About

Our Mission: 

To allow people to better participate in democracy and make the political decision-making process more data driven. 

What is the endgame with this project? 

Western democracies are becoming polarized and ineffective. Politicians make too many decisions based on ideology and too few based on data. Our goal is to provide citizens with the tools to give their politicians better data on how to make decisions 

How does it work? 

The goal of Townhall is to narrow the representation gap between constituents and their legislators.

The app provides the user with information on upcoming votes in the House of Commons, contact info for their Member of Parliament, and results of recent votes and speeches in the House of Commons. 

Who are you guys? 

We are two former Canadian political staffers who believe in technology strengthening democracy. 

 Is this a bi-partisan project? 

Yes. We believe the only way a tool like this can work is if partisan politics stay out of it. We do not endorse any particular party at any level of government.

We believe that the more bi-partisanship amongst our users, the better the app will be in improving Canadian democracy. 

Where do you get your data? 

Our data is sourced via API from Open North (which sources from the House of Commons). The API allows us to display votes, speeches, and MP contact info. 

Content for our bill summaries is curated by us with the Parliament of Canada website as the primary source. 

What do you do with my data?

When you log in with your postal code, it tells you what riding you live in. In a future version of the app (not currently active), when you vote on bills, you can share that vote (anonymously) with your Member of Parliament. This would give them quantitative, verified data representative of their constituency. As it stands in our current version, your data is not shared with your MP or anyone else.

Are my votes anonymous? 

Yes, but we do intend in a future version to share information from a riding-wide perspective which would include your vote, but not your name.