About Hansard
What is Hansard?
Hansard, also known as Debates and Proceedings, is the official transcript of the debates of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and its committees.
The tradition of Hansard dates back to 1810 in the British House of Commons. It is named after the Hansard family, the printers who published the first official record. Hansard has been available in Canada, at the federal level, since 1880. Manitoba has had a published Hansard since 1958.
A separate Hansard document is prepared for each sitting of the Legislature and for each meeting of its standing committees.
In Manitoba, the Hansard branch is also responsible for providing sound reinforcement in the Chamber and Assembly committee rooms and for recording the Assembly's proceedings.
Transcripts of Chamber proceedings are available within 24 hours of a sitting of the Legislative Assembly.
The public can access Hansards from 1958 to the present online.
For more information on how to find information in Hansard, see our How to use Hansard page.
Editorial policy
Verbatim Transcript
Manitoba's policy is that the Hansard transcript is essentially verbatim.
We do:
- Eliminate stutters,
- Eliminate exclamations like "um" and "ah,"
- Edit out some repetitions – unless the repetition is being used to make a point.
We don't:
- Add, delete or change words or word order.
On the Record
A member must be recognized by the Chair in order to speak during debate.
Thus, only the person who has been recognized by the Speaker or Chairperson is on the record.
Accordingly, members' microphones are turned on only when they are recognized by the Speaker/Chairperson.
All of the banter that goes on during the debate is off the record unless the member who has the floor directly responds to an interjection and the comment is clearly audible. In that case the interjection will be included for context.
When members are especially animated and there are multiple, simultaneous, loud interjections from the floor, this is reported as: Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.