Why I'm Sunsetting this Website

ismympalandlord.ca will be shutting down. . . Because we're replacing it with something better.

I built this website in collaboration with Isaac Peltz after being frustrated with housing prices and feeling powerless in the face of Housing Crisis. It felt like there was zero accountability in governments of all levels on this issue, and with Isaac I worked to paint the problem in an understandable light.

Given how popular this website has grown, it's clear I was not alone in this feeling - but what I have learned in the process is shocking.

Government ethics disclosures, and frankly, most open source government data in Canada is strewn across the web, with no consistent data structures, no consistent release schedule, few API's, fewer archives and dubious levels of availability.

The problem is so bad that I gave a 30 minute presentation to Civic Tech Toronto detailing the issue at length.

The Housing Crisis was (and often still is) the topic of the day - but I realized that because of Canada's incredibly scattered public records, there is no centralized place to see concrete, reliable, digestible information about your elected officials and how they operate.

That is going to change.

We are launching On the Data Trail - a platform with every Canadian elected official's public records, in one place.

All of the ethics disclosure information you're familiar with, including official's property assets, will remain publicly available on the platform free of charge.

However there will also be a lot more information including contracts, lobby records, stock portfolio performance all in beautifully rendered detail, some of it exclusive to paid subscribers.

More data, automated updates, greater transparency.

ismympalandlord.ca won't disappear right away, but updates will be fewer, and we will eventually redirect to the new site, which is already much better, even in its beta state.

If you would like to support the work I have spent countless hours putting together, please, join us.

We'll see you On the Trail.