The jury vetting scandal in Ontario illustrates what happens when an act (in this case the Juries Act) assumes that the bureaucracy will act properly and in good faith. Shannon Kari, the reporter, quoted me in the National Post this morning.
The Ontario government has agreed that the broad background checks, which led to notations on jury lists that included mental heath data and comments such as “dislikes police” went too far…
Richard McEachin, who runs a Toronto-based company that does data research for private clients, said he was not surprised Versadex was used. “The main CPIC criminal record database has a robust audit trail and procedures to prevent abuse,” he said…
He echoed the views of Mr. Stuart, that any criminal record searches should only be on behalf of the court sheriff.
“This would create a visible and dated audit trail,” Mr. McEachin said…
The Library of Parliament announced enhancements to LEGISINFO, a research site containing information on legislation currently before Parliament.
Effective immediately, users may:
- consult short summaries of 500 words or less for Government bills from the current Parliament onwards. These summaries are placed under the Legislative Summary link within 48-72 hours of first reading;
- and access “Royal Recommendations” and “Major Speaker’s Rulings and Statements” for all bills from the 40th Parliament onwards, where applicable, through the links to the Senate Debates or House of Commons Journals. These links are found just below “Text of the Bill”.
LEGISINFO also provides access to information about individual bills, along with links to recent newspaper articles, a reading list, and other related information.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to locate the voting records of Members of Parliament who are now candidates in this election. Do this to become better informed Canadian.
The House of Commons’ Compendium of Procedure article on Recorded Votes (also called divisions) is your first stop. Your second stop is the chapter on Debate and Voting which explains when members’ names are recorded during a vote. This also explains when members’ names are not recorded.
Your next stop should be How’d They Vote. This site takes takes the Hansard from the parliament website, and extracts information on bills, members of parliament, votes, and speeches.
LegisInfo lets you peruse votes on bills along with the following:
- the text of the bill at various stages;
- government press releases and backgrounders (for government bills);
- legislative summaries from the Parliamentary Information and Research Service;
- important speeches at second reading;
- coming into force data.
For example, choose Bill C2 in the current session under House of Commons, Government Bills. Once you have selected the bill, you may select Selected Recorded Votes and see how the members voted.