Drawing upon publicly accessible information on the websites of ten Canadian research universities, this paper aims to shed some light on the assumed variation of institutional policies regarding the PhD dissertation defense in Canada. It discusses How are the institutional policies on the doctoral dissertation defense different across Canadian universities?; What do these differences imply about the role, function, and purpose of the oral defense in the PhD examination in Canada?; and How might these differences inform PhD education in Canada?. It concludes with a call for academics and students’ awareness of these variations in policy and practice.