Last modified:  September 29, 2023

This Code of Conduct governs your participation in the Homegrown Innovation Challenge community (the “Community”), organized and maintained by the Weston Family Foundation (the “Foundation”) and implemented through various online services and applications, including, but not limited to, homegrownchallenge.ca, LinkedIn.com and Twitter.com/X.com. This Code of Conduct further governs the use of all content made available through the Community, including content posted to and messages sent through the Community by users thereof (“Community Content”).  Participation in the Community and use of Community Content and related resources are hereinafter referred to collectively as “use of the Community”.

You may report violations of this Code of Conduct by sending an email to [email protected].

If you do not agree to this Code of Conduct, then you may not participate in the Community or make use of Community resources.

General Use Rules

Your use of the Community (including uploading and posting Community Content) must be lawful, respectful of the legal rights and interests of others and appropriate to the Homegrown Innovation Challenge.

Without limiting the above, the following rules apply to participation in and the use of the Community and Community Content:

• Intended Purpose:Your use must be relevant and appropriate. You may only use the Community and Community Content for purposes that are consistent with the spirit and intended purposes of the Homegrown Innovation Challenge.
• Respectful Use: Your use of the Community must respect the Homegrown Innovation Challenge, the Foundation and other Community users. Please consider the Community a space for respectful discussion, support and constructive feedback and tailor the Community Content you upload and post accordingly.
• Lawful Use:  Your use of the Community must be lawful and must comply with all applicable laws.
• Other Persons’ Rights: Your use of the Community must not infringe the legal rights of any other person (including privacy and personality rights, copyright, moral rights, and other intellectual property rights).
• No Data Collection:Your use of the Community and Community Content must not involve any unauthorized data matching or data mining, including without limitation the unauthorized collection or use of information about other the Community users (including their email addresses and other personal information).
• No Spam:You may not use the Community to (directly or indirectly) post, upload, reproduce, distribute or otherwise transmit, or collect responses from or benefit from, any unauthorized or unsolicited email messages, unsolicited junk or bulk messages, unsolicited commercial messages, or other content promoting your products or services or other forms of spam.  The Foundation reserves the right to determine in its discretion whether a message constitutes spam.

Community Content

You may only upload Community Content that is relevant and appropriate. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you may not upload Community Content that:

• Violates the General Use Rules set forth above.
• Contains materials that are unlawful, indecent, offensive, defamatory, derogatory, fraudulent, deceptive, harmful, abusive, threatening, vulgar, profane, pornographic, obscene, sexually explicit, sexist, racist, hateful, offensive, harassing, invasive of the privacy rights of others, or otherwise objectionable (including any materials that depict, encourage, indicate, advocate for or tend to incite any of the foregoing).
• May harm, threaten, harass, abuse or intimidate any other person in any way or contains materials that depict, promote, encourage, indicate, advocate or tend to incite the commission of a crime or other unlawful activities, violence, hatred, cruelty or discrimination against any individuals or groups, for any reason, or any act of cruelty to animals.
• May dilute or depreciate the name and reputation of the Foundation and its affiliates or representatives, the Homegrown Innovation Challenge or any other program offered by the Foundation.
• Interferes with other persons’ use and enjoyment of the Community or the Homegrown Innovation Challenge generally.
• May disrupt, compromise or degrade the integrity, efficiency, performance or security of the Community or Community Content or that may otherwise or result in: (a) the circumvention or breach of any user authentication, password, security or control measures regarding the Community or any other Internet resource or computer system; (b) unauthorized access to accounts of other the Community users or Community Content (including Community Content posted to the Community); or (c) interference with the use and enjoyment of the Community by any other Community user.
• Conceals or misrepresents the author or origin of any messages or communication, or that impersonates any person, or that falsely state or otherwise misrepresent an affiliation with any other person, including without limitation any representative of the Foundation.
• Contains or discloses images or personal information of any person (such as names, telephone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses and social insurance numbers) without that person’s informed and legally valid consent.
• Contains any of the following materials, whether posted publicly or with password protection, whether directly or indirectly or intentionally or unintentionally: (a) executable programs or audio and video recordings without the Foundation’s prior written consent; (b) materials that contain computer viruses, trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots, or other computer code that may damage, harm, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate, interrupt, limit the functionality of, or otherwise adversely affect the Community or any other computer system, hardware, software, telecommunications equipment, data, or personal information; and (c) materials that are encrypted.

Monitoring and Complaints

The Foundation is not responsible or liable to you or any other person for Community Content. The Foundation is not obliged to monitor, screen, police or edit the use of the Community or Community Content, including postings of Community Content to the Community, although the Foundation reserves the right to do so in its sole discretion.

The Foundation will respond as it considers appropriate, in its discretion, if the Foundation becomes aware of any inappropriate uses of the Community or Community Content, including by reporting inappropriate uses to the operator of the online service. Community users may report violations of this Code of Conduct by sending an email to [email protected].

Compliance, Consequences and Law Enforcement Disclosure

The Foundation in its discretion may determine whether this Code of Conduct has been violated. If you violate this Code of Conduct, the Foundation may, in its discretion, without any notice or any liability to you or any person, do any of the following:

• require you to modify or remove the Community Content that violates this Code of Conduct;
• remove and permanently delete any Community Content you upload or post to the Community;
• terminate or suspend your access to the Community;
• share the Community Content you upload or post to the Community and your personal information with the operator of the online service for the purposes of removing and permanently deleting the Community Content or terminating or suspending your access to the Community;
• terminate or suspend your participation in the Homegrown Innovation Challenge or any other program offered by the Foundation;
• revoke any funding granted by the Foundation to you in connection with the Homegrown Innovation Challenge or any other program offered by the Foundation;
• require you to repay any funding previously advanced by the Foundation to you in connection with the Homegrown Innovation Challenge or any other program offered by the Foundation; and
• impose other consequences that the Foundation may determine in its discretion.

Community users who violate this Code of Conduct may incur criminal or civil liability.

The Foundation in its discretion may report perceived violations of applicable law to law enforcement authorities. The Foundation will cooperate fully with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected unlawful conduct, including by providing to law enforcement authorities your personal information and copies of Community Content uploaded or posted by you to the Community, as applicable.

The Foundation’s failure to enforce this Code of Conduct, for whatever reason, shall not be construed as a waiver of any preceding or subsequent violation of this Code of Conduct.

The Foundation may change this Code of Conduct at any time without notice to you or any other person.