Terms of Use

Effective Date – February 20, 2020

1. Introduction

Healthy Debate (“We”, “Us”, “Our”) is a Not-for-Profit organization. It operates this website (“Site”) as a platform to share its mission: to provide accurate, accessible information about health care to the public, practitioners, journalists, students, managers and policy makers; to enable experts to share their insights about Canadian health care; to be platform for experts share their insights about Canadian health care; and to teach communication and advocacy skills to students, patients and health care.

We provide an opportunity for you, our readers, to participate by sharing content, submitting guest posts and leaving comments at the end of articles and opinions. As a reader, sharer of content or contributor, you are referred to herein as (“You”, “Your”, “User(s)”).

By using this website, You agree to these Terms of Use (“Terms”). If You do not agree to all of these Terms, do not use this site.
Healthy Debate may revise and update these Terms without notice at any time. Your continued use of this site means that You accept those changes. The date of the most recent version of these Terms is noted above as its Effective Date. We welcome You to check back at any time to make sure You are aware of current Terms. Healthy Debate does not and will not accept any other Terms.

2. Age Requirements

This Site is for Users who are at least 13 years old. If You are under 18, please get a parent or guardian’s permission before using the Site and before making any contribution.
If You authorize a minor to access this Site, then You agree to be fully responsible for: (i) controlling the minor’s access to and use of that the Site; and (ii) the consequences of any misuse by the minor. You acknowledge that some of the areas of the Site and some of the Content may include material that is inappropriate for minors.

3. Copyright

All materials on this Site are subject to Copyright and unless stated otherwise in reference to a particular document or material, provided under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution/No derivatives Share Alike license. You may share it on a page with advertising. You may not sell it separately. The terms of the license are available https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/ Attributions are to be made to HealthyDebate.ca, a project under the direction of Dr. Seema Marwaha.

Certain documents or materials may be available under other license terms. If so, those documents or materials will be identified with a copyright notice and a reference to the terms of use for those particular documents or materials. If You are interested in licensing any of these materials, please contact the Director, Research Operations of Healthy Debate at contactus@healthydebate.ca.

4. Trademarks & Use of Name

The name Healthy Debate and “HealthyDebate.ca”, and other product and service names and logos (“Marks”) appearing on the website are or may be registered or unregistered Marks of their respective owners. Nothing on this website grants You any right to use any Marks. You shall not use the Marks of Healthy Debate or the names of any of its personnel for any purpose without obtaining written permission from Healthy Debate.

5. User Obligations

There are three ways to use this Site:

  1. Reading its Content;
  2. Sharing its Content;
  3. Contributing by way of Comments or a guest post.

5.1. Reading its Content

No Medical Advice
The information on this website is provided for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional legal advice, medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

If You have or suspect You have a health problem, please consult Your family physician. If You have or suspect You are experiencing a health emergency, please promptly visit a hospital emergency department in Your area. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something You have read on this website.

This site contains health-related and medical-related materials that may be explicit. If You find these materials offensive, You may not want to use our site.
If You rely on any information appearing on or provided in relation to this site, You do so solely at Your own risk.

5.2. Sharing its Content

We welcome links to pages on our website if the following guidelines are observed:

    • Re-posting content or images on other websites by framing this website’s pages within another website is prohibited; and
    • Paraphrasing or excerpting HealthyDebate.ca content is permitted so long as the material content is not changed.

If You need to describe our website, please use the following description: “HealthyDebate.ca publishes journalism about healthcare in Canada.”

5.3. Contributing to Content by way of Comments or Guest Posts

This is the link for the guest post submission guidelines.
By contributing any comments, posts or other material on this site, You give Healthy Debate the irrevocable right to use Your submission for any purpose in any form and on any media, including the right to reproduce, publish, distribute, display, modify and create derivative works from Your submission by providing a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide licence to publish and communicate to the public any material You submit to us in any format, including without limitation print and electronic format. You also agree that We may permit other parties to publish and communicate to the public any material You submit to us in any format.

As is reflective of its name, Healthy Debate believes that there may be different views of an issue, and by transparently presenting them we all become more informed. Your comments and posts should be made in the spirit of building on the ideas that are presented, by fact based and preferable sourced material. Accordingly, Your contributions should be:

    1. Fact based;
    2. Constructive;
    3. Declare any conflicts of interest; and
    4. Not an unsubstantiated claim.

Users shall not:

    • post advertisements or solicitations of business;
    • post material that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful or embarrassing to anyone, as determined by us in our sole discretion;
    • impersonate another person or post the personal information of another person.
    • post the work of another person or to which You do not have rights;
    • permit another person to use the User’s identification for posting or viewing comments.
    • post the same note more than once (e.g., spam);
    • post chain letters or pyramid schemes on the blog, or;
    • post links to websites that contain materials that would violate these obligations if they were posted directly on the blog.

Healthy Debate reserves the right (but is not obligated), in its sole discretion, to do any of the following:

    • Not publish submissions, in its sole discretion;
    • Remove communications that fail to conform to these terms of use in any way, including communications that are abusive, illegal or disruptive;
    • Terminate a User’s access to the comments feature upon any breach of these terms of use; or
    • Edit or delete any communications posted on the comments feature regardless of whether the communications fail to conform to these terms of use.

