Voter Contact Registry - Backgrounder

Backgrounder

Elections Canada received more than 40,000 messages and complaints about calls initiated using automatic dialing-announcing devices (ADAD), otherwise known as robocalls during the 2011 federal election.
As an example, voters reported receiving both ADAD and live calls from individuals claiming to represent Elections Canada to advise them that their poll location had changed.
Those concerns about fraudulent, rogue and misleading calls to voters during federal election campaigns prompted Parliament to pass the Fair Elections Act in 2014.

The Fair Elections Act amended the Canada Elections Act and Telecommunications Act to give the CRTC the responsibility to establish, maintain and enforce a voter contact registry. The registry is intended to “help protect Canadians from rogue and misleading telephone calls during elections, and to help ensure that those who contact voters during an election do so transparently.”
The Voter Contact Registry came into force on August 2, 2015.
The 42nd general Election that took place in October 2015 was the first to be covered by the registry.

Any individual or group using their own internal services to make calls to voters using an automatic dialing-announcing device had to register with the Voter Contact Registry on the CRTC’s website within 48 hours of making the first call.
Anyone (including candidates and political parties, corporations, trade associations and other individuals or groups) using the services of a calling service provider to call voters during the election had to register with the registry within 48 hours of making their first call. The calling service providers who made the calls on behalf of another person or groups also had to register.

If Canadians suspect they have been called by someone who was not properly registered with the Voter Contact Registry, they can make a complaint to the CRTC.
The CRTC was given the authority to investigate any alleged violation of the Voter Contact Registry and impose penalties.
Among the measures at its disposal, the CRTC can send warning letters, issue citations or impose monetary penalties. Penalties can be as much as $1,500 for individuals and $15,000 for corporations or groups, for each violation per day.

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