Hansard is the official and substantially verbatim report of debates in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. Hansard is a complete transcript of the proceedings in the Legislative Assembly and in committee meetings, although this does not include every comment or interjection from Members who have not been recognized by the chair. For ease of reading, repetitions are edited out and obvious mistakes are corrected.
Although Hansard was produced in Ottawa as of 1880 and earlier in the United Kingdom, it was not introduced in B.C. until 1970. At the time, it recorded the debates in the Assembly, but not in committee meetings, such as a Committee of the Whole and the Committee of Supply. In addition, it was only made available after the session was prorogued.
In 1972, Hansard began full text reporting and included coverage of the committees. In the spring session of 1991, it began live and complete television coverage of debates. Hansard was first made available on the Internet in 1994. All broadcasts are recorded for archival purposes and have been stored electronically in a digital format since 2002. Videotapes of earlier sittings are stored off site.
Webcasting services were introduced in 2003, providing access to the broadcast signal over the Internet. In 2005, live streaming of the proceedings of Section A of the Committee of Supply in the Douglas Fir Room was added. At the same time, web streaming was extended to audio webcasts of the public proceedings of parliamentary committees.
A preliminary draft transcript, called the “Blues,” is also produced in real time during proceedings. Both the Blues and the final version of Hansard transcripts, as well as webcasts, podcasts, and live streams of Assembly business, are all available on the Legislative Assembly website.
