Community Guidelines

As its name suggests, Healthy Debate is a forum for the spirited exchange of differing perspectives. Allowing readers to comment on the articles we publish is critical to making Healthy Debate the sort of virtual public square where people from diverse backgrounds can weigh in on healthcare in Canada. To ensure that the discussions in the comments sections of Healthy Debate are productive, we require commenters to abide by the following community standards:

• Be respectful of the people with whom you disagree. If you wish to voice your disagreement, critique what they have written with clear, polite, and evidence-based counterarguments.
• Discriminatory, abusive, or threatening language will not be tolerated.
• Profane or vulgar language will not be tolerated.
• Conspiracy theories and misinformation will not be tolerated. We accept that evidence-based, analytically astute arguments over the accuracy of information are integral to the advancement of both science and journalism, and we welcome comments that contain this sort of pushback. But we will not tolerate comments that assert obvious falsehoods, like that COVID-19 is “fake.”
• Do not give medical advice or reveal the personal health information of others in a way that could identify them.
• Do not post irrelevant or off-topic comments.
• For a comprehensive list of our community standards, see our terms and conditions.

We will remove comments that breach these community standards. We do not discuss comment moderation decisions on the site. If you have questions about our standards or believe one of your comments was improperly deleted, please email contactus@healthydebate.ca.