Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Philosophy

We value the trust that you have placed in our organization and are committed to prioritizing commitment to maintaining the accuracy, confidentiality, and security of personal information. We will not collect, use or disclose your personal information without your informed consent, unless required or permitted to do so by law. Read through this Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) so you understand how we use, share, and store your data.

Our Policy

In this Privacy Policy, “Canso”, “we”, or “us” refers to Canso Investment Counsel Ltd. (“CIC”) and its affiliate Canso Fund Management Ltd. (“CFM”)(collectively, “Canso”). All services mentioned are services provided by CIC, as portfolio manager and exempt market dealer and CFM, as an investment fund manager, as applicable.

“You” refers to anyone who visits our website(s), our clients and investors in our funds, and anyone who engages with our services. It’s our duty to inform you about what we’re doing with your personal information and why, and ensure you are properly informed so you can give us meaningful consent.

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “personal information” means information that: (i) can identify an individual directly; or (ii) is information about an identifiable individual. This does not include information that is used solely for the purpose of communicating or facilitating communication with an individual in relation to their employment, business, or profession.

Agreeing to the Terms of Our Privacy Policy

By providing personal information to Canso, using our website including www.cansofunds.com (collectively, the “Website”), or engaging with our social media, you are consenting to our use, collection, and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy. Providing personal information or authorizing a third party (such as your investment advisor or dealer in the case of CFM) to disclose personal information to us signifies your consent to Canso’s collection, use, and disclosure of personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

You have the right to withdraw your consent from us collecting and using your personal information, but this may limit our ability to provide you with our services or products, if applicable. See below for details around same.

Types of Information Collected

The type of information that may be collected by CIC and/or CFM, as applicable, includes but is not limited to:

  • Contact information: this information allows us to identify you as well as send you materials. It lets us communicate with you for instructions and requests. It includes your name, mailing address, email address, and telephone number.
  • Banking information: including your bank account information, billing address, or other banking and financial information required to complete your order.
  • Date of birth: this information allows us to fulfill our legal obligation to establish your identity and helps protect against error identity theft, and fraud.
  • Employment History: we collect this information to better understand your unique financial situation and investment needs, and to help us fulfill our Know Your Client and Suitability determination obligations.
  • Social Insurance Number: we obtain your Social Insurance Number (SIN) for tax reporting purposes. We may also use your SIN for credit reporting or monitoring purposes, and to distinguish you from other persons or clients.
  • Information required to comply with applicable laws and regulations: including your date of birth, home address, marital status, employment history, criminal record history, bankruptcy history, disciplinary history, passport, driver’s license, SIN, Tax Identification Number (TIN), investment history, account numbers, if there is a spousal account or not, performance of investments, size of investments.
  • Profile information: may include your username and password, requests made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback, and survey responses.
  • Transaction information: includes details about payments to and from you and other details of subscriptions and redemptions you have requested from us, including product information and dollar values.
  • Marketing and communications information includes communication preferences and your preferences in receiving marketing or other communications from us and third parties.
  • Computer information: this includes information like device type, device identifier, IP address, MAC address, location, browser type, operating system, duration of use, user behaviour, length of time spent on the services, and frequency of use; and
  • Other information you voluntarily provide to us, our service providers, or our contractors.

Information will be collected by fair and lawful means. We won’t take more information than we need, and you decide how and what you want to share.

Why We Collect Your Information

At Canso, we collect and use personal information for reasons like:

  • Fulfillment of portfolio management and investment counselling services: to fulfill advisory and dealing requests and access services with us as our client.
  • Fulfillment of subscription/redemption requests of Canso funds and other services: to fulfill subscription/redemption requests and access services with us.
  • Business and website operations: to administer and protect our business and this Website, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data.
  • Marketing and advertising: to be presented on our website. We may also administer and offer tailored content, and other promotional materials to you based on your interests.
  • Regulatory requirements: complying generally with all laws and applicable regulatory requirements, including securities legislation and regulations, know your client obligations, AML regulations, FATCA and CRS reporting, client reporting, CRA obligations, and confirmation of resident status; and
  • Business development and market research: we use data to understand demographics, interests, usage patterns, and other characteristics of clients and to track and analyze trends and patterns.

We will obtain your consent before proceeding with any other purpose not identified in this Privacy Policy.

How We Collect Your Information

Personal information may be collected in a number of ways, including through our website, in person, by mail, by email, from our applications or other software, and from third parties such as investment advisors and dealers whom you have authorized to disclose personal information to us.

If you provide information about a third party or authorize a third party to do so, we will assume you have taken proper measures to obtain informed consent.

Cookies

We may also collect information through “cookies” on our website. Cookies are small text files inside your computer that contain a unique identifier, allowing us to recognize you when you visit our website again. This helps us tailor our content to meet your needs and for advertising purposes. You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. By accepting cookies and continuing to visit or use our Website, you are agreeing to the use of cookies and similar technologies for the purposes we describe in this Privacy Policy.

Cookies can be used to: (i) recognize you when you visit the Website, remember your preferences, and give you a personalized experience that’s in line with your settings, (ii) make your interactions with the website faster and more secure, and (iii) bring you advertising and customized experiences through personalization. Further, cookies are used for authentication, security, and research.

To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit wikipedia.org, allaboutcookies.org, or aboutcookies.org.

Social media

If you post a review, make a comment, or otherwise submit personal information on a public forum such as social media accounts or other applications, your communications may be viewable by the public.

