Livable CRD sends the same questionnaire to every confirmed candidate and publishes the answers as written. Editing a candidate's words would defeat the point of asking. This page sets out the one limit on that, so it is a published rule rather than a judgement call made after the fact.
The short version. Say anything you want about policy, including about us. Do not attack people. Content that is hateful, harassing, or threatening is not graded and not published; the rest of your response still is, and you stay on the scorecard.
Who this applies to
Everyone whose words can end up in front of a voter through this project:
- Candidates, in questionnaire responses and in correspondence with us about them.
- Coalition members and volunteers, in the questions we write and in how we grade.
- Members of the public who submit questions for the questionnaire.
Questions submitted to the coalition are screened against the same standard before they reach the questionnaire, so no candidate is asked to respond to a question that breaches it.
The standard
A response breaches this code if it does any of the following.
- Attacks or demeans people for who they are, on any ground protected by the B.C. Human Rights Code, including race, ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital or family status, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and age. Indigenous peoples, immigrants and refugees, unhoused people, people who use drugs, and people with disabilities come up repeatedly in the policy areas we cover; a position on a policy is fair game, contempt for the people affected by it is not.
- Uses slurs or dehumanizing language, including language that describes a group of people as vermin, a disease, an infestation, or a burden to be removed.
- Threatens, incites, or endorses violence against any person or group.
- Harasses a named individual: another candidate, a public servant, a journalist, a coalition volunteer, or a resident.
- Publishes private information about a third party, such as a home address, phone number, immigration status, or medical history.
- Makes a defamatory factual claim about a named person that the candidate cannot substantiate. Characterizing someone's record is fine; asserting a discreditable fact you cannot back up is not.
What this is not
This code is about conduct, not agreement. It is worth being explicit, because a rule like this is easy to suspect of being a rule about opinions.
- Disagreeing with the coalition is not a breach. Every confirmed candidate is sent the questionnaire regardless of their platform or whether we expect them to agree with us, and that does not change here. Say the scorecard is wrong, say our questions are loaded, say a policy we favour would be a disaster. Answers arguing against coalition positions are published in full, like any other.
- A low grade is not a conduct finding, and a conduct finding is not a grade. Grades come from the published methodology and measure positions against coalition goals. The two are decided separately and reported separately.
- Blunt, angry, or unflattering writing is not a breach. The line is people, not tone.
What happens if a response breaches it
Nothing here removes a candidate from the scorecard. Every confirmed candidate keeps their row, as described in how candidates get added.
- We email the candidate at the address on their response, quote the passage, name which part of the standard it trips, and invite a revision. Nothing is published in the meantime.
- The candidate can revise or withdraw that answer up to the published response deadline. A revised answer is graded and published normally, with no note that it was revised.
- If it is not revised, that answer is not published and not graded. The question is shown as withheld under the code of conduct, the candidate's other answers are published and graded as usual, and the affected topic grade stays pending rather than being scored as a failure.
- Threats and incitement are handled differently. Where a response threatens someone, we may decline to publish it in full without inviting a revision, and we will report it to the police or another appropriate authority.
We keep the original response on file either way. We will not quote a withheld passage in our own publicity or social media; the point is that it does not get amplified, and that applies to us too.
Who decides
No single person and no single organization. A response is set aside only if at least two coalition members from different member organizations agree it breaches the standard, and any disagreement goes to the wider coalition rather than to whoever raised it. Each decision is recorded with the passage, the clause relied on, and who took part, so the reasoning survives past the election.
A candidate who thinks a decision is wrong can reply to the email or write to [email protected]. Appeals are reviewed by coalition members who were not part of the original decision.
Questions
If you are a candidate and unsure whether something you want to say falls on the wrong side of this, ask before you submit: [email protected]. We would much rather answer that question early than withhold an answer later.