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S-213 — An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (demographic information)
Every bill summarized in plain language. Not clear enough? Ask for an explanation.
S-213
An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (demographic information)
In progress
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BILL S-213
An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (demographic information)
Last activity : At second reading in the Senate
In progress
Senate · 1st2025-05-27Senate · 2ndSenate · 3rdCommons · 1stCommons · 2ndCommons · 3rdRoyal assent
Sign-in required — one request per person, no anonymous requests
What it does, in plain language
- Requires registered political parties to post on their websites their candidate selection rules and any programs or policies aimed at greater diversity.
- Applies only to parties whose candidates won at least 2% of valid votes nationally in the last general election, or at least 5% of valid votes in the ridings where the party ran a candidate.
- Also requires parties to publish their targets for nominating women, the rules used in ridings where a sitting MP is stepping down or where the party lost by 10 points or less, and the progress made toward those targets.
- Obliges a party with no such program, policy, target or rule to publish its reasons for not having one, along with a timeline for adoption if there is one.
- Requires this information to be updated once a year and a named contact person with contact details to be posted for public concerns.
- Allows the Chief Electoral Officer to launch deregistration proceedings against a party that fails to meet these new obligations.
- Directs the Chief Electoral Officer to send a voluntary, confidential self-identification questionnaire to candidates, nomination contestants and leadership contestants, covering the designated groups defined in the Employment Equity Act.
- Requires an anonymized report on this data within 90 days after the writ is returned following a general election, to be tabled in the House without delay; the party obligations take effect two years after royal assent.
🤖 AI-generated from the bill’s official text as introduced — may not reflect amendments adopted since.
✋ What does “challenging” mean?
Clicking “Ask for an explanation” is a citizen request for the bill's sponsor to explain it in plain language — and for us to keep an eye on it together.
An account (email) is required — one request per person, no anonymous requests. 🔥 At 1,000 requests on the same bill, a public post is made, in the hope an MP agrees to sponsor a petition to the House.
It works on any bill, including one that has already received royal assent — that is often the one people want to understand.
Votes in the Commons
Every recorded vote — who voted what, and by what margin.
On the “who voted what” detail — the House of Commons publishes each member's name for every recorded (nominal) vote (Yea / Nay / paired). The by-member breakdown above (the "+" button on each row) comes directly from that official source (ourcommons.ca), not an estimate. The party shown next to each name is taken from the current House roster; people who have since left the House appear separately under "Former members".
How to read a vote
Recorded vote
Members vote one by one and each choice is entered in the public record. That is what lets us say exactly who voted what — no interpretation.
Passed is not law
A passed vote clears ONE stage. A bill must pass both chambers and then receive royal assent before it becomes law.
Paired is not absent
In the Commons, two members from opposing sides can agree not to vote: their voices cancel out. It is neither an absence nor an abstention.
DossierCanada updates
What changed on the site, newest first
Hi! My name is
Martin Archambault
I'm 45, and dossiercanada.ca is your first step into democracy!
If we want people to understand politics, it has to be brought down to their level.
When I first tried to take an interest in it, on top of not knowing the jargon, bills came as two lines… and fifty PDFs. Most people would simply walk away.
So I had an idea: use artificial intelligence first to read through all of it, then to put it in plain words. That's how DossierCanada was born.
Alongside the AI recap, I've given people a lexicon that explains the basics of political jargon. Plain-language law exists — think of this as its equivalent for politics!
Parliament glossary
Parliamentary jargon, translated into everyday language.
Account and follows