Primary source 101
What is Hansard?
Hansard is the verbatim official transcript of debates in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly. Every MLA speech, every question period exchange, every second-reading debate goes in. When a receipt on this site cites "Hansard", this is what it means.
The short version
Hansard is named after Thomas Curson Hansard, a 19th-century English printer who popularised verbatim transcripts of UK House of Commons debates. The format was adopted across the Commonwealth. Today, the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia publishes its own Hansard covering every day the House sits. Transcripts appear online within hours of a debate ending and are corrected by Hansard reporters for spelling and clarity, but never substantively edited. What an MLA said on the floor is what appears on the page.
Why Hansard is the gold standard
Unlike news articles, press releases, or tweets, Hansard is not summarised or paraphrased. It does not disappear when a politician deletes a post. It is covered by parliamentary privilege, which means it is legally robust to quote. It has a fixed, stable URL at leg.bc.ca and a permanent archive going back decades. When an MLA tells a journalist one thing and Hansard tells a different story, Hansard wins.
How to find a quote in Hansard
Every Hansard transcript is searchable. Here is the fastest path to a specific quote:
Go to leg.bc.ca and open "Parliamentary Business" → "Debates, Transcripts (Hansard)".
Pick the parliament and session. The current sitting is the 43rd Parliament. Use the calendar view to jump to the day you want.
Open the PDF or HTML version of that day's Hansard. Use your browser search (Ctrl+F / Cmd+F) to find a keyword or the MLA's name.
Once you have the quote, copy it verbatim and note the date, session, and page number. A link to the Hansard page itself is a durable citation because Hansard URLs do not change.
How to cite a Hansard quote
A Hansard citation on this site includes: the date of the debate, the parliament and session number, and a link to the debate page. If you have it, a page or paragraph reference is even better. Here is the format receipts use on this site:
BC Hansard, 41st Parliament, 4th Session, October 30, 2019 — second-reading debate on Bill 41 (DRIPA).
Hansard and official video
The Legislative Assembly also records every sitting on video, archived alongside Hansard. If a transcript line is ever in doubt, the video is the second check. Video URLs are stable on leg.bc.ca and count as a primary source on this site. When a receipt is timestamped to a specific moment in a debate, we try to link to the exact video timestamp so readers can verify for themselves in under a minute.
A note on copyright
BC Hansard is published by the King's Printer and covered by Crown copyright. The Legislative Assembly's copyright page requires express consent for reuse beyond personal use. However, Canadian fair-dealing law protects quotation for the purposes of news reporting, criticism, and review — which is exactly the basis on which this site operates. Every Hansard quote on the site is verbatim, dated, attributed, and linked to the source, which is the clearest possible fair-dealing posture.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hansard edited?
Only for spelling, punctuation, and readability. The substance of what an MLA said is not changed. Hansard reporters sit in the chamber and transcribe live, then refine against the audio record. MLAs cannot request substantive edits to their remarks.
How quickly is Hansard published?
Preliminary transcripts of each day's debates typically appear on leg.bc.ca within hours of the House rising. A fully corrected "blue" Hansard follows within days. Both are public.
Can I find a specific MLA's speeches only?
Yes. The leg.bc.ca Hansard search supports filtering by speaker. Every MLA's Hansard contributions are also indexed on their individual MLA profile page at leg.bc.ca/members/.
Why is Hansard better than a news quote?
News quotes are sometimes condensed, paraphrased, or taken out of context. Hansard is the complete unedited exchange. When a one-sentence news quote is striking, checking Hansard for the paragraph around it is the single best way to see whether the reporting is fair.
What if an MLA disputes a Hansard quote?
An MLA may ask the Speaker to clarify or correct the record. Corrections are published as separate Hansard entries, not by rewriting the original. This is why Hansard is trusted: the historical record does not change, only the commentary on it does.