Announced in 2004 and implemented in 2008, Canada has a nation-wide do-not-call list. This list supposedly is of telephones numbers that should not get telemarketing phone calls. My two land lines are on this list. I still get the phone calls. I just confirmed that both numbers are on the list, and are good for years.

The list is the legal job of the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.) It is administered by Bell Canada, which company was itself fined for violations. You can find the details here. It cost Bell Canada over a million dollars.

Registering for the list is quite easy; how and what’s involved are available here.

If you go back to the Wikipedia article, you’ll find that the list has been described as a disaster. You will also read that other implementations have done a better job; in Australia, the government washes your list (where here, if you are/pretend to be a telemarketer, you get a straight-text file of the list.)

Now for the dumb questions. How come Bell allows pre-recorded calls to be made to private homes, when this is clearly against the rules? How come some companies make the call, and when answered, say (pre-recorded) “Good Bye?” How come I’m supposed to get a number from the call, when the caller provides a clearly bogus call display (all zeros, or 1234567890? How come Bell allows this to happen on its equipment?

Is the fox guarding the chickens?