# Streamlining Canadian parliamentary data access: A user-friendly R package

## TL;DR

This paper introduces an R package to simplify access to Canadian parliamentary data, making it more accessible for researchers.

## Contribution

The paper presents a user-friendly R package for retrieving parliamentary data from Canada’s House of Commons.

## Key findings

- The package provides datasets in both French and English, improving accessibility for bilingual users.
- The study highlights the need for flexibility due to the heterogeneous nature of parliamentary datasets.
- Open data curators face challenges in addressing user-reported issues, indicating the complexity of data accessibility.

## Abstract

This paper focuses on the methodological and empirical challenges researchers encounter when accessing government open data through the case study of Canada’s Open Government Action Plan, with a specific emphasis on datasets hosted by the House of Commons. To address these challenges, we have created an R package designed to streamline the retrieval process of datasets, that are not-so-user-friendly, from the House of Commons website. Furthermore, we have made complete datasets available in both French and English, which are the official languages of Canada, and in multiple formats to improve accessibility. Our package aims to be an invaluable resource for researchers interested in Canadian politics or conducting comparative research. Therefore, a portion of this paper is allocated to showcase the potential utility of our package. Through our research, we highlighted three crucial lessons: firstly, the heterogeneous nature of datasets requires flexibility and adaptability; secondly, open data curators encounter various challenges in addressing user-reported issues; and thirdly, there is a nuanced understanding of “openness” in government datasets. In conclusion, we reflect on the potential scalability of open data initiatives while advocating for a nuanced approach that considers the complex challenges associated with open data accessibility.