Posts Tagged ‘OpenParliament.ca’

The House: Further reading

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - 6 Comments

For their assistance when I was putting together last week’s piece on the House—and for the indispensable sites they respectively maintain—I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Michael Mulley of openparliament.ca and Cory Horner of howdtheyvote.ca. I also must thank Ned Franks, both for his writing on Parliament and omnibus legislation and his perspective.

Those seeking perspective and data, should start with Parliament’s own tallies of private members’ bills passed, legislation adopted and sitting days.

Beyond those, there are several other texts that proved helpful. Continue…

  • The post-paper era

    By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 12:01 PM - 2 Comments

    David Eaves writes to the Parliamentary committee studying open data.

    There is one arena where politicians need not wait on the government to make plans: Parliament itself. Over the past year, while in conversations with the Parliamentary IT staff as well as the Speaker of the House, I have worked to have Parliament make more data about its own operations open. Starting in January, the Parliamentary website will begin releasing the Hansard in XML – this will make it much easier for software developers like the creators of Openparliament.ca as and howdtheyvote.ca to run their sites and for students, researchers and reporters to search and analyze our country’s most important public discussions. In short, by making the Hansard more accessible the Speaker and his IT staff are making parliament more accessible. But this is only the beginning of what parliamentarians could do to make for a truly Open Parliament. The House and Senate’s schedules and agendas, along with committee calendars should all be open. So to should both chambers seating arrangement. Member’s photos and bios should be shared with an unrestricted license as should the videos of parliament.

  • Information needs to be free

    By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 17, 2010 at 4:14 PM - 0 Comments

    The magazine’s Rethink issue—Warning: sideways design may blow your mind—includes this story on the open data and open government movements. The ideas discussed there may or may not change everything.

    For now, while everyone else is getting excited about the Twitter and the blogs (and maybe someday a new TV network featuring that guy who’s already on radio and that other guy who likes to shout about stuff), punditsguide.ca, threehundredeight.com, openparliament.ca, howdtheyvote.ca, disclosed.ca and governmentexpenses.ca could be the six most important (and, in a way, exciting) contributions to the political process, and the coverage and scrutiny of same, to appear in recent years.

    And beyond those projects is what’s going on, or could be going on, within and around government. Continue…

  • The new accountability

    By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 12:16 AM - 12 Comments

    OpenParliament.ca strikes me as an impressively ambitious and valuable project. I am, quite genuinely, excited about it. Go visit and support Mr. Mulley’s work.

    Bookmark it alongside 308.com and Pundits’ Guide. Important things done by people who don’t seem motivated by the fame, power and money that comes from their efforts.

    Also, if you use this little doohickey Mr. Mulley made you can figure out how many times various swears have been committed to the official House of Commons record since 1994.

From Macleans