What Is on the Agenda

I like to know what is going on, especially in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.

If you like to know what is going on in an assembly or in parliament, look to the Order Paper. The Order Paper is the complete and authoritative agenda for the legislature.

See this for a summary of the Order Paper and Notice Paper documents in the federal parliament. It gives a good overview of what type of information you can expect to find on an Order Paper.

In Alberta, order papers are stored as Assembly Documents and Records. Ontario organizes them with Debates and Proceedings and called the Current Agenda, and in BC they are with Documents and Proceedings and called Orders of the Day. There is a great Canadian Legislation Table from the Queen’s Lederman Law Library that will link you to the Assembly for all Canadian jurisdictions and from there you will find the order paper.

Order papers contain tidbits of information that might interest your clients, like sending legislation to a committee for review or approving a government policy or plan. Order papers also tell you when a bill will be introduced or debated.

Comments

  1. but as they say on the cover page of speeches, ‘check against delivery’. What is on the Order Paper and what actually happens in the House that day are not necessarily the same. Lots of things get bumped or added after the Order Paper is in ‘final’ form.

  2. Good point John.