OTTAWA — Two-thirds of Canadians believe the parliamentary question period has become a forum for MPs to just "grandstand" for the media and score "cheap political points," a new survey has found.

The nationwide poll, conducted by Pollara for the Public Policy Forum, also found a majority of Canadians think less of this country's system of government because of what they see and hear in the 45-minute daily session in the House of Commons. There is strong support for reforms so that question period can be improved.

The poll comes as the Public Policy Forum holds a conference in Ottawa on Thursday where MPs, former MPs and parliamentary experts will discuss the deteriorating nature of question period. It also is being released just weeks before MPs will vote on a Conservative backbencher's motion to have a Commons committee study significant changes to the daily session.

"Canadians are really turned off that question period isn't working in their interests as citizens," David Mitchell, president of the Public Policy Forum, said in an interview.

"They see it as an important dimension of our democratic governance, but they're really not happy that it's not working. It's a theatrical sideshow that's not relevant to them at all."

Mitchell said the sad thing about the state of federal politics is that question period was originally designed as a "great reform" to allow MPs to respectfully ask timely and relevant questions which would then elicit answers from cabinet ministers.

"Instead, it's become a laughingstock, an embarrassment, quite honestly."

The overly partisan and nasty nature of question period has been getting worse since 2004, when the Liberals and then the Conservatives have governed with a minority in the Commons. The problem has become even more apparent in the current Parliament, in which critics say Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is running roughshod over the opposition, thereby creating a combative environment throughout the House.

Soon after MPs return to Parliament next week, they will vote on whether a committee should examine Tory MP Michael Chong's proposals, which range from giving more MPs a chance to ask questions to dedicating Wednesday exclusively for questions to the prime minister. Chong has been lobbying MPs and cabinet ministers and he's "cautiously optimistic" his motion will get the green light.

The Pollara poll found a well of discontent about question period:

- 66 per cent think it's just a forum for politicians to grandstand for the media and try to score cheap short-term political points.

- 56 per cent think less of our system of government when they see scenes from question period.

- 46 per cent think nothing gets accomplished, while 35 per cent think it accomplishes something and 19 per cent don't know.

- 66 per cent think it needs to be reformed and improved.

Mitchell said that the poll should be a "call to action" for MPs to cast aside some of their partisanship and look for solutions. The survey found 87 per cent of Canadians believe that MPs in the current Parliament should be doing a "better job of putting politics aside and working together."

Pollara found that voters are divided over whether they are being turned off politics and public policy by the recent minority Parliaments. But one finding should be sobering for politicians: Canadians were surveyed on whether they were paying attention to the "activities and debates" in question period. Sixty-one per cent are "inattentive" while only 39 per cent are "attentive".

The online poll of 2,262 adult Canadians was conducted Aug. 26-30. It has a margin of error of 2.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.