Welcome back to another session of Parliament. You may have noticed that this feed did not update for the first sitting of the House of Commons. That is because this feed is generated by automatically decoding the layout of the Parliamentary Web site, using a customized script, in a process called "scraping". Scraping is inherently error-prone and unreliable, because it depends on using a computer to interpret information intended only for human readers.

With the new session, the maintainers of the Parliamentary site changed their layout; as a result, the script stopped working. It had to be rewritten to accomodate the new layout. Similar maintenance is required every time they change their layout. Readers of this feed are fortunate that there's an expert willing to do this kind of work for free, because the cost of hiring someone qualified to do it, especially on short notice, would be prohibitive.

There is a better way. If the maintainers of the Parliamentary Web site would publish and document the data in XML format, then automated systems like this feed could use the data much more reliably. That would also make possible a wide range of democracy-enhancing services, such as third-party search engines. The Parliamentary Web site is already based on XML internally, so all that would be required would be to publish the files they are generating already. I know from my log files that many of my readers are actually government workers themselves. Maybe some of you are in a position to say the right thing to the right people about this issue.

If you are a new reader or unaware of where this feed comes from, I strongly urge you to check out the user's guide, which contains important information about this feed and several others of interest.

-- Matthew Skala, HoC feed maintainer

Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal (Newton--North Delta, Lib.); Mr. Richard Harris (Cariboo--Prince George, CPC); Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal; Mr. Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay--Superior North, NDP); Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal; Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Cape Breton--Canso, Lib.); Ms. Linda Duncan (Edmonton--Strathcona, NDP); Mr. Rodger Cuzner; Hon. Keith Martin (Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca, Lib.); Mr. Rodger Cuzner; Mr. Phil McColeman (Brant, CPC); Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.); Mr. Phil McColeman; Mr. Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay--Superior North, NDP); Mr. Phil McColeman; Mr. Gerald Keddy (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, CPC); Ms. Judy Foote (Random--Burin--St. George's, Lib.); Mr. Gerald Keddy; The Speaker.

Hon. Jim Abbott (Kootenay--Columbia, CPC).

Hon. Albina Guarnieri (Mississauga East--Cooksville, Lib.).

Ms. Nicole Demers (Laval, BQ).

Ms. Jean Crowder (Nanaimo--Cowichan, NDP).

Mr. Ray Boughen (Palliser, CPC).

Mr. Todd Russell (Labrador, Lib.).

Mr. Ted Menzies (Macleod, CPC).

Mr. Nicolas Dufour (Repentigny, BQ).