What are the reconstituted debates?

Last revised September 07, 2022

In the early years of Parliament, no official parliamentary debates were published. 

Official reporting of the debates of Canada’s Parliament began in 1871 in the Senate, and in 1875 in the House of Commons. Prior to this, there was no official record of what was said in Parliament.  Instead, debates were published unofficially in newspapers.  In the 1960's, Library of Parliament staff clipped and pasted these newspaper debates into scrapbooks. 

The "Reconstituted Debates" are a version of the scrapbook debates, edited and published in book format.

Full text is available from the Parliament of Canada.

Currently, the collection consists of the House of Commons Debates for 1867/68, 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872, and 1873, and the Debates of the Senate for 1867/68, 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873 and 1874.