OTTAWA – Canadians filed fewer complaints over the National Do Not Call List in 2016-17, despite a 489% jump in the number of telemarketers registered with the National DNCL operator, says the CRTC’s annual report released Monday.
Since the National DNCL began in 2008, Canadians have registered 13,401,407 telecommunications numbers and deregistered 56,042 numbers. In the last fiscal year alone, Canadians registered 214,822 numbers for landlines, mobile phones, and fax machines, an average of more than 588 numbers each day. That’s down from 2015-16 when Canadians registered 294,115 numbers, averaging 805 numbers every day.
The report says that the CRTC received 79,417 complaints filed in FY 2016-2017 but also published fewer consumer alerts, which often result in a spike of complaints.
In comparison with the previous fiscal year, complaints about National DNCL increased by 4%; internal DNCLs decreased by 2%; Automatic Dialing-Announcing Device (ADADs) decreased by 8%; dead lines (cases where there is no caller on the line) decreased by 1%; while curfew and other dipped 1%.
Canadians across the country filed complaints, though a somewhat higher proportion of complaints came from Ontario. While Ontario is home to about 38% of the national population, slightly more than half of the complaints (52%) came from that province.
Telemarketers participate in the National DNCL regime by registering and by subscribing. This year, 3,628 telemarketers registered with the National DNCL operator, a 489% increase over the previous year, which the report said is a direct result of a compliance campaign launched this year to educate automotive dealers about their obligation to register before making calls to their clients.
Registered telemarketers also bought 2,393 subscriptions to the National DNCL this year. Although the number of new subscriptions went down by 205 (or 8%) compared to the previous year, this reduction results from a natural shift: subscribers are either buying subscriptions for multiple area codes, as opposed to for single area codes, or choosing longer subscriptions periods over shorter ones, or a combination of both.
This year, the CRTC issued 713 warning letters; 6 citations for violations associated with the DNCL rules and the unsolicited telecommunications rules; and 31 citations for violations associated with the Canada Elections Act (Voter Contact Registry). Five of the notices of violations were in Canada and three notices were international.
