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Sunday 23 June 2013

Information About Your Representative - Federal Level

Once you find your representative for Canada, province, territory or locality you will often find a great deal of interesting and useful information about them. I'll just go over some of what you may expect to find.

I will randomly select some individuals who are now holding office in different levels of government and go over the information provided about them. I think that will be more interesting than giving you generic information. As of this writing the people so selected will be holding office. As time progresses that will very likely change.

I will post different parts of this for different levels of government. The information will be similar but there may be differences in the details.

I'll start at the federal level with a member of parliament who holds a portfolio. The first person on the list of Members of Parliament is The Honourable Diane Ablonczy. Before clicking on anything else her listing tells me quite a bit about her. Her name is listed as "Ablonczy, Diane (Hon.)" "Hon." is short for "Honourable" and that tells me she has held, and may currently hold a cabinet posting. Continuing along from left to right on her listing it tells me her constituency is Calgary—Nose Hill in Alberta and that she is a member of the Conservative party.

Clicking on her name brings up a page with more information about her. There is a photograph of her. Below that there is a set of tabs: Offices, Caucus, Committees, Roles, Elections and Votes. The tab that is open by default is Offices and it shows her contact information. For her Hill office it give the address, phone number, fax number, email address, and her web site. For her constituency office it gives the address, telephone and fax number. As well it tells her preferred language, which in this case is English.

Clicking on Caucus shows how the parliaments for which she has been a member. Clicking on Committees shows that she has been involved with one committee. Clicking on Roles brings up the various functions she has performed while a member of parliament. These include the cabinet post she holds and the ones she has held.

Elections shows how often she has been elected to office as a member of parliament. Votes lists all the matters brought before Canada's House of Commons on which she has voted and how she has voted on them.

Next to her picture under her name you will find "Federal Political Experience." When you click on that you will get a listing of all the things she has done while holding office as a member of parliament.