TORONTO – Videotron’s Valérie Héroux is headed to Harvard in June as this year’s recipient of the CTAM Canada Fellowship Award, also known as CTAM U.
Héroux, pictured, holds a bachelor degree in both Civil and Common Law from McGill University. During her six-year in private legal practice, she specialized in communications law (CRTC regulatory) representing media companies such as Astral Media. She pursued her career as internal legal counsel at film distribution company Alliance Atlantis (now known as eOne Entertainment), followed by Quebecor Media, where she led the negotiation for the renewal of the artists' association collective agreement with…
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CASL needs to be fixed, or killed
LAST WEEK I RECEIVED several unsolicited emails, including the one shown below, asking for a donation to support Republican party leader hopeful John Kasich. The e-mail was sent without the remotest chance of there being an express or implied consent and without compliance with the prescribed information requirements of Canada’s much vilified anti-spam law, known as CASL.
There is no doubt that Canadians have an important interest in who wins the U.S. Presidential party nominations. Given the importance of the stakes, Canadian residents eligible to make a donation might have welcomed receiving the solicitation.
However,…
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TORONTO – Canada’s anti-spam legislation and the unsolicited telecommunications rules are here to stay, something that should be welcomed by the country’s “legitimate marketers”, CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais told the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA).
In a speech to the organization Tuesday, Blais (pictured) injected a splash of humour by equating unwanted marketing messages and calls with a stranger walking through attendees’ front door, tracking dirt across their kitchen floor, going to their fridge, grabbing a drink and then plopping themselves down in front of their TV.
“That’s pretty much how Canadians today feel about uninvited marketers who invade the private spaces…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has turned down a request by Ekos Research subsidiary Probit Inc. to amend the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules to exempt survey research.
The Commission said Monday that its current regulatory framework governing unsolicited telecommunications includes a broad exemption from the National DNCL Rules and the Telemarketing Rules for unsolicited telecommunications placed for the sole purpose of conducting a survey of members of the public.
“Probit has not established that the requested relief is necessary to comply with Parliament’s intentions regarding the regulation of unsolicited telecommunications”, reads the decision. “Probit’s proposed changes would increase the potential for misuse of…
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TORONTO – The CRTC will get candid with marketers at the Canadian Marketing Association's (CMA) exclusive breakfast event on Tuesday morning.
Held at the Toronto Board of Trade, CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais (pictured) will deliver a speech entitled "Protecting Canadians from Unwanted Communications". Attendees will hear about the regulatory and enforcement responsibilities affecting marketers in today's rapidly evolving media landscape, in efforts to better protect Canadians from unsolicited communications.
"CMA's self-regulatory code emphasizes trust, transparency and consumer choice," said CMA VP of government and consumer affairs Wally Hill, in a statement. "The Association is pleased that one of our industry's leading…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) is adding TV service provider watchdog to its role after the CRTC officially expanded its mandate Thursday.
The CCTS will become the single point of contact for Canadians’ complaints about all of their communications services, reads the decision. Since July 2007, CCTS has provided consumers with an independent and impartial mechanism for the resolution of complaints about deregulated local and long distance telephone services, as well as wireless service and Internet access.
All licensed television service providers (TVSPs), including related exempt TVSPs, must become members of the CCTS by September 1,…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has kicked off a show cause proceeding to examine why its consumer safeguards for Canada’s public payphones should not directly apply to competitive payphone service providers (CPSPs).
The safeguards, announced last December, are designed to ensure that Canadians are properly informed about the rates and surcharges associated with making non-cash calls over a payphone. While incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) were directed to make this information available to consumers, the Commission did not, until recently, have the authority to directly impose these conditions on non-carriers, that is, providers other than Canadian carriers that include CPSPs.
“In the…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC estimates that its regulatory costs under section 9(1) of the broadcasting regulations will total $30.33 million for the 2016-2017 fiscal year.
The annual adjustment amount referred to in section 8(2) for the 2014-2015 fiscal year is a credit of $1.719 million. Taking this adjustment into account, the net billing for the Part I licence fee for the 2016-2017 fiscal year is $28.610 million, the Commission said Tuesday.
The broadcasting licence fee regulation provides for the payment of Part I licence fees by specific distributors, as set out in section 9(1) of the Broadcasting License Fee Regulations.
www.crtc.gc.ca
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OTTAWA–GATINEAU – The CRTC has fined three Canadian-based companies and two Indian-based call centers more than $640,000 for making telemarketing calls to Canadians.
The notices of violation, issued Thursday, allege that the five companies failed to respect the unsolicited telecommunications rules by making telemarketing calls to Canadians whose phone numbers are registered on the national Do Not Call List (DNCL), without being registered with the national DNCL operator, and without having purchased a subscription to the list.
The telemarketers were attempting to sell anti-virus software, and falsely identified themselves as representatives of Microsoft Inc., the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or Government…
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TORONTO — Bell Canada and the National Football League are crying foul against the CRTC, claiming the Regulator is trying to push forward with its Super Bowl simultaneous substitution (simsub) ban via a distribution order, before Bell and the National Football League’s appeal of the CRTC’s broadcasting decision makes its way to Federal Court.
When the CRTC announced in January 2015 (in Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2015-25) that Canadian TV distributors would no longer be allowed to perform simsub for the Super Bowl, starting with the February 2017 broadcast of Super Bowl LI, the Commission indicated it would…
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