About the Hansard search
The Hansard search provides access to all Ontario House debates (Hansard transcripts) starting from 29th Parliament, 4th Session (March 5, 1974, to February 13, 1975) to one week ago.
For assistance, contact Hansard at 416-325-7400 or hansard@ola.org.
The Hansard search is structured to allow fast and easy access to Hansard transcripts. Results for each day’s Hansard transcript contain the following parts:
Title
The header of the search result (e.g., “Election of Speaker”) contains the Type of business and Topic. “Type of business” refers to parts of the day’s proceedings as outlined in the standing orders. “Topic” is a broad subject term used to describe matters under debate.
Session
The Parliament (e.g., 33) and the session (e.g., 1).
Date
The date on which the result occurred.
Speaker
The member speaking at that time (e.g., Mr. Doe).
Transcript
The transcribed text of what the speaker said.
Read more in Hansard
This allows you to view the entire Hansard transcript that includes the text in the search result.
The Hansard search allows you to search Hansard transcripts of House debates using any of the available fields. Place your cursor on the icon above the field to get more information about the field.
Tips about specific fields
Type of business
This is a drop-down list of parts of the day’s proceedings. You can select one type of business to search, or you can leave this field blank and use the “Type of business” filter to select multiple when refining your search results. Use the Type of business facet to select multiple types of business. See the “Refining your search results” section of this guide below for more information on facets.
Session
There are three ways you can use the Session field to limit your search:
- Select individual sessions to limit your search to one session.
- Select all sessions to search across all sessions.
- Use the Session facet to select multiple sessions to refine your results to specific sessions. See the “Refining your search results” section of this guide below for more information on facets.
Speaker
There are many iterations of a member’s name used in Hansard transcripts. To browse for a specific member by name or Parliament, view All MPPs.
- For some Parliaments, the member’s first name and their riding are included only the first time a member speaks (e.g., Mr. John Smith (Algoma)). Afterwards, only the honorific or title and surname are used (e.g., Mr. Smith).
- For some Parliaments, a cabinet minister’s first name and ministry are included only the first time they speak (Hon. John Smith (Minister of Housing)). Their riding is not included. Afterwards, only the title and surname are used (e.g., Hon. Smith).
- If the member speaks in French, their honorific and title will be recorded in French (e.g., M. Smith).
- Where two members have the same surname, they are referred to by their honorific or title, first name, and surname (e.g., Ms. Jane Doe and Mrs. Alice Doe).
- Unique terms are used to identify House proceedings and other events. These include:
- Anthem: identifies when the anthem is sung
- Interjection: includes any disruption to proceedings such as interruptions, applause, and laughter
- Note: identifies events not related to the House proceedings, such as a failure of the sound system or errata
- Prayers: identifies when prayers are held in the Chamber
- Procedure: includes non-spoken events in the House such as resuming or adjourning debates, bells ordered to be rung, and members escorted from the Chamber
- Vote-Aye and Vote-Nay: indicates voting procedures
Date range
Use the “From” and “To” fields to search for a specific date or date range. You can limit the date range in the following ways:
- Enter a date in the “From” field and leave “To” empty to search a single date.
- Enter a date in the “To” field and leave “From” empty to search from the start of the database (June 27, 1977) to the specified date.
- Enter a date in the “From” and “To” field to search a specific date range.
Example:
- To search for debates for an entire month (e.g., May 1992), simply search from May 1992 to June 1992 (leave the day fields empty).
- To search for debates from an entire year (e.g., 1992), simply search from 1992 to 1993 (leave the day and month fields empty).
- To search for debates from a specific date to the present (e.g., from May 9, 1992, to today), search from 1992-09-05 to the current date.
Note
Some Speaker names and Topics may include diacritics, or accents (e.g., MPP Grandmaître or Better Municipal Governance Act, 2022 / Loi de 2022 visant à améliorer la gouvernance municipal).
Search results will be different if an accent is used in your search term or not.
Boolean searching is available in the Keyword, Speaker, and Topic fields. Keywords can be formatted and combined into searches using specific words and symbols. Boolean operators connect your search words together to either narrow or broaden results. The following operators are available:
AND
Search field must include both terms.
Example: acid AND rain will find debates that contain both words anywhere in the text.
AND NOT
Search field does not contain the term or phrase in.
Example: acid AND NOT rain will find debates that contain the word "acid" but not the word "rain."
OR
Debates contain either one term or the other or both.
Example: “acid rain” OR acidulated finds debates with either one or both terms. Results are presented in order of how often each of the terms appear.
By default, search results are ordered by date with the most recent debates first. Subsequently, they are ordered by how closely each intervention matches your search terms. The most recent debates with the greatest number of search terms will appear first in the search results.
Change the order of results by choosing Date, Speaker, or Topic from the top of the results page. Speaker and Topic sort alphabetically.
Change the number of results shown per page to 20, 50, or 100. To change the number per page, select the drop-down menu beside "Show” at the top of the results.
Refine search results using the filters on the left-hand side.
Filters available are Speaker, Topic, Type of business, and Session.
You can select multiple options from each filter. You can also select options from different filters to refine your results. Applied filters are shown above the search results.
If you select a field in your initial search (e.g., Session), you will not be able to use the facet for that field as a filter to refine the results.
Additionally, due to variations in a member’s name used in Hansard transcripts, you may have to select more than one option for the same member (e.g., Hon. Michael A. Tibollo, Hon. Michael Tibollo, L’hon. Michael A. Tibollo).