General Comments and Trackback Policy

We encourage open, lively debate, but the decision to publish comments on this site, or on any of Global Affairs Canada ’s social media properties, remains at the discretion of this department. Comments that violate any of the following rules will not be published.

1. Personal identification

Anonymous comments will not be accepted. All comments submitted to this site must include your name and a genuine email address. Do not represent yourself as another person. By submitting a comment on this site, you agree to your name and comment (but not your email address) being made public. For more information on how your data will be treated, see our privacy notice.

2. Conduct and use of language

Comments should be civil and tasteful, and must not be malicious or designed to offend. Swearing and profanity will not be accepted.

No reference should be made to the personality of other participants, nor should attacks be made on the basis of an individual’s race, religion, gender, nationality, sexuality or other personal characteristic. You may question or argue the content, but you may not attack the author or any other commenters.

Further, we reserve the right to delete comments that:

  • are spam or include links to other sites;
  • are clearly off topic;
  • advocate illegal activity;
  • promote particular services, products or political organizations;
  • infringe on copyrights or trademarks;
  • use personally identifiable information, such as a user’s address, phone number or other personal details;
  • are misleading, false, of a highly questionable nature, or otherwise unverifiable;
  • are obscene, abusive, hateful or intended to defame anyone or any organization;
  • are contrary to the principles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

To protect your own privacy and the privacy of others, please do not include phone numbers, email addresses or other personal information in the body of your comment. Moderators will watch for and potentially remove inappropriate or unnecessary personal information or images about the submitter or a third party. Global Affairs Canada cannot control the conduct of third parties having access to publicly accessible sites and disclaims responsibility for any personal information that is posted by you and used by third parties.

Please note that the comments expressed on this site do not reflect the opinions and position of this department, the federal government, or its officers and employees. Similarly, the appearance of external links on this site does not constitute official endorsement by Global Affairs Canada .

3. Legal liability

You are legally responsible for what you write and post to this site. By submitting a comment you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Global Affairs Canada against any liability and any and all third–party claims, demands, actions or costs (including legal costs on a solicitor–client basis) arising from its publication, including but not limited to breach of confidentiality or copyright, libel, or any obscene, defamatory, seditious, blasphemous or other actionable statement you may make.

Furthermore, threats to this organization, its employees, other users or the government in general will be taken seriously and reported to the proper authorities.

While we try to ensure the accuracy of the content, Global Affairs Canada shall not be responsible for any reliance by the user on the accuracy, completeness, efficacy, timeliness or reliability of the content posted by users.

4. Advertising, spamming and research

No advertising or promotion is allowed. This includes promotion or endorsement of any financial, commercial or non–governmental agency. Promotions for an event, publication or similar item that has direct relevance to the subject of discussion may be allowed on a case–by–case basis.

Information about locating and sharing knowledge and expertise is welcomed, but within the specific discussion provided. Please do not submit the same comment more than once to the same discussion.

5. Political propriety

This is a government website, and comments used for party political purposes will not be published.

6. Relevance and readability

Your comment should be within the scope of the topic under discussion. Please keep your comments short. We generally will not publish an article longer than 500 words, but we may ask you to summarize it.

Reporters are asked to send questions to the appropriate individual in our Media Relations Offices and refrain from submitting questions here as comments. Reporters’ questions will be removed.

7. Moderating

All comments submitted to this site will be checked before they are published (pre–moderated) by Global Affairs Canada officials. We will approve comments as quickly as possible. The length of time it takes for your comment to appear will depend on the volume of comments we are receiving.

We recognize that the Internet 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 only during regular business hours, Monday through Friday, Eastern Time. If you submit a comment after hours or on a weekend, we will read and post it as early as possible the next business day.

We do not censor participants’ opinions. All comments will be published unless they are in breach of the above rules. We will not edit any comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the type of content cited in Section 2, “Conduct and use of language.”

In the event that a comment or part of a comment is determined to contravene this policy, we may contact you to let you know why your comment has not been published, or to ask you to edit it.

8. Replies

Global Affairs Canada cannot reply to every comment posted. We will, however, attempt to engage in conversation when possible.

We will not comment in the case of ongoing investigations, legal proceedings or matters before Parliament.

9. Trackbacks

Trackbacks are considered comments. All trackbacks posted on our Web or social media properties (those that allow for trackbacks) will be treated in line with our General Comments Policy.