Helping Protect Canadians from Unwanted Calls

The CRTC is an independent quasi-judicial tribunal that regulates the Canadian communications industry in the public interest. The CRTC holds public consultations on telecommunications and broadcasting matters and makes decisions based on the public record.

Part of the CRTC’s mandate is to help protect Canadians from unwanted calls -- an authority granted by Parliament under the Telecommunications Act (the Act). It helps protect privacy and limit nuisance calls, while still allowing legitimate telemarketing. The CRTC promotes compliance with the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules (the Rules), which include the National Do Not Call List Rules (DNCL), the Telemarketing Rules, and the Automatic Dialing-Announcing Device Rules (ADAD). It is also responsible for establishing and maintaining the Voter Contact Registry (VCR) under the amended Fair Elections Act (2014) to ensure that those who contact voters during an election do so transparently.

Through its compliance and enforcement program, the CRTC promotes and enforces the Rules and monitors and investigates non-compliance. The CRTC is working to help create an environment that deters non-compliant telemarketers while assisting businesses with their legitimate telemarketing practices.

Through its public proceedings, the CRTC also helps ensure that its regulatory policies respond to advances in technology, evolving business models, and the privacy needs of Canadians.

2023-2024 Fees and Operational Costs

The Rules require that those who make telemarketing calls and those who hire a third party to make calls on their behalf register with the National DNCL operator and purchase a subscription to the National DNCL. The Act gives the CRTC the authority to collect fees to recover its regulatory costs for promoting compliance with the Rules and administering the National DNCL.

For the 2023-2024 fiscal year, the CRTC collected $3,095,748 in unsolicited telecommunications fees.