Many Canadians are unaware that Canada is finally getting a nation-wide telemarketing Do Not Call List (DNCL).

There is a problem. The DNCL subcommittees were dominated by, you guessed it, telemarketing industry lobbyists.

The CRTC allowed them to turn the DNCL into a downloadable jukebox of your confidential, unlisted and cell phone numbers.

Worse yet, they have made the proposed DNCL system so insanely complex that what should be a relatively simple database project has already taken years to get off the ground, and they are busy arranging things so that the telemarketing rules will be unenforceable.

The CRTC needs to be convinced that this is not acceptable.

The organization "97% of the People of Canada" as a registered party to the proceeding, has proposed a National DNCL Service whereby telemarketers would have to provide the numbers, and get either an "Accepted" or a "Denied" signal for each number. If we are successful, our confidential phone numbers would never be revealed.

Time to stand up and be counted.

The organization "97% of the People of Canada" asks your permission to represent you to the CRTC in this matter. If you agree,

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Manifesto:

Telemarketing is ok provided it complies with the law, and provided that subscribers have the freedom to efficiently express their wish for various classes of telemarketing to their home to be prohibited.

Telemarketers who violate the law should be deterred from doing so, by swift and fair application of penalties.

The DNCL (Do Not Call List) system should be implemented in such a way that it is easy and efficient for all telemarketers to comply with the law. Specifically, the DNCL should not represent an unreasonable administrative and cost burden for small telemarketers.

The DNCL system should be designed in such a way that those who violate the law can be quickly caught and penalized.

The DNCL should not be a downloadable list of numbers.

The most effective protection subscribers currently have against telemarketing abuse is the prohibition agains sequential dialing plus the preponderance of numbers which are either not in service or assigned to emergency and medical facilities. Allowing the DNCL to be downloaded would strip away even this meager protection. A downloadable DNCL is an invasion of Canadians’ privacy.

A downloadable DNCL would require burdensome activity to ensure that millions and millions of copies of the DNCL database are up to date, and would complicate investigation of complaints with additional considerations of the timing of events.

A downloadable DNCL would require immense international enforcement activity to ensure that copies of the DNCL database are not abused and used instead as calling lists.

A query/response database system is by far the most efficient and least costly design for the DNCL, and would cost many billions less than the downloadable DNCL design.

DNCL database system design, and the investigation and punishment of illegal activities should not be left in the hands of lawbreakers or telemarketing lobbyists.

RFPs (subcontracting out to profit-making ventures) are not a substitute for the well considered regulation of an industry activity, which has demonstrated repeatedly that it does a tangible amount of harm to Canadians.

When taken in aggregate, unwanted and illegal telemarketing snuffs out the equivalent of 87 entire human lifetimes per year, and thus needs regulation, and more importantly, rigorous enforcement to prevent this ongoing waste.