Privacy policy and terms of use

This website is operated by the campaign to elect Jon Christensen as city councillor for Ward 5 in the City of Guelph, in the municipal election on October 26, 2026. It is a campaign website, not a City of Guelph website.

Questions about anything on this page can go to jon@jonchristensen.ca or through the contact page.

Information you give us directly. When you sign up for updates, volunteer, request a lawn sign, RSVP to an event, make a donation, or send a message, we keep what you provide. Depending on what you are doing that can include your name, email address, phone number, street or postal address, and anything you write in a message.

Information collected automatically as you use the site. This includes the pages visited, the general type of device and browser used, the website or link that brought you here, and similar technical information. If the campaign sends you an email, we may also record whether it was opened.

Information entered into tools on the site. Some pages offer interactive tools. Information entered into them is recorded and used for the purposes described below. This includes, for example, addresses entered into the ward lookup.

Information gathered in the field. If you speak with the candidate or a volunteer at your door, at an event, or on the phone, notes from that conversation may be recorded in the campaign's records.

These are the only reasons information is collected:

• To reply to you when you get in touch
• To send campaign updates, if you have asked to receive them
• To organise the campaign — planning which neighbourhoods and streets to visit, arranging volunteers, running events, and delivering lawn signs
• To understand how the website is being used and make it better
• To meet the campaign's legal obligations, including the record-keeping and financial reporting required of candidates under Ontario's Municipal Elections Act, 1996

Information collected here is used for this campaign. It is not sold, rented, or traded, and it is not given to other candidates, parties, or commercial organisations.

There is one deliberate exception, and it only happens if you ask for it: reporting a broken sidewalk. That is explained in full below.

The sidewalk reporting tool on this site is the only place where information you give the campaign is passed to someone else, and it only happens because that is the point of the tool. Nothing is sent anywhere until you tick the box asking for it and then confirm, by pressing the button in the email sent to the address you gave.

When you report a broken sidewalk and ask to have it filed, this is exactly what happens:

• Your name and phone number go to the City of Guelph on their own sidewalk service request form, because the City requires both. The report is made in your name, on your behalf.
• That happens automatically when you confirm. Pressing the button in the confirmation email is what sends the form. Nobody at the campaign reads your report and decides whether it goes; the one thing a person may look at is the photo, below.
• The email address on that form is the campaign's, not yours. That is how the campaign is able to see what the City says in reply and keep track of how long repairs take. Every reply is forwarded straight back to you. The City also has your phone number, so they can reach you directly.
• The text sent to the City says plainly that the report came through this site, that it was submitted on your behalf with your permission, and where replies go. Nothing about it is hidden from the City.
• The location you marked and the photo you took appear on a public map.Your name is never shown there. Reports are credited only to “a resident”.
• Photos are checked automatically before they are published. Anything that is not a picture of a damaged sidewalk or curb is rejected, and photos that show a person, a face, a licence plate or a readable house number are not published. When that check is not sure, the report is held and Jon looks at the picture himself before anything is sent or published.
• Every so often you may get a short email asking whether the sidewalk is still broken. It takes one click to answer, and one click to stop being asked.

If you change your mind at any point, get in touch and the report will be removed from the public map and the photo deleted. A request already sent to the City belongs to the City's own records, so ask them directly to withdraw it.

The public map shows two things side by side, always labelled: the sidewalks residents have reported through this site, and the City's own sidewalk maintenance records for 2023 to 2025, which the City released to election candidates in August 2026. Nothing a resident reports here is added to the City's records by this campaign, and the campaign does not speak for the City.

Donations are processed by Stripe, which handles the card details directly — the campaign never sees or stores your full card number.

Ontario election law requires candidates to keep records of contributions and to file a financial statement with the City of Guelph after the election. Contributor information is disclosed as that law requires, and those filings become part of the public record.

A small number of service providers process information so the website can work — for website hosting, storing the campaign's records, sending email, processing donations, and counting website visits. They act on the campaign's instructions.

Beyond that, information is shared in only two situations: where the law requires it, such as the election filings described above, and where you have asked for it by reporting a broken sidewalk, in which case your name and phone number go to the City of Guelph on a service request made in your name. That one is set out in full under Reporting a broken sidewalk.

This site uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages people find useful. It sets cookies in your browser and sends Google information about the pages you view, roughly where in the world you are, and what kind of device and browser you are using.

It is used to answer questions like whether people are finding the ward lookup, not to identify anyone. The campaign does not link this information to your name, does not use it for advertising, and does not build profiles of individual visitors.

If you would rather not be counted, most browsers let you block cookies, and Google publishes a browser add-on that opts you out of Google Analytics on every site. Either one works here, and nothing on this site stops working if you use them.

Some of the campaign's tools, such as the ward lookup, can be embedded on other people's websites. Where that happens, this policy still applies to the tool itself: information entered into it comes to this campaign and is used for the purposes set out above. The website hosting the tool has its own policies covering everything else it does.

Every campaign email has an unsubscribe link. Unsubscribing here means your record is deleted, not quietly kept on a list somewhere.

You can also ask what information the campaign holds about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be removed. Email jon@jonchristensen.ca and it will be dealt with. The only exception is records the campaign is legally required to keep, such as contribution records.

Campaign records are kept while the campaign is running and for as long afterwards as election law requires. Records the law does not require are not kept indefinitely once the campaign has finished its reporting obligations.

You are welcome to use this website and the tools on it. In return, a few reasonable expectations:

• Use the site lawfully, and don't attempt to disrupt it or access parts of it you have not been given access to.
• Information here is provided in good faith and checked carefully, but it is provided as-is. For anything official about the election — candidate lists, ward boundaries, voting locations, deadlines — the City of Guelph is the authority, and you should confirm with guelph.ca.
• The ward lookup is a convenience built from the City's published data. It is accurate to the best of our knowledge but is not an official determination of your ward.
• The embeddable tools are offered free of charge and without warranty. They may be changed or withdrawn. If you embed one, please keep the credit line that comes with it.
• Campaign text, images, and design belong to the campaign. The published open data used by the tools belongs to the City of Guelph.

If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted here with a new date at the top.