Moldy Peaches

The much talked about Do-Not-Call registry is on track, barring a fall election, to become law early next year. Nearly four years after the United States took significant steps to eliminate unwanted telemarketing calls, a Canadian version of the Do-Not-Call registry is in the works. Prior to the House rising for the summer break, the Industry Committee reported back to the House on Bill C-37, the bill that would establish the registry.

This bill is long overdue. The average Canadian household is far too often contacted multiple times by Name-Only firms and they happen to phone exactly at supper time - a truly uncanny skill. Plus, I know how hard folks in Industry Canada have worked on this legislation. A hat tip to a good friend in Emerson's office, she deserves some credit.

The strongest advocate, beside the general public, for such a program is the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA). The CMA currently possess a "Do Not Contact Service (DNCS)" that enables individuals to reduce the number of marketing offers they receive by mail, telephone and fax. Consumers register to have their names removed from marketing lists held by members of the CMA. The database contains about 340,000 names. To their credit, however, they recognize that this is not enough.

There are some serious limitations with this self-policing approach. The DNCS only applies to companies that are members of the CMA. There's little the CMA can do to punish violators, except kick them out of the CMA.

The proposed legislation unveiled by the federal government on Dec. 13, 2004, is modelled on the American registry. The bill calls for fines of $1500 per person and $15,000 per business for each infraction.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission program was designed to block about 80 per cent of telemarketing calls. Consumers register the number – home or cellphone – they want protected. The concept is simple: if you do not want to receive calls from telemarketers, you fill out a form or call a toll-free line.

Under the legislation, companies cannot call people who have signed up unless:

- The company has done business with them within the last 1½ years or fielded an inquiry or application from them within three months.

- The person being contacted gave them signed, written consent.

- The caller has a personal relationship with the person he or she is phoning.

- The company is among certain exempted groups such as charities, polling companies and political campaigners. These groups can ring numbers on the list unless they're asked not to call again.

Telemarketers must check the registry every 90 days and scrub names from their own lists. If they contact those numbers anyway, they can be fined up to $11,000 US per call or face jail terms. The federal regulator said it received between 10,000 and 12,000 consumer complaints alleging violations of the list in the program's first 11 months.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) will likely administer the registry, perhaps with a private sector company under contract to do the actual work of taking the names of consumers who want to be on it. The CRTC regulates Canadian telephone companies, and has already come up with some rules to protect people from aggressive telemarketers.

Here is hoping the bill makes it back to the house for 2nd and 3rd reading soon and then to the Senate for royal ascent.