Canadian federal information keyed on Electoral District ID (EDID)

[Russell McOrmond-2]

   Greetings,

   I'm the webmaster for digital-copyright.ca , and I also have other
clients (Example: http://makepovertyhistory.ca ) which makes access to
federal information such as the postal code database (noted at:
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/1607 ) and contact information for
candidates (during the election) and MPs (between elections).

   Soon after the election I took the page at
http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/house/mpscur.asp?Language=E 
and created a table of information by adding the electoral district ID
number (cutting-and-pasting from a different page).

   I can now loop through the links and do a screen scrape to get email
addresses as these pages include the "contact information" link. Those
returning to parliament already have this information, and soon we'll
see the information for the newly elected MPs as well.


   What I'm wondering is if there are people who would like to
collaborate on this type of thing, avoiding duplications of effort.
What I'm looking for is to have a place to put information that is keyed
to the electoral district ID.  I know of someone else who is working
with SierraClub.ca who has went through and done the cutting-and-pasting
of the MP names into separate firstname and lastname fields, which may
also be useful to people.

--
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  2415+ Canadians oppose Bill C-60 which protects antiquated Recording,
  Movie and "software manufacturing" industries from modernization.
  http://KillBillC60.ca    Sign--> http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/

[Tracey P. Lauriault-2]

Hi Russell;

Just to be sure that I understand, you are looking for people to
collaboratively add election attribute data into a spreadsheet/table
that you have created from the house page url below, a home for it so
that it can be shared, maybe merging the data from the sierra club file,
and a way to view it that is friendly & accessible?

If so, that would be very valuable as it could also be joined to the
electoral boundary files, mapped and analyzed, among other many
interesting uses.

Tracey


Russell McOrmond wrote:

>   Greetings,
>
>   I'm the webmaster for digital-copyright.ca , and I also have other
>clients (Example: http://makepovertyhistory.ca ) which makes access to
>federal information such as the postal code database (noted at:
>http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/1607 ) and contact information for
>candidates (during the election) and MPs (between elections).
>
>   Soon after the election I took the page at
>http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/house/mpscur.asp?Language=E 
>and created a table of information by adding the electoral district ID
>number (cutting-and-pasting from a different page).
>
>   I can now loop through the links and do a screen scrape to get email
>addresses as these pages include the "contact information" link. Those
>returning to parliament already have this information, and soon we'll
>see the information for the newly elected MPs as well.
>
>
>   What I'm wondering is if there are people who would like to
>collaborate on this type of thing, avoiding duplications of effort.
>What I'm looking for is to have a place to put information that is keyed
>to the electoral district ID.  I know of someone else who is working
>with SierraClub.ca who has went through and done the cutting-and-pasting
>of the MP names into separate firstname and lastname fields, which may
>also be useful to people.
>
>  
>

[Daniel Haran]

Hi Russell,

Great work. I'll try to pitch in if I can make time.

AFAIK, every parliamentarian can be emailed at [hidden email]

Have you looked into the possibility of redistributing your work as a
web service? Sometimes when the entire data is not transferred, the
regular licenses don't apply.

Cheers,

Daniel.

On 1/26/06, Russell McOrmond <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
>    Greetings,
>
>    I'm the webmaster for digital-copyright.ca , and I also have other
> clients (Example: http://makepovertyhistory.ca ) which makes access to
> federal information such as the postal code database (noted at:
> http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/1607 ) and contact information for
> candidates (during the election) and MPs (between elections).
>
>    Soon after the election I took the page at
> http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/house/mpscur.asp?Language=E
> and created a table of information by adding the electoral district ID
> number (cutting-and-pasting from a different page).
>
>    I can now loop through the links and do a screen scrape to get email
> addresses as these pages include the "contact information" link. Those
> returning to parliament already have this information, and soon we'll
> see the information for the newly elected MPs as well.
>
>
>    What I'm wondering is if there are people who would like to
> collaborate on this type of thing, avoiding duplications of effort.
> What I'm looking for is to have a place to put information that is keyed
> to the electoral district ID.  I know of someone else who is working
> with SierraClub.ca who has went through and done the cutting-and-pasting
> of the MP names into separate firstname and lastname fields, which may
> also be useful to people.
>
> --
>   Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
>   2415+ Canadians oppose Bill C-60 which protects antiquated Recording,
>   Movie and "software manufacturing" industries from modernization.
>   http://KillBillC60.ca    Sign--> http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca
>

[Russell McOrmond-2]

Daniel Haran wrote:
> AFAIK, every parliamentarian can be emailed at [hidden email]

   This is true for the returning MPs, but the new MPs aren't there yet.
  There have also been cases when this system isn't unique.

   I'll be waiting until the Library of Parliament makes this
information official on their website, and then using an automated
screen scrape to pull the information out.

> Have you looked into the possibility of redistributing your work as a
> web service? Sometimes when the entire data is not transferred, the
> regular licenses don't apply.

   The stuff I'm building myself will not be a problem, and I can
release the "database" under a creative commons license AFAIK.

   Where the license agreements will be a problem is with the postal
code to EDID lookup database.  If you look at the government license
agreement it doesn't allow it to be a web service.  I don't know if the
license is enforceable, but until I speak with lawyers I'm not going to
want to become a target for a government lawsuit.  I'd want to make sure
that the government would be embarrassed by such a lawsuit, and that the
political and legal arguments are very clear.


   What I believe we need here is collaboration on a political campaign
to try to get this type of government data released (not just this, but
other geospacial data/etc).

   I think with the new Conservative minority government there may be an
interest to take a lead from the US which doesn't have the concept of
crown copyright (government data is automatically in the public domain).
  While I wouldn't want them to follow the US on other copyright issues,
crown copyright and fair use are two places where we are behind.


--
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  2415+ Canadians oppose Bill C-60 which protects antiquated Recording,
  Movie and "software manufacturing" industries from modernization.
  http://KillBillC60.ca    Sign--> http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/

[Daniel Haran]

On 1/26/06, Russell McOrmond <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Daniel Haran wrote:
> > AFAIK, every parliamentarian can be emailed at [hidden email]
>
>    This is true for the returning MPs, but the new MPs aren't there yet.
>   There have also been cases when this system isn't unique.
>
>    I'll be waiting until the Library of Parliament makes this
> information official on their website, and then using an automated
> screen scrape to pull the information out.

Non-duplicates. Good point; a screen scrape it is.

> > Have you looked into the possibility of redistributing your work as a
> > web service? Sometimes when the entire data is not transferred, the
> > regular licenses don't apply.
>
>    The stuff I'm building myself will not be a problem, and I can
> release the "database" under a creative commons license AFAIK.
>
>    Where the license agreements will be a problem is with the postal
> code to EDID lookup database.  If you look at the government license
> agreement it doesn't allow it to be a web service.  I don't know if the
> license is enforceable, but until I speak with lawyers I'm not going to
> want to become a target for a government lawsuit.  I'd want to make sure
> that the government would be embarrassed by such a lawsuit, and that the
> political and legal arguments are very clear.

That's the one I had in mind. I briefly tried using the parl.gc.ca
page as a web-service (scraping each request without saving the data),
but they obviously had protected it.

>    What I believe we need here is collaboration on a political campaign
> to try to get this type of government data released (not just this, but
> other geospacial data/etc).
>
>    I think with the new Conservative minority government there may be an
> interest to take a lead from the US which doesn't have the concept of
> crown copyright (government data is automatically in the public domain).
>   While I wouldn't want them to follow the US on other copyright issues,
> crown copyright and fair use are two places where we are behind.

Agreed. A minority government does seem like a perfect time to push this.

What has been done already? Anyone know what the different parties
have to say on the topic?

Cheers,

Daniel

[Cory Horner]

Russell McOrmond wrote:

>   Soon after the election I took the page at
>http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/house/mpscur.asp?Language=E 
>and created a table of information by adding the electoral district ID
>number (cutting-and-pasting from a different page).
>
>   I can now loop through the links and do a screen scrape to get email
>addresses as these pages include the "contact information" link. Those
>returning to parliament already have this information, and soon we'll
>see the information for the newly elected MPs as well.
>
>   What I'm wondering is if there are people who would like to
>collaborate on this type of thing, avoiding duplications of effort.
>What I'm looking for is to have a place to put information that is keyed
>to the electoral district ID.  I know of someone else who is working
>with SierraClub.ca who has went through and done the cutting-and-pasting
>of the MP names into separate firstname and lastname fields, which may
>also be useful to people.
>  
>

Glad to see this being followed up on; count me in.  I'd love to see
some standards developed so we can all integrate our data easily, such
as EDIDs -- and some sort of unique identifier for each MP, etc, as well.

I'll throw the MP website list in the mix too... I could add the EDID to
my index and offer the data as a little service for you guys to synch with.

Cheers,
Cory.

[Russell McOrmond-2]

Daniel Haran wrote:
> What has been done already? Anyone know what the different parties
> have to say on the topic?

   I sent a politically loaded letter on the PCFRF database to the past
Minister responsible for democratic reform, Mauril Bélanger.

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/1060

   I've sent letters on this issue to other MPs over the years, but
nobody has really jumped at it yet.  The harm caused by crown copyright
is not very understood, but this is just one issue among many in
copyright/etc issues that MPs don't understand well.

--
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  2415+ Canadians oppose Bill C-60 which protects antiquated Recording,
  Movie and "software manufacturing" industries from modernization.
  http://KillBillC60.ca    Sign--> http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/