5.4 Users Restrictions, general

Users shall not:

    • upload, transmit or post any communications or content of any kind that infringes or violates the rights of anyone else.
    • use this site for any purpose in violation of any laws, including local, national and international laws.
    • use this site as a means to distribute advertising or other unsolicited materials to anyone.

6. Privacy

We are committed to protecting privacy. If You transmit any personally identifiable information, You are consenting to the public disclosure of that information in the forum to which You have transmitted it. You are not permitted to post any information that is personally identifiable information of another individual.
Healthy Debate collects, uses and discloses Your personal information in accordance with the HealthyDebate.ca Privacy Policy. By using this website, You are consenting to the collection, use and disclosure of Your personal information in accordance with HealthyDebate.ca’s Privacy Policy.

7. Cookies

HealthyDebate.ca may use cookies to help improve the content within our site by helping us understand how visitors use and how many times the same visitor will revisit our site. You can choose to have Your computer warn You each time a cookie is being sent or You can choose to turn off all cookies. This can be done through Your browser. Each browser is a little different, so look at Your browser’s help menu to learn the correct way to modify Your cookie acceptance. If You turn cookies off, You won’t have access to many features provided by various websites, including personalized login sessions and the storage of Your personal preferences.

8. Termination & Survival

If You breach these terms of use, in addition to any other remedies it may have, Healthy Debate has the right to terminate Your use of this website or any portion of it. We will not be liable to You or anyone else for any such termination. The following provisions will survive termination of these terms of reference: Limitation of Liability and Indemnity.

9. Disclaimers

Healthy Debate makes no representations as to any matter whatsoever, including accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. The views expressed in the Comments and that appear in the Opinions section do not reflect the views of Healthy Debate.

Any websites linked from this website are created by other organizations. Those organizations are responsible for the information contained within their sites. Even when this website refers or links to another website, Healthy Debate does not endorse the content on any other organization’s website. Healthy Debate does not control and is not responsible for the content of those websites or any advertisements on those websites. Your use of those other websites is at Your own risk and subject to the terms of use for those sites. We do not represent that files available for downloading will be free from any code that contains contaminating or destructive properties, including infections, viruses, worms or Trojan horses.

10. Limitation of Liability

The site and the content provided are on an “as is” basis. When using the site, information will be transmitted over a medium that is beyond the control and jurisdiction of Healthy Debate. Healthy Debate assumes no liability for or relating to the delay, failure, interruption or corruption of any data or other information transmitted in connection with use of this site.

Healthy Debate is not liable to You or anyone else for any decision made or action taken based on reliance upon the information contained on or provided through this website. The sole and exclusive remedy for dissatisfaction with this site is to stop using this site.

11. Indemnity

You shall indemnify Healthy Debate, its officers, directors, employees, agents, licensors, content providers and contractors for any claims, liabilities, harms and losses (including reasonable legal and accounting fees) resulting from or related to Your violation of these terms of use.

12. Sponsorship

Healthy Debate will accept sponsorship of the website but will not accept advertising on the website. Sponsors are acknowledged on the ‘Our Sponsors’ portion of the website. Sponsorship revenue is used to support HealthyDebate.ca as well as research and education at St. Michael’s Hospital. For inquiries concerning sponsorship opportunities, contact contactus@healthydebate.ca.

Healthy Debate does not endorse any companies, products or services. Sponsors are not permitted to make any claims that Healthy Debate has endorsed any companies, products or services. Certain types of sponsorship will not be accepted by Healthy Debate, including sponsorship from alcohol or tobacco manufacturers or distributors.

Some of the content on this website is provided by persons who are under research collaboration or a consulting arrangement with Healthy Debate (“Content Provider”). All content on this website has been independently developed by Healthy Debate and/or its Content Providers. If materials have been submitted by a Content Provider, We will identify that Content Provider as providing the materials.

Funding original content on this site does not entitle any sponsor to have any influence over the content. If one of our sponsors has funded original content provided to this site, We will identify that content as funded by the sponsor.

13. General Terms

Our failure to act with respect to a breach of these terms of use by You or anyone else does not waive our right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches. These terms of use set forth the entire understanding and agreement between You and Healthy Debate with respect to the use of this website. In the event of a conflict between these terms of use and any statement or materials on the website, these terms of use prevail.
The parties have expressly requested and required that this contract and all other related documents be drawn up in the English language. Les parties conviennent et exigent expressement que ce contrat et tous les documents qui s’y rapportent soient rediges en anglais.

14. Jurisdiction

These terms of use are governed by the laws of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada excluding any rules of conflict of laws. You and Healthy Debate agree to the exclusive jurisdiction and forum of the courts of Ontario.
If You are in a jurisdiction where access to this website or use of this website is illegal, do not use this site.
If You have any questions about these terms of use or the website in general, please contact us via e-mail at contactus@healthydebate.ca.