Canada’s new national do-not-call list has exceeded registration expectations. Telemarketers now have 2,690,936 fewer numbers to call across the country.

•    Ontario - 1.3 million registered
•    Quebec - 477,000 registered
•    Alberta - 300,000 registered
•    British Columbia - 265,000 registered
•    Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island - 93,000 registered
•    Manitoba - 80,000 registered
•    New Brunswick - 53,000 registered
•    Saskatchewan - 50,000 registered
•    Newfoundland and Labrador - 28,000 registered
•    The Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the Yukon - 1,600 registered

The CRTC projects that within the next two years 60% of the 27 million residential telephone numbers in Canada will be registered on the do-not-call-list (DNCL). The U.S. has had a DNCL since 2003, with over 145 million phone numbers currently registered. And, herein lies a problem which many are beginning to talk about. If you pay close attention to the numbers that telemarket you, I’m sure that you’ll find the preponderance are either toll free numbers or American numbers. What do you think is going to happen now that we have a DNCL? Do you think that telemarketers will just go silently into the night? In all likelihood they will emerge like the phoenix from the ashes and set up shop out of our jurisdiction. India may well emerge as the telemarketing capital of the world.

In the meantime the number of telemarketing calls has stepped up to epic proportion as we come to the end of their 31 day grace period. After that if they still call – except for Canadian registered charities, researchers, pollsters, government agencies, political parties and candidates, newspapers, and business that you have transacted with in the last 18 months – file a complaint and report the date of the call and the name or phone number of the telemarketer. If you file a complaint against a telemarketer they will be subject to a maximum fine of $1,500 for individual telemarketers and $15,000 for companies. You can also create and manage your own DNCL of companies not included in the national registry at http://www.ioptout.ca/.