Small businesses that are based in Canada, legally licensed or registered to operate in Canada, have 50 employees or less, and are in good financial standing (no petition in bankruptcy or insolvency) are eligible for nomination.

In order to qualify to win a Grant Prize, a small business must remain in good financial standing throughout the contest period, including winner selection.

Two (2) of the five (5) Grant Prizes will be reserved exclusively for Purolator customers. For the purposes of this contest, a Purolator customer is defined as having a Purolator Business Account in good standing at the time of contest entry and the winner announcement, and has made at least one shipment between November 5, 2024 to November 5, 2025.

There is additional criteria related to Purolator employees, their vendors/partners, and family members and individuals they are domiciled with. Please see the full Contest Rules for more information.

Should you have additional questions about eligibility, please contact us at support@purolator.com.

You can nominate a small business if you are a legal resident of Canada who has reached the age of majority in your Province or Territory of residence at the time of entry, and be:

• A small business owner or founder self-nominating your own business, OR
• A community member of a small business which includes:
  • Customer
  • Employee
  • Family/Friend
  • Community Member
  • Partner/Vendor
  • Purolator Frontline Employee

For the purposes of this contest, a “Purolator Employee” is defined as a Purolator Inc. employee. Purolator Inc. director, executive, or employees involved with the development or execution of the program are not eligible to submit a nomination. There are additional criteria related to Purolator employees, their vendors/partners, and family members and individuals they are domiciled with. Please see the full Contest Rules for more information.

Should you have additional questions about eligibility, please contact us at support@purolator.com.

We encourage communities to rally behind their favourite small businesses and support them through nominations. A small business may be nominated as many times as possible, however, each nomination must be submitted by a unique individual and the content of each submission must also be unique, as determined by the contest administrator and/or judging panel.

Individual nominators can submit up to five (5) individual small businesses for the True North Small Business Grant Contest. Each nomination must be submitted separately, for a different small business, and be unique, as determined by the contest administrator and/or judging panel.

Any attempt to create false nominations may result in disqualification.

For more information, please see the full Contest Rules.

There are five (5) Grant Prizes, each consisting of:

• $25,000 cash
• $500 in Purolator shipping credits

Two (2) of the five (5) Grant Prizes will be reserved exclusively for Purolator customers.^† For the purposes of these Rules, a Purolator customer is defined as having a Purolator Business Account in good standing at the time of contest entry and the winner announcement, and has made at least one shipment between November 5, 2024 to November 5, 2025.

The selected Grant Prize recipients will be free to use the $25,000 cash prize in any way that legally benefits their business. There are thirty-three (33) Finalist Prizes each consisting of a $500 Visa‡ gift card available to each of the eligible small business Finalists who are selected to be in the Top 33. The Finalist Prizes will be allocated regionally:

Purolator reserves the right to change the regional allocation if there are no suitable finalist candidates in a region, as set out by the criteria in Section 18. Thirteen (13) of the thirty-three (33) Finalist Prizes will be reserved exclusively for Purolator customers.

There are twelve (12) Nomination Prizes each consisting of a $500 Visa^‡ gift card available to eligible nominators. Four (4) of the twelve (12) Nomination Prizes will be reserved for a Purolator Employee and shall be done by a separate draw.

All prizes valued in Canadian dollars (CAD) and are inclusive of HST.

For more information, please see the full Contest Rules.

All nominations must be submitted online by November 5, 2025, 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time (ET).

The Contest consists of three (3) important time periods:

1. Nomination submission period: 10:00:00 a.m. ET on September 10, 2025 to 11:59:59 p.m. ET on November 5, 2025
2. Entry evaluation and judging, and Grant Prize finalists and winner notification: November 6, 2025 up to March 9, 2026
3. Public announcement of Grant Prize winners and Finalists by March 31, 2026

• Take some time to review the entire nomination form before you start. All required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).
• Type and save your written answers in a separate document (such as Microsoft Word) and copy and paste them into the online form when you are ready to submit. This will ensure that you have a copy of your answers in case of technical issues.
• The main questions ask (1) how the nominated small business helps make Canada stronger, in 300 words or less (2) why the business deserves a grant in 250 words or less. If you need some help getting started, here are some ideas to consider:
  • How does this small business contribute to supporting Canadians on the local, national, and/or international levels?
  • What does this small business mean to you and/or the community?
  • How well does this small business represent Canadian strengths/values/innovation/entrepreneurship?
  • What makes this small business stand out?
  You may answer the question however you like and you do not have to address everything that the small business does. Focus on the best points that stand out for you and give detailed examples to help flesh out your answer.
• Consider reading the written portion aloud to hear how the writing flows. If you have to take a breath while reading a sentence, it may be too long and could be shortened into smaller sentences.
• Please double-check your spelling and grammar.
• Don’t miss the deadline! Submit your completed nomination form by November 5, 2025, at 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time (ET).

Should you have additional questions about eligibility, please contact us at support@purolator.com.

For each of the twelve (12) $500 Visa^‡ gift card Nomination Prizes, a random draw for each of the prizes will be pulled from the eligible nominator pools on November 19, 2025. Potential winners will be contacted by December 12, 2025. For more information, please see the full Contest Rules.

• Quality of Content: 35%
• Impact, Business Model and Values: 60%
• Community Support: 5%

Phase 1: each eligible small business nomination will be evaluated by a combination of AI software, a third party agency team and the Sponsor. A minimum of thirty-three (33) of the top entries will be selected to advance to Phase 2 based on the scoring criteria.

If you have any concerns about the AI process and you still wish to participate, please contact support@purolator.com.

Phase 2: the small businesses of the top entries will be contacted to provide supplementary material which may include more information about their business and a short video or interview on topics related to, “what would you like the judges to know about your business” and “what would the grant funds would be used for”. The supplementary material will be evaluated using the scoring criteria and up to twelve (12) of the top candidates will advance to Phase 3.

Phase 3: up to twelve (12) of the top candidates’ nominations and supplementary materials will be presented to the final judging panel who will review and score the candidates based on the criteria above to determine the five (5) recipients of the Grant Prizes. The remaining top Candidates from Phase 2 will be ranked in order of scoring, be declared as a Finalist Prize Winner.

Grant Prize recipients will be announced before March 31, 2026.

For more information, please see the full Contest Rules.
Should you have additional questions, please contact us at support@purolator.com.

Congratulations on your nomination! Someone in your community felt that your business deserved a shout out of appreciation!

At this point in the nomination process, nothing else is required from nominated businesses. If however, you would like to self-nominate and provide more information about your business, you are welcome to submit a nomination for the grant as well.

Once the nomination process is closed, our adjudication committee will determine who the finalist candidates are. At that point, we will reach out to the potential finalists to determine if they would like accept/decline moving forward in the grant process.

If you would like to decline the nomination, simply email us at support@purolator.com.

For media inquiries, please see our press release.

Should you have additional questions about the True North Small Business Grant Contest, please contact us at support@purolator.com.