Who We Share Your Information With

Canso may share your information with third parties. Canso will do so to support with providing our services, administering our business, and for such other purposes as set forth below, including:

  • Contractors, service providers and affiliates: sending duplicate T3s to investment advisors who request a copy of their clients’ T3s, and sharing your information with companies we use for storage, processing, and delivery of services (including information collected by our fund administrator and our print service provider for opt-in mailer and postcards as required under securities regulations).
  • Administrative and technical support: including cloud storage providers, IT support, and data analytics providers.
  • Financial institutions and payment processors: we may store your banking or other financial information in connection with the fulfillment of subscription/redemption requests. This is shared directly with our third-party financial institutions and payment processors as applicable, all of which are separate legal entities, to provide you with a range of products and services.
  • Securities and tax regulators: including applicable governmental and regulatory entities required as part of securities and tax law compliance such as submitting exempt trade reports to securities regulators.

We may also disclose personal information in situations where we are legally required or permitted to do so. These situations may include criminal investigations, government tax reporting requirements, court orders, or instances where we believe the rights and safety of others may be at risk. We may be ordered by a court to disclose personal information to a third party or to the court, or to preserve personal information pending the outcome of a legal hearing. We may also be legally required to disclose information in connection with the collection or repayment of a debt, to assist in the prevention of fraud or other criminal activity, when we obtain legal advice from a lawyer, or in an emergency that affects the health or safety of an individual.

In the instances described above we may be required to share your personal information with or without your consent. In limited circumstances, we may be legally prohibited from advising you that your information was shared in this way.

If you believe that a third party has inappropriately disclosed your personal information to us, please contact that third party directly. If the third party does not sufficiently respond to your inquiries, please let the Chief Privacy Officer know immediately.

Accuracy

We make every reasonable effort to keep your personal information as accurate, complete, and up to date as necessary. We encourage you to verify the accuracy and completeness of your personal information in our records.

Despite our efforts, errors sometimes do occur. Should you identify any incorrect or out-of-date information in your file, we will remedy any such errors on a timely basis. In the event that inaccurate information is mistakenly sent to a third party, we will communicate relevant changes to the third party where
appropriate.

Protecting Your Personal Information

Our employees and contractors understand the importance of keeping your information private. All employees and contractors are expected to maintain the confidentiality of personal information.

To ensure that your personal information is protected, we utilize security safeguards that are on par with industry standards. We keep electronic files in a secured environment with restricted access and use.

Despite all the foregoing security measures, online storage and online communications are not entirely secure. We encourage all individuals to provide only the information they are comfortable with providing a third party, keep watch for communications that are suspicious, and report any suspicious activity to us as soon as possible. As a community, we can all help keep it safe.

Opting-out

You may withdraw your consent for our use and collection of your personal information at any time, however this may limit our ability to provide services or products to you, if applicable.

To withdraw consent, please contact us at the contact information set out at the end of this Privacy Policy. Any withdrawal of consent will apply thereafter and not to information handling practice that have been previously undertaken based on prior consent.

You may opt-out of use of cookies through your browser settings. You can opt-out of targeted ads served via specific third-party vendors by visiting the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Opt-Out page or the Network Advertising Initiative’s Opt-Out page.

Updating this Privacy Policy

Canso strives to evolve to meet our clients’ and investors’ needs and expectations, and that means our services, how we offer our products and how we communicate information may change. With that in mind, we review our privacy practices from time to time, and our information handling practices may change. If Canso makes a material change to this Privacy Policy, we will provide a revised version on our website and set out the date on which changes were made. Changes shall take effect upon posting on our Website of such changes. You may determine when this Privacy Policy was last updated by referring to the date found at the bottom of this Privacy Policy. If at any point you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, you must not use the Canso platform, Website, or services.

Website and Apps Governed by this Privacy Policy

Our website and any of our applications available from our website or third-party platforms are governed by the provisions and practices stated in this Privacy Policy. Our Website and such applications may contain links to third party sites or applications that are not governed by this Privacy Policy. Although we endeavour to only link to sites or applications that share our commitment to your privacy, please be aware that this Privacy Policy will no longer apply once you leave our website or such applications, and that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party sites or applications. We therefore suggest that you closely examine the respective privacy policies of third-party sites and applications to learn how they collect, use, and disclose your personal information.

Governing Law

This Privacy Policy and all related matters shall be interpreted and construed in accordance with the laws of the Province of Ontario and the applicable federal laws of Canada.

Personal Information Outside of Canada

Personal information provided to our service providers may be stored outside of Ontario and outside of Canada. You acknowledge and agree that, as a result, your personal information may be processed, used, stored, or accessed in other jurisdictions and may be subject to the laws of those jurisdictions. For example, information may be disclosed in response to valid demands or requests from government authorities, courts, or law enforcement in other countries.

Addressing Your Inquiries and Concerns

We are happy to provide you with a copy of this Privacy Policy and to discuss any of its content with you.

We have designated a Chief Privacy Officer who is responsible for maintaining and implementing this Privacy Policy. Please direct all questions or enquiries about this Privacy Policy to:

Attention: Chief Privacy Officer

Email: privacy@cansofunds.com

Canso Investment Counsel Ltd.
100 York Boulevard, Suite 550
Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 1J8

Telephone: 905-881-8853

Last revised: February 2023