1. Scope and our approach
This policy describes how the Cynthia McCutcheon Ward 2 campaign handles personal information collected through this campaign website, direct campaign communications, volunteer and lawn-sign requests, and campaign contribution administration.
The campaign is a municipal election campaign, not a government institution. Canadian federal private-sector privacy law is primarily directed at commercial activity and does not generally regulate ordinary non-commercial political activity. The campaign nevertheless adopts privacy practices based on Canadian fair-information principles and complies with the specific election-law rules that apply to municipal campaigns in Ontario.
2. Information we may collect
Depending on how you interact with the campaign, we may collect:
- your name, email address, postal code and any message you send through the website;
- volunteer interests, event participation, lawn-sign requests and other campaign preferences you choose to provide;
- records of direct communications with the campaign;
- where you make or inquire about a campaign contribution, the information required to determine eligibility, issue a receipt, maintain campaign records and complete the candidate’s financial statement, including contributor name, address, contribution amount and date;
- limited technical information generated by web hosting or form-processing services, such as IP address, browser information, date/time and security logs.
This site does not currently use behavioural advertising pixels or campaign-operated analytics cookies.
3. How we use information
We use information for legitimate campaign and electoral purposes, including to:
- respond to questions, requests and Ward 2 issues;
- coordinate volunteers, events, canvassing and lawn signs;
- send campaign information or updates where requested or reasonably connected to your campaign interaction;
- administer permitted campaign contributions and meet record-keeping and financial-reporting obligations;
- protect the website and campaign systems from fraud, spam and misuse;
- comply with Ontario election law and other applicable legal obligations.
We do not sell or rent personal information.
4. Ontario municipal voters’ list information
If the campaign receives the Ward 2 portion of the municipal voters’ list from the Clerk under the Municipal Elections Act, 1996, that information is handled separately from ordinary website submissions.
- The voters’ list is used only for electoral purposes and not for commercial purposes.
- It is shared only as permitted by the Act and only after the required written acknowledgements are obtained.
- The campaign tracks persons who receive copies.
- Physical and electronic copies are returned or securely destroyed as required.
- The candidate must destroy the voters’ list copies by the end of the campaign period. Written acknowledgements and destruction confirmations are retained for the statutory period.
The campaign does not publish the municipal voters’ list on this website and does not intentionally submit voters’ list data through the website contact form.
5. Contributions and public financial reporting
Ontario municipal-election law requires candidates to keep detailed campaign financial records. The campaign records contributor information needed to assess contribution eligibility and meet those obligations.
If an individual’s contributions to the campaign total more than $100, the contributor’s name and address must be reported on the candidate’s financial statement. The financial statement is a public document. Campaign financial records must be retained through the period required by Ontario election law.
6. Campaign email and electronic communications
Most political messages are not commercial electronic messages for purposes of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, and contribution solicitations by political candidates are generally excluded from the consent requirement in section 6 of CASL. As a campaign practice, we will nevertheless honour reasonable requests to stop receiving campaign email or text updates.
You can withdraw from campaign updates at any time by replying with a request to unsubscribe or emailing 2026itstime@gmail.com.
7. Service providers and data location
This website is hosted using GitHub Pages, a service provided by GitHub, Inc., and uses FormSubmit to process website form submissions. GitHub, FormSubmit, email providers and other campaign service providers may process technical or submitted information on systems located outside Ontario or outside Canada, where it may be subject to the laws of that jurisdiction. The campaign limits the information requested through the website to information reasonably needed for campaign, electoral and contribution-administration purposes.
Do not use the public website form to send highly sensitive information. Contact the campaign directly if a matter requires a more appropriate communication channel.
8. Retention and deletion
Ordinary website inquiries, volunteer information and campaign-contact records are kept only as long as reasonably needed for the campaign, follow-up, compliance and orderly campaign close-out, after which they are deleted, anonymized or securely archived as appropriate.
Records that Ontario election law requires the campaign to keep are retained for the applicable statutory period. Voters’ list copies are subject to the separate destruction requirements described above.
9. Safeguards
The campaign uses reasonable administrative and technical safeguards appropriate to the nature of the information, including limiting access to campaign personnel and volunteers who need the information, using password-protected accounts, avoiding unnecessary collection, and separating election-law records from public website content.
No internet transmission or electronic storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.
10. Your choices and requests
You may contact the campaign to ask what information you have provided directly through this website, request a correction, withdraw consent for future campaign updates, or ask that ordinary campaign-contact information be deleted where it is no longer needed.
Some information cannot be deleted on request where the campaign must retain it to comply with election law, financial reporting, legal obligations or the integrity of campaign records.
11. External links
This website links to the City of Sault Ste. Marie, social-media platforms and other third-party services. Those sites operate under their own privacy practices. The campaign is not responsible for third-party privacy policies or content.
12. Contact
Questions, privacy requests or concerns may be sent to:
Cynthia McCutcheon Campaign
Ward 2 · Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Email: 2026itstime@gmail.com
