EXEMPTIONS LEAVE DO-NOT-CALL REGISTRY WITHOUT TEETH Many groups will still be able to interrupt your dinner Steven Chase – Globe and Mail Canadians are one step closer to gaining some power to block unwanted telemarketing calls after Ottawa's phone regulator set wheels in motion Tuesday to create a countrywide do-not-call registry.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission laid out rules governing a do-not-call database of phone numbers that consumers can join if they wish to be left off telemarketing lists.
But this registry won't entirely silence unsolicited calls because Ottawa has exempted a series of telephone-reliant organizations from the ban and left open a loophole that many businesses can exploit.
Political parties, registered charities, pollsters and newspapers will still be able to make unsolicited calls to Canadians.
Also, any company that has an “existing business relationship” with a consumer – because it sold them goods or services – can call that person for up to 18 months after the transaction is concluded.
“I ended up dubbing this the do-not-hesitate-to-call list because once you've excluded all these groups, you start wondering who's left,” University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist said.
Companies can also call someone who is not a customer for up to six months after an individual contacts them to make an inquiry. The only recourse open for consumers in all these cases is to inform the businesses calling to register them with that organization's own internal do-not-call list.
CRTC officials said it was federal legislators in 2005 who wrote the bill and they are just following orders. The bill was passed with opposition support under the previous Liberal government.
Prof. Geist said the legislation was gutted by various exemptions. Proponents of these exceptions justified them on the grounds that there is a public interest at stake.
He pointed out that Canada's “existing business relationship” exemption grants a longer telemarketing period to companies in some cases than similar rules in the United States.
The CRTC could not say when the do-not-call list will be up and running, even though it has already been 20 months since the bill to create the registry became law.
The commission said it will shortly call for bids in the hunt for a private operator to run the do-not-call registry, saying this process will take several months. Once it is set up, Canadians will be able to contact the registry without charge and register their telephone numbers to be excluded from telemarketing lists.
Telemarketers will have 31 days to update their phone lists after someone registers.
The CRTC says it will be responsible for probing complaints about breaches of the rules and will have the power to levy fines of up to $1,500 per individual and as much as $15,000 for corporations.
The cost of administering the registry will be funded by subscription fees paid to the list operator by telemarketers.
James Rajotte, a Conservative MP who was on the Commons industry committee that helped rewrite the do-not-call-legislation in 2005 and who is now chair of the same body, said he thinks the exemptions allowed are justifiable.
He said he is willing to re-examine the legislation after the do-not-call list database gets up and running.
Registrations on the national do-not-call list will expire after three years and Canadians will have to re-register with the database in order to continue to avoid telemarketing calls. |