DISQUS

Paper Boy · 2 months ago

Beautiful map but one small correction: You cite the "Ottawa Chronicle-Herald" but the Herald is actually a Halifax paper; their Ottawa reporter wrote the story.

David Eaves · 2 months ago

Paper Boy -thank you for citing that error I've fixed it now. Always very grateful when people point these out... very helpful. (Indeed, I'm intending to write a post in the near future about the readers who use goose grade/copy edit feature on my blog - I'm deeply grateful to them)

Cheers,
dave

David Hamilton · 2 months ago

Hi, Fantastic work! Do you know of any other Canadian government APIs? Perhaps on the federal or provincial budgets? Thanks!

David Eaves · 2 months ago

David - I'm afraid I don't, especially when it comes to data. The closest thing that comes to mind is MP voting records - I'm not sure if there are any, would be interested to hear if any one knows of any.

trevor123 · 2 months ago

Maybe I'm naive, but I don't assume the government is hiding information in this case. As far as I know, the federal government doesn't have a centralized database for tracking infrastructure or other projects (unlike the US where recovery.gov can be populated from existing, real time databases (which also seem to use the range rather than point value for projects)). It's possible the civil service is providing as much information as it is able to. I also don't see a systematic bias toward a particular party in this data - I see a few ridings (e.g. Kenora and Northern BC) that have a lot of projects and one province that hasn't partnered with the federal government (Quebec).

That said, I have no real idea why anyone would send the PBO only the printed spreadsheet rather than the excel file (unless it's full of civil servants' snide, exasperated and profane comments).