Searching Hansard

Hansard search is the core feature of Canadian Political Data. You can ask in plain language and get back the legislative speeches most relevant to your question, across every covered jurisdiction.

Open Hansard search

In this section

• How search works — semantic vs keyword, what gets ranked, why your phrasing matters.
• Filters and tips — narrow by speaker, party, jurisdiction, date range, and more.
• Saved searches and alerts — sign in to save a query and get notified when new speeches match.

Quick examples

Try these on the search page to see what semantic search can do:

• housing affordability for young people
• pipelines and Indigenous consent
• who has called for proportional representation
• child care fee reductions outside Quebec
• bilingualism in the federal civil service

You don't need to know the exact words a politician used. The system embeds your question and finds speeches that mean similar things.