Today I came across the website OpenParliament.ca which will soon become my primary news source for federal politics. OpenParliament provides an easy way of browsing the federal hansard (minutes of the house) and vote records.

All the hansard and vote records are already available online, but they are very burdensome to use. OpenParliament allows you to browse the hansard by member of parliament or by topic of discussion. They also provide a listing of recent quotes and votes for each MP so you can see what your MP is up to.

If you are looking for debate regarding Canada's role in Afghanistan, visit the site and click on the link Afghanistan. If you want to know what your member of parliament is up to, just do a search for your postal code and view their profile. You can also see all the current bills before the house and the votes for each bill.

This seems like an excellent way to summarize and digest what's happening in Ottawa. While it doesn't solve the problem that there is far to much information to absorb, it does take a big step forward in filtering that information and making it more accessible.