitutional convention, to answer MPs鈥� queries every Wednesday afternoon. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau generally earmarks Wednesdays to be present at question period, unless he is out of town.

鈥淚 think perhaps things like that would probably help people at least have the perception that the government is being made more accountable and can answer questions from the opposition party, which is trying to put a spotlight on all the different things that are going on,鈥� Nanos said.