The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission has issued unprecedented fines against several political parties and politicians for robo-calls that broke regulations by not properly identifying the caller.
The fines total $369,900 and were levied against the federal Conservatives, the federal NDP, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, Alberta’s Wildrose Party, Liberal MP Marc Garneau, Conservative MP Blake Richards and a robo-calling firm, RackNine Inc.
The fines come after a “wide-ranging investigation” by the CRTC, the agency said. The calls in question didn’t properly identify themselves under CRTC telemarketing rules.
The Conservatives and Mr. Richards did not co-operate with investigators, the CRTC said. The others did, and have voluntarily agreed to settlements totalling $277,500. The Conservatives and Mr. Richards were fined $78,000 and $14,400, respectively, and now have 30 days to respond or pay the penalty.
Until last week, the largest fine levied by the CRTC against a political party was $4,900.
Political parties and candidates “didn’t understand [the rules] and didn’t appropriately do their homework to make sure they understood the rules,” Andrea Rosen, the CRTC’s Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer, said in an interview. “…Canadians have a right to know who is calling them, and people should adhere to the rules to make it as easy as possible for a Canadian to voice their concern.
“What this is is an effort to ensure that everyone respects the rules,” she added.
The robo-calls are not tied to an investigation into misleading calls made during the 2011 election that a judge ruled were fraudulent. Instead, they are calls that didn’t identify the caller sufficiently.
At least part of the investigation was sparked by a complaint by Liberal MP Ralph Goodale, a source told The Globe and Mail. The Saskatchewan MP filed a complaint to the CRTC on Feb. 5 about robo-calls in his province. The calls were sent Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 2013.
“The robo-calls were entirely anonymous,” Mr. Goodale said. “They identified a research company, Chase Research, which I gather is based in Alberta although we couldn’t find it listed in any corporate registry anywhere.”
The federal Conservatives later said they were behind the calls, which were placed by Edmonton-based RackNine Inc. Chase Research is an affiliate of RackNine. The CRTC collected information from RackNine on Feb. 11 and Feb. 12. But, according to a source close to the investigation, the CRTC then asked for more details – everything on any phone number RackNine had registered.
That included 3.4-million calls made for Wildrose in 2011 and 2012, none of which entirely complied with the strict laws. In particular, six Wildrose call blitzes – including one poll during last year’s election – raised concern. It paid a $90,000 fine, the largest of the seven issued.
One source called the RackNine search a “fishing trip” by the CRTC. RackNine co-operated, but many Canadian robo-calls are done by companies based partially or entirely outside the country. “What’s left to be seen is if all they do is go after low-hanging fruit,” the source said.
Ms. Rosen, however, said many investigations are still ongoing, acknowledging some of those are “possibly” targeted at other political parties or candidates. She considers the five cases where the subject was co-operative – Wildrose, the Ontario PCs, the federal NDP, Mr. Garneau and RackNine – to be closed books.
The fines signal a crackdown by the CRTC on robo-calling, which is increasingly used by political parties, charities and unions as a cheap way to communicate broadly. However, the rules state that every call must include, at the beginning, a local or toll-free number and a mailing address of the entity behind the call. This rule appears to have been widely broken. Recordings of similar calls places in Alberta from other parties, candidates and charities, provided to The Globe and Mail, indicate that these rules are not followed in a range of other cases.
The Ