How'd They Vote?

I have found the best Canadian political website ever. How’d They Vote? is devoted to the goal of complete political accountability. The site shows the statistics of each member of Parliament, the transcripts of debates they’ve been involved in, how they voted for each bill, and even if they were present for the vote. The full bills are available for viewing as well, because sometimes bills are voted down due to semantics instead of good intentions. And votes outlined in red signifies that the MP broke the party line, meaning you can see how much of a rebel your MP really is. Three Liberals told their party to screw off 25 times each! Guess which two MPs were in the top 10 for absences? Yep, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper (74 and 54, respectively). The Conservatives had two MPs (David Chatters and Darrel Stinson) who were absent for over 120 votes! Although to be fair, a couple of Conservatives battled cancer, so that was probably them.

My previous post was about Maurice Vellacott. According to this site, Maurice voted: FOR a bill to limit crossing the floor (switching parties); FOR bill C-28 (allowing the sale of agricultural items with over the legal limit of harmful substances if the Health Minister approves it); AGAINST same-sex marriage; AGAINST a bill to reduce student loan bankruptcy from 10 years to 2 years; FOR the increase of parliamentary salaries in accordance to private sector salaries; AGAINST a bill for loosening government red tape on not-for-profit organizations; AGAINST a bill recognizing self-government for the Tlicho in the Northwest Territories (this ties in nicely with my last post); AGAINST a bill giving greater protection to children from child pornography and stiffer sentences for pedophiles, plus new criminal codes regarding ‘voyeurism’; and AGAINST a bill giving protection to whistleblowers in the public sector (people who go public with wrong-doings and get fired because of it).

I think it’s safe to say that I have issues with some of these stances. This site is great, because now you can keep track of what your MP is actually doing.