Telecom - Secretary General Letter addressed to Marco Perron (Oxaro Inc.)

Gatineau, 8 September 2025

BY EMAIL AND REGISTERED MAIL

Marco Perron
Chief Executive Officer
Oxaro Inc.
340 Albert Street, Suite 1800
Ottawa Ontario  K1R 7Y6
marco.perron@rcgtconsulting.com

Subject: Increase to National Do Not Call List (DNCL) Subscription Rates

Dear Marco Perron,

This letter addresses the proposal by Oxaro Inc. (Oxaro) for subscription rate increases due to unforeseen capital and ongoing operating costs as well as a decrease in overall subscription purchases to the National Do Not Call List (DNCL).

The National DNCL was created to give consumers the ability to reduce the number of telemarketing calls they receive. The federal government passed a law in 2005 to allow the creation of a National DNCL that all telemarketers must respect and use.

In 2017, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (Commission) contracted Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Consulting Inc. (now Oxaro) to act as the National DNCL Operator. The Commission enforces the National DNCL Rules.

Section 41.5 of the Telecommunications Act allows the Commission to regulate the rates charged by Oxaro as the National DNCL Operator. In accordance with the contract with Oxaro, to justify an increase in its subscription rates, Oxaro should demonstrate that it cannot recover its costs and a reasonable contractual markup on those costs over the term of the contract. This assessment considers any events or changes that have occurred since the time of the operational start date that could not have reasonably been foreseen by the parties. The contract also states that, in accordance with the subscription rates approved by the Commission, it is the sole and exclusive responsibility of Oxaro to determine and manage all its costs associated with the fulfillment of its contractual obligations.

According to Oxaro, the requested subscription rate increases are based on a decrease in revenues and an increase in costs of meeting its contractual obligations.

Oxaro submitted evidence of historical year over year decreases in subscription purchases which have resulted in a revenue shortfall since fiscal year 2022-2023. The Commission reviewed the evidence provided by Oxaro and finds that the company has demonstrated that it has not been able to recover its costs and markup to operate the National DNCL. The Commission considers that, based on the downward trend in subscription purchases, Oxaro will continue to experience revenue shortfalls if the subscription rates are not increased for the remainder of the contract.

Further, Oxaro submitted that subscription rate increases are necessary going forward to recover its additional and unforeseen capital and ongoing operating costs related to initiatives that were necessary to continue to meet its contractual obligations. According to Oxaro, it undertook initiatives to address the changes brought about by the Government of Canada Cloud Guardrails project as well as initiatives to ensure they continue to meet their other contractual obligations.

The Commission approves the costs associated with some of these initiatives to ensure the ongoing operations of the National DNCL and that the system infrastructure relating to it remains relevant, secure, and up to date.

Six initiatives were the direct consequence of the Government of Canada Cloud Guardrails project, which established an operationalization framework to move from Protected A to Protected B cloud services (Government of Canada Cloud Guardrails) and was not foreseen or anticipated when the Commission awarded the contract to Oxaro in 2017. The initiatives by Oxaro to address the changes required by this project include:

• configuration of data center redundancies;
• upgraded website script libraries to address vulnerabilities;
• IP restrictions for administration portal access; and
• performance of annual penetration testing and conducting remediations (Oxaro submitted two of the initiatives in confidence. Specifically, initiative 9 and 15 listed in the Excel document provided by Oxaro on 21 August 2025 [the Excel document]).

The Commission considers that another five initiatives outlined in Oxaro’s request were also reasonably unforeseen when the contract was awarded and would permit it to continue meeting its contractual obligations. These initiatives include:

• a transition to an updated telephony solution;
• addition of a back-up Internet provider to avoid service outages;
• An upgraded Application Programming Interface (API) implementation with a third-party organization; and
• back-up redundancy on data servers (Oxaro submitted one of the initiatives in confidence. Specifically, initiative 10 listed in the Excel document).

Lastly, the Commission considers that four of the initiatives were reasonably foreseen as a requirement of the contract or were an operational decision for improvement that are not mandatory to fulfill Oxaro’s contractual obligations. Therefore, the costs of these will not be incorporated in the revised subscription rates. Specifically:

• While there may be a need to update to Google Analytics 4, the Commission considers it is generally accepted that digital tools require updating on a regular basis. This should have been foreseen as part of fulfilling Oxaro’s contractual obligations and part of its responsibilities to manage its costs.
• With respect to upgraded staging environments for partner APIs, although Oxaro indicated that the level of effort to test its service delivery in its entirety in the staging environment under Protected B requirements are higher than expected, the Commission considers that any changes to the API are not required to fulfill its contractual obligations nor were they requested by the Commission. An API does not specifically hold a data protection level. This means that the APIs that were previously created do not need to change. Any changes resulting from Protected B requirements would be to the data and cloud servers themselves, for which the Commission has approved the costs. 
• Oxaro submitted initiatives 12 and 13 listed in the Excel document in confidence. The Commission considers that these were reasonably foreseen as requirements of the contract that are part of Oxaro’s responsibilities to manage and operationalize decisions for improvement that are not mandatory to fulfilling Oxaro’s contract obligations.

Oxaro has respected and exceeded its contractual obligations and performance standards up to this point. This is also the first request for an increase in subscription rates since Oxaro was retained as the National DNCL Operator and began operations in 2018. The Commission is satisfied that subscription rate increases due to the decline in subscription purchases and the costs of implementing the specific initiatives outlined above are reasonable and necessary in the circumstances. 

In light of the above, the Commission approves an increase in Oxaro’s List Operator component of the subscription rates as outlined in the attached Appendix. The overall subscription rates to access the National DNCL, which include the Commission component and the List Operator component, are outlined in the same Appendix. The Commission’s component of the subscription rate has not changed as a result of this decision. The approved subscription rates are effective as of 15 September 2025.

Sincerely,

Original signed by

Marc Morin
Secretary General

CC:      Steven Harroun, Chief Officer, Compliance and Enforcement, CRTC, steven.harroun@crtc.gc.ca

Attachment (1) – Approved National DNCL Subscription Rates as of 15 September 2025

APPENDIX: Approved National DNCL Subscription Rates as of 15 September 2025

* Corresponds with amounts set out in the Unsolicited Telecommunications Fees Regulations.

Date modified:

2025-09-08