Robocallers be warned: The CRTC will be watching you
Service providers must register before making their first call
Canada’s communications regulator and watchdog has imposed rules to prevent a repeat of the robocalls scandal that marred the 2011 election.
The rules are straightforward: Anyone — candidates and political parties, corporations, trade associations and other persons or groups — using a calling-service provider to call voters during the election will have to register with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission within 48 hours of making the first call. The calling-service provider also will have to register with the CRTC.
As well, anyone using their own internal services to make calls to voters using an automatic-dialingand-announcing device — often referred to as robocalls — will have to register with the CRTC within 48 hours of making the first call.
The commission is implementing the regulations under the new Fair Elections Act. Among other measures, it aims to protect voters from unwarranted and misleading telephone calls during federal election campaigns, and to ensure that those who contact voters during an election do so openly and transparently.
The registry expands on the CRTC’s telemarketing Do Not Call List, which exempts registered political parties and their candidates.
“Our objective is to ensure those making calls are familiar with the new Voter Contact Registry requirements, given that we will have the ability to impose monetary penalties for violations,” CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais said in announcing the new rules.
A robocall is a phone call that uses a computer-controlled automatic dialing system to deliver recorded information. Such calls are a common practice of telemarketing and political campaigning.
Soon after the 2011 election, Elections Canada began investigating allegations that robocalls were used to impede voters by erroneously telling people their polling stations had been relocated.
In early 2012, a Citizen-Postmedia News investigation pointed to the existence of a systematic voter suppression effort involving calls targeting Liberal voters in tightly contested ridings, the first in a series of investigative pieces into what became known as the robocalls scandal.
Michael Sona, a former communications director for a failed Guelph, Ont. Conservative candidate, was convicted under the Elections Act last August of “wilfully preventing ” voters in Guelph from voting in the 2011 federal election by sending recorded robocalls to hundreds of voters, directing them to wrong polling stations. Sona was the only person charged in the crime, but the trial judge suggested others may have been helped. Sona and the Crown are now appealing his nine-month jail sentence.
In a subsequent report to Parliament, Elections Canada said robocall fraud was widespread, involving 247 ridings across the country.
The only exceptions to these new registration requirement are third parties — specifically, corporations or groups — that make live calls to voters using their own internal services. They will not have to register.
Registration notices filed with the CRTC will be published on the its website as soon as possible 30 days after polling day.
The CRTC can impose fines of up to $1,500 on individuals and as much a $15,000 for corporations that violate the registry rules. Citizens who think the Voter Contact Registry requirements are not being followed can submit a complaint at crtc.gc.ca/eng/question. htm. More detailed information about the registry is available at crtc.gc.ca/eng/phone/rce-vcr.
Robocalls were used to impede voters by erroneously telling people their polling stations had been relocated.