Find a committee recording and its Evidence transcript

Identify the meeting rather than only the subject

Write down the committee, meeting date and study or discussion you need. A study can span several meetings, and the same witness or subject can appear more than once. Matching those identifiers first makes the recording and transcript easier to compare.

The House of Commons participation guide links to All Meetings and to individual committee pages. Use the meeting entry as the common reference point for both resources, instead of treating a television news clip about the hearing as its complete official record.

Open the available recording

The House's current procedural reference says audio is available for all public committee meetings through ParlVU or the committee website. Meetings selected for video are also carried through those routes, with recordings remaining available after the session.

An audio-only choice is therefore a legitimate kind of record. The lack of pictures for a particular public meeting is not enough to conclude that the recording is broken. Choose the resource actually attached to that meeting.

1. Open the official All Meetings route or the relevant committee's website.
2. Find the meeting matching the committee, date and study you noted.
3. Follow its webcast or ParlVU recording link, using video or audio as offered.
4. Retain the meeting page or its identifying details before looking for the written record.

Use Evidence for what was said

The House calls the full committee transcript Evidence. It includes remarks by members, committee staff and witnesses, and is prepared in English and French for public meetings or the public portions of meetings.

The participation guide says Evidence is usually available within 12 business days. On the Meetings page, follow Evidence for the specific meeting. A missing transcript soon after a hearing can therefore reflect publication timing rather than the absence of a public recording.

This is a written publication associated with the meeting, so do not expect it to behave like an instant caption switch inside the player. Use the language version needed for reading, then keep the same meeting identity when returning to the recording.

Keep the two references together

Save the meeting date, committee and links to both the recording and Evidence in your notes. If you are trying to locate a particular exchange, add the speaker's name and a short description of the question so you can find the passage again.

If a meeting contains private proceedings, public audio and transcript guidance should not be read as access to those private portions. The useful completion check is that your recording and Evidence concern the same public meeting, rather than merely the same broad policy topic.