Game show host Alex Trebek is recognized in the visitor's gallery in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Tuesday May 5, 2015.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Alex Trebek, the man who has been paid to give answers on TV for 30 years, has some feedback for Canadian politicians during Question Period: loosen up.
The long-time host of the quiz show Jeopardy! was in town Tuesday for the inauguration of Alex Trebek Alumni Hall at the University of Ottawa, which had received a $2.4-million gift from the former student.
Mr. Trebek also visited the House of Commons for Question Period, the 45 minutes on most afternoons when the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet take questions from other MPs.
"I think it was very interesting," Mr. Trebek told reporters in a scrum afterward. "… I'm very proud of the fact that my presence was the only moment in the entire Question Period in which all of the members seemed to be in agreement. They all got up and waved hi to me."
Cabinet ministers often spend hours preparing for their daily parliamentary grillings, and rely on prepared answers for most questions. Mr. Trebek suggested he was not a fan of that approach.
"It looks like a lot of it is prescripted," he said. "The questions I see on the members' sheets, on their desks, all appear to have come from the same printer, the same font size, and it was a bit repetitious at points because the ministers were having to stand up and say exactly what they had said 10 minutes earlier in response to a slight variation on that particular subject."
Mr. Trebek grew up in Sudbury, Ont., studied in Ottawa, and then moved to Toronto to pursue a broadcasting career, which led him to the United States. He began hosting Jeopardy! in 1984.
He recently renewed his contract to continue hosting the game show until 2018.
Chris Hannay