Justin Trudeau is three for three, and there's data to prove it.
The new and all-around superstar Canadian prime minister has made good on his promises to allow government scientists to speak freely about their work, reinstate Canada's 61-question long form census, and give women an equal place in his cabinet.
The internet is well aware of these achievements.
And it will stay aware of future achievements, in addition to promises Trudeau ends up breaking or ignoring, thanks to a new tool called the "Trudeau Meter."
If you're a politician, you spend most of your time walking around with a target on your back.
Getting elected in most political climates involves a bit of grandstanding and showmanship. But the consequence is that elected leaders have a menu of self-imposed responsibilities awaiting them, many of which will go unfulfilled.
The Trudeau Meter solves this accountability problem.
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If you visit the Trudeau Meter's website, you'll see an elegant breakdown of the PM's credentials. As of this writing, he's been in office for 19 days, made 184 promises, started 10 of them, achieved three, and broken none.
If you click on any of those breakdowns, you will see a full list of the promises, when each was made, and an accompanying comment thread on the specific issue. You can also sort the promises by topic, such as Economy, Environment, Immigration, or Government, to name only several.
Promise-trackers aren't new — PolitiFact has been following President Obama's promises since he took office in 2008, Australia used one in 2013, and MIT is building one for Brazil. But the Trudeau Meter is, far and away, the most sophisticated and user-friendly.
Anyone, even people who know nothing about Trudeau, can scroll through the promises issue by issue and figure out what he stands for and how effective he's been as a leader. Rather than wade through murky data and punditry to gauge his progress, voters know right away where Canada stands.
Less than a year away from our own presidential election, the US stands a lot to gain from the Trudeau Meter. Americans could use a Clinton Meter or Carson Meter to inform themselves, instead of relying on a talking head.
Dom Bernard, the Canadian brains behind the Trudeau Meter, says he drew inspiration for the tool from a similar site designed by Egyptian activists in 2012. The African country was engulfed in a revolution, having just appointed its first president through democratic election.
"What struck me at the time was that no Western country that I know of had ever done something similar — simple, collaborative, unbiased, and user-friendly," Bernard writes on his site. "Maybe it's because we take our democracy for granted — maybe it's because we don't care — but whatever the reason was, I felt we were missing a great opportunity to come back to the roots of what living in a democratic society means."
