Did you tape CPAC for me? Why are you laughing?

Recently I tried to understand how easy it would be to hit archives of the House of Commons to get clips of bill readings or debates. I thought it’d be useful for any writeups I do, I could add soundbites and a face to the bill. I can’t think of any small blogs that do this and it’s probably covered under fair dealing. I decided to try the Clean Internet Act as an example. My search convinced me that CPAC archives aren’t the way to go but it’s not their fault. It would be easiest to tape the channel nonstop.

My first stop was CPAC. I decided I’d check out Video on Demand first. Public Record sounded like it might have what I wanted, but the only things dated on April 18th (the day it was read) were a tribute to Brian Mulroney and The Manning Centre for Building Democracy Future Leaders’ s Series Dinner, whatever that is.

Okay, how about clicking ‘Order Tapes‘?

For copies of House proceedings (including Question Period) and House committees, please contact House of Commons Broadcasting directly at (613) 995-1318.

Hmm. I’m not eager to call someone long distance right yet. What else can I find here? (The answer is lots of ways to waste my time.)

For tape requests of CPAC programming which aired in the last 3 months, contact: Cision at www.cision.com or call 1-877-919-0991 or 1-416-750-2220. You will need to know the broadcast date, start and end time (in EST) of the program you wish to purchase. Transcripts are not available for CPAC programming.

I know the date it was broadcast. I can guesstimate the time since the session started at 2pm. Yeah, I’ll try this first. Off I go to cision.com.

I didn’t want to try the consumers link right away since it might not have a license I like. I saw a link to log in if you have an Evaluations account. It wasn’t what I thought and it wasn’t free. Below the login page is this,

New Visitors
If you are not currently a subscriber but would like to buy one of our products
available for online purchase, please click one of the links below. You need a credit
card to buy these products.

Buy Tapes & Transcripts

If you would like more information about ordering our subscriber services, please
contact info.ca@cision.com or call 1.877.269.8145.

So I click Buy Tapes & Transcripts. It takes me right back to the consumers page. Damn.

Cision provides written transcripts and audio/video materials for CBC, GLOBAL, CPAC & CFRB. All materials supplied by this service must only be used for internal review, research or analysis. Any public display, publication or re-broadcast is strictly forbidden.

That doesn’t really fit in with my plan of posting something to YouTube. Still, might as well take a look.

Oof. Headaches, headaches. Painful searching. It’s not pretty. There’s a lot of javascript bouncing me back and forth between pages. I keep getting prompts from my browser, partly due to javascript alerts and partly due to it forcing me back through my history to a page that was a POST result so it needs permission to resubmit my data.

It turns out that they do offer clips of question periods but nothing that seemed to apply to the Clean Internet Act. Zero results when I searched for internet. Just for fun I tried adding various pieces to my cart to see if I could figure out how the pricing scheme worked. I couldn’t. A four minute clip would’ve cost $50 plus a $5 copyright fee, with two to four weeks of turnaround. Same price as a clip just under an hour. A four hour clip would’ve cost $100 plus a $10 copyright fee with the same turnaround. And they won’t process an order unless you agree to their terms and conditions.

Items cannot be forwarded by e-mail or any other means or displayed on web sites or Intranets. [Blogger's note: Intranets? Did they mean Internet? Why wouldn't I be able to post it on an intranet for internal review?] … Items cannot be used as evidence in legal proceedings, in political activities, or for any public display.

I gave up. I called the number that was listed. It rang eight times and then a machine picked up. From the sounds of the French-only answering machine I dialed someone’s home. There’s a chance that I used my calling card incorrectly. Still, there’s also the chance that CPAC’s number is out of date. I searched the House of Commons website but could only find live streams and links to CPAC and a few more vertical archives.

I clicked the contact link yesterday afternoon and asked for the correct number to call to get ahold of clips from the HoC. No reply yet. Once I get a reply I’ll give them a call. I’ll ask for advice regarding what I can put on my blog, whether they think it’s okay to put up clips I recorded off cable, or whether they’ll bother to help me find clips themselves. My guess is they’ll refer me back to Cision since I’m a small timer and cheap.

I wish I could access and share this a little more easily and cheaply.