Laura Payton and Kady O’Malley — the Parliamentary reporting dream team — gave a session at Nash ’77 on what the Hill is and how it works. Below is a stellar list of resources any aspiring politics reporter will find useful.
House of Commons – Procedure and Practice (rules about how the House works)
LegisInfo (search any and all bills to see what stage they’re at, their text, etc.)
http://www.parl.gc.ca/
Canada Gazette (regulations that are the real nitty-gritty of any new law and sometimes give you a heads-up about what’s coming):
http://www.gazette.gc.ca/
Orders in Council (Cabinet orders – some weird, like about new coin designs; others newsy-er, like rescinding laws or appointments)
http://www.pco-bcp.gc.ca/oic-
Office of the Lobby Commissioner – search registry/log (to find out which lobbyists represent which companies and who they’re lobbying)
https://ocl-cal.gc.ca/app/
Office of the Ethics Commissioner – search disclosure reports for MPs AND public office holders (including brief descriptions of financial holdings)
http://ciec-ccie.parl.gc.ca/
Elections Canada – financial records (no receipts, but a listing of what is spent during a campaign)
http://www.elections.ca/
Completed Access to Information requests (you can request a copy of somebody else’s request and you get it much faster)
http://open.canada.ca/en/
(here’s the list of who to call to get those completed ATIs http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/
Public Opinion Research Reports – archive
http://www.porr-rrop.gc.ca/
Department of Justice – search statutes
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.
Reports on Plans and Priorities (planned staffing, goals for the departments)
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/rpp/
Departmental Performance Reports (DPRs to the cool kids – ACTUAL staffing numbers and how the departments did on their goals)
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/dpr-
(there are so many more resources here that I haven’t properly explored – take a peek if you’re interested in government finance stories: http://www.tbs-sct.
Main estimates (highly detailed budget plans – the ACTUAL federal budget that’s voted on in Parliament)
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/ems-
Supplementary estimates (because who doesn’t run out of cash by the end of the year?)
