Municipal Elections

• a Canadian citizen;
• at least 18 years old;
• residing in the local municipality or an owner or tenant of land there, or the spouse of such owner or tenant; and
• not otherwise prohibited from voting.

The following individuals cannot vote in a municipal election:

• a person serving a sentence of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution;
• a corporation; or
• a person convicted of a corrupt practice for an election held within four years of voting day.

A person who is acting as an executor or in any other representative capacity (e.g., power of attorney), cannot vote on behalf of the person they are representing unless they have been appointed as a voting proxy.

If a person has no permanent residence, then the following rules determine his or her residence:

1. The place in which the person most frequently returned to sleep or eat during the five weeks preceding the determination.
2. If the person returns with equal frequency to one place to sleep and another to eat, the place in which he or she sleeps.
3. Multiple returns to the same place during a single day, to eat or sleep, are considered to be one return.

A person's affidavit regarding the places to which he or she returned to eat or sleep during a given time period is conclusive, in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

Trailer owners in campgrounds are tenants of the campground; therefore, they are potentially eligible if they meet the requirements of Section 17(2) of the MEA, can provide a tenancy agreement showing that they are entitled to use the land on Voting Day (October 24, 2022).

Under a timeshare contract, to be eligible, the person must be able to prove that they are entitled to use the land on Voting Day or for a period of six weeks or more during the calendar year in which the election is held.

• An Ontario driver's licence 
• An Ontario Health Card (photo card) 
• An Ontario Photo Card 
• An Ontario motor vehicle permit (vehicle portion) 
• A cancelled personalized cheque

• Different last/first names (eg: married, and birth names)
• Different birth dates on the voters' list
• Different addresses
• and a combination of the above

The Clerk’s Department conducts an extensive review of possible duplicates identified (flagged by our Voters’ List software Voterview) before issuing the Voting PIN Letters. We will remove duplicate names where it is appropriate, but keep both electors if they appear to be twin siblings, or two different people with very similar names/birthdates.

This process has been completed in every Northern Bruce Peninsula Election in the past as it was possible that duplicate Mail-In-Voting kits/PIN Letters were mailed to one elector, however each election some duplicates are discovered following the initial mailing.

What to do with a duplicate? Electors should contact the Municipal Office (519-793-3522 X236) and let us know right away. We will deactivate the duplicate PIN letter (by deleting the elector) as soon as possible to ensure the extra PIN cannot be used to vote twice.

Why does this most commonly happen? Our experience with duplicates tells us that often one of the duplicate PIN Letters is usually not associated with any birthdate information in our Voters’ List software. If this is the case, the 'duplicate elector' would not be able to vote with the second PIN, as all electors must enter a valid birth date to vote (the voting system will not allow someone to leave the year of birth blank for security purposes). So even if someone receives two Voting PIN letters, they likely won't be able to vote with one of them, until they call the Municipal Office.

What happens if I am able to vote twice using two Northern Bruce Peninsula PIN Letters? All electors when voting must accept the oath that states in part: “Section 89 of the Municipal Elections Act, 1996, as amended, provides that a person is guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to a fine of not more than $25,000, if they…votes more times than this Act allows;”. If an elector votes twice in Northern Bruce Peninsula with either a duplicate Voting PIN Letter, or any another Voting PIN Letter, they are violating the Municipal Elections Act.

Someone moved away that received a PIN Letter: Electors who received Voting PIN letters from family members who have moved away should be advised to send the letters back in the mail “Return to Sender-Moved”.

Activities that do not involve spending money, such as discussions or expressing an opinion about a candidate (or an answer to a question on the ballot) are not considered to be third party advertising. Examples include:

• speaking to friends and neighbours
• posting on social media, such as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
• sending an email to a group or mailing list

Only those who have registered can spend money on third party advertising. The following are eligible to register as a third party advertiser:

• any person who is a resident in Ontario
• a corporation carrying on business in Ontario
• a trade union that holds bargaining rights for employees in Ontario

If two or more corporations are owned or controlled by the same person or people, or if one corporation controls another, they are considered to be a single corporation. If the same person or people own or control multiple corporations, only one of those corporations may register to be a third party in a municipality.

There is no restriction against family members or campaign staff of candidates registering to be third party advertisers. However, third party advertising must be done independently of the candidate. If a person with close ties to a candidate wishes to register they should consider how these activities may look to the public and how they would be able to demonstrate that they were not working in co-ordination with the candidate.

A candidate running for any municipal council or school board office cannot register to be a third party advertiser in any municipality.

Groups, associations or businesses that are not corporations are not eligible to register and may not spend money on third party advertising in municipal elections. For example, neighbourhood associations, clubs or professional associations cannot register and cannot make contributions to third party advertisers. Members may register as individual third party advertisers and may contribute individually.

Candidates in the provincial election cannot register. They may register after the provincial election, when they are no longer candidates.

Federal and provincial political parties cannot register to be third party advertisers. Political parties are not permitted to be financially involved in municipal elections.

An individual, corporation or trade union must register with the municipal clerk to be a third party advertiser in a municipality.

The first day that a third party advertiser can file their notice of registration is May 2, 2022. A third-party advertiser cannot raise or spend money on their campaign, nor begin advertising, until their registration is certified by the Clerk.  Upon receiving a third-party advertiser’s nomination, the Clerk will provide them with their preliminary spending limits.

Being registered in a municipality allows the third party to advertise to the voters in that municipality. A third party advertiser can support or oppose any candidate or candidates who will be voted on by the people in that municipality. This includes candidates running for local council and school trustee.

Third party advertisers do not need to decide before they register which candidate or candidates they want to support or oppose, and they do not have to tell the clerk what their intentions are.

A third party can only advertise to voters in the municipality where they are registered. There is no limit on the number of municipalities where a third party can register. If a third party wants to advertise to voters in more than one municipality they must register in each municipality where they wish to advertise.

The municipal clerk must be satisfied that that the individual, corporation or trade union is eligible in order to certify the registration, and may require that identification or additional documents be provided.

A person who is filing as the representative of a corporation or a trade union should make sure that they can provide proof that they are authorized to act on the corporation or trade union’s behalf.

A third party advertiser must provide the following information on all of its advertisements, signs and other materials:

• the legal name of the registered third party (if the third party is a corporation or trade union, the name of the corporation or trade union must appear, not the name of the representative who filed the registration)
• the municipality where the third party is registered
• a telephone number, mailing address or email address where the third party can be contacted

A registered individual cannot act on behalf of a group or organization that is not eligible to register as a third party advertiser. For example, if Chris Smith is the president of a business improvement association (BIA), the signs and materials must identify Chris Smith as the person responsible for the advertising, not the BIA.

If ads are going to be broadcast or published (e.g. on a radio station or in a newspaper), the ad must contain the information required above, and the third party advertiser must also provide the broadcaster or publisher with the following:

• the name of the registered third party
• the name, business address and telephone number of the individual who deals with the broadcaster or publisher under the direction of the registered third party
• the municipality where the third party is registered