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EDMONTON – It began with a desire to see how specific members of parliament voted on Bill C-51, but it resulted in the creation of a brand new website.

The site, votes.mp, was designed by the Neufeld brothers, who are both from Vancouver, B.C.

“I just wanted to click on a person’s name and see their voting history across time and across different bills,” explained Shay Neufeld, who worked on the site with his brother Braden.

The brothers used information from the openparliament.ca website.

They simply wanted to make information more searchable – specifically, by a particular MP.

“The government site is more amenable to selecting a specific bill and then figuring out who voted for that bill,” said Shay. “If you want to form an opinion on a person, it’s going to take a lot of clicks on the government website to click on a bill and back up and then click on another bill and then find their name.

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“The information is there, no doubt, I just felt it would be a useful tool to have it laid out in an easier way.” Tweet This

The new website was launched on Sept. 19. While the timing – one month ahead of the federal election – was somewhat accidental, Shay hopes Canadians will make the most of the resource before they cast their ballots Oct. 19.

“I hope it’ll be used as another way to be an informed citizen.

“I think that when a Canadian wants to develop an opinion about a politician or their government, I think there should be as many tools as possible,” he added. Tweet This

“When they type in that person’s name on Google, or when they type ‘member of parliament voting record’ or ‘stance on bill whatever,’ I hope that this will be one of the many things that come up that allows them to form an educated opinion.”

Shay admits the website is still a work in progress and he and Braden are open to suggestions to improve it. One of the first things on their to-do list?

“Being able to only select the bills where there was some dissonance in the party. So, the majority of votes, especially in a majority government are pretty whipped, but there are a couple that are not, and those are the ones that are maybe the most interesting to look at.”

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They also hope to add a feature that tracks MPs’ attendance records.

Shay and Braden Neufeld. Courtesy: Shay Neufeld

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*NOTE: This article originally described openparliament.ca as a government website. It is not.