Interactive: The House of Commons as a series of floating, colour-coded dots

Announcing another new addition to Macleans.ca: The Interactive Commons.

A combination of my rudimentary math skills and Amanda Shendruk‘s technical wizardry, the Interactive Commons is a visual and interactive representation of what goes on in Question Period each day, from who asks questions and who responds to how often the party leaders are there and what percentage of the words spoken are in French. Click away, fiddle around and tell us what you think. (Note: In this first run, I’ve accidentally assigned some of Malcolm Allen’s questions to Conservative MP Mike Allen. I hope to fix that error in short order.)

The numbers are current as of October 31, a total of 28 QPs. You can see that, for the Conservatives, QP has been dominated by Diane Finley (who handles OAS and Employment Insurance), Gerry Ritz (the XL Foods recall), John Baird (the Prime Minister’s primary stand-in) and Pierre Poilievre (assigned to handle all questions about ethics).

On the opposition side, Thomas Mulcair has obviously dominated (he also has the best attendance of the opposition leaders). For those keeping score, 44% of his words have been en francais.