Commenting Standards

We welcome questions, comments, feedback, support and ideas. Users should be aware that comments are monitored and moderated, according to stated rules, and that all posted comments are in the public domain.

Users should:

  • know that they are responsible for everything they submit in their comment(s);
  • not include personal information in their comment(s);
  • ensure that their comments are respectful and relevant to the conversation.

We welcome comments and questions about the content we post in social media channels, where possible. Unfortunately, we are not able to reply individually to all the messages we receive via social media channels. All replies and direct messages will be read and emerging themes or helpful suggestions will be forwarded to the relevant people in our department.

We expect that conversations will follow the general rules of respectful civil discourse. HRSDC will not tolerate comments that are offensive to an individual or an organization, rude in tone, or abusive.

We do not discriminate against any views, but we reserve the right to refuse, edit or remove any of the following:

  • comments contrary to the principles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
  • racist, hateful, sexist, homophobic, slanderous, insulting, or life-threatening messages
  • serious, unproven, unsupported, or inaccurate accusations against individuals or organizations
  • abusive, aggressive, coarse, explicit, vulgar, violent, obscene, or pornographic comments
  • comments that encourage or suggest illegal activity
  • messages where the sender is not the author (nor the copyright holder, if applicable), and/or posted anonymously or by robot accounts
  • announcements, solicitations, advertisements, or endorsements of any financial, political, labour, commercial or non-governmental organizations and agencies
  • attempts to defame or defraud any individual, group or agency
  • announcements from labour or political organizations
  • messages written in a language other than English or French
  • repetitive posts copied and pasted by multiple users
  • unintelligible or irrelevant messages

In short, user should be respectful and make sure comments are relevant. Anyone acting contrary to these rules may be temporarily or permanently excluded from our dialogue spaces on our accounts and channels, where applicable.

We recognize that the Web is a 24/7 medium, and your comments are welcome at any time. However, given the need to manage federal resources, the moderating and posting of comments will generally occur during regular business hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time) Monday through Friday. Comments submitted after hours or on weekends will be read and posted as soon as possible.

The views of participants commenting on our social media sites do not necessarily represent the views of HRSDC.