About BarrieVotes.ca
Who runs this site, who pays for it, and the rules it holds itself to. A site asking you to trust its numbers owes you this page first.
Who runs this site
BarrieVotes.ca is built and run by one person: Jay Gerbrandt, a Canadian private individual, working in his spare time. There is no staff, no organization, and no one else behind it.
Before building websites he spent a decade in strategy work: consulting at Bain & Company (2014–2018), corporate strategy at Rivian (2020–2023), and a Series B fundraise at EvenUp (2023). He studied history at Harvard, taught himself web development in 2024, and has since built several sites, including a nonprofit atlas of Indigenous place names (squirrelridge.org). More at jaygerbrandt.com.
One family connection is worth stating plainly. Jay's mother, Bonnie North, has stood for office in Barrie six times: once for council and five times federally and provincially between 2014 and 2022. Her civic commitment inspired the research behind this site and its creation. Bonnie is not running in 2026, holds no role in the site, and her candidacies are recorded here under exactly the same rules as everyone else's.
Why this site exists
Information about Barrie's municipal elections is scattered: City pages, PDFs that move or disappear, and news archives behind paywalls. Much of the historical record survives only in the Internet Archive. This site gathers it into one place where every figure can be checked against the document underneath it.
Independence and funding
The site is self-funded and unpaid. It carries no advertising, no sponsorship, and takes no donations. Jay does not work for the City of Barrie, any candidate, any party, or any campaign; he has no financial stake in any race and the site endorses no one. If any of that ever changes, this page will say so before it does.
BarrieVotes.ca is an unofficial resource. For anything that determines whether or how your vote counts, the City's election office is the authority: barrie.ca, Be.Counted@barrie.ca, or (705) 728-VOTE (8683).
How this site is built
A small PHP site with no framework, no tracking, and no build step. It is developed with AI-assisted coding tools and reviewed by hand; every published figure is checked against the official documents listed on the Sources page before it goes live. The sourcing rules themselves are on the Methodology page, and everything that changes on the site is recorded at Updates.
Contact and corrections
Reach the site at team@barrievotes.ca. Found something wrong? The Corrections page explains how to report it and logs every correction ever made. Candidates who want their information updated can write to the same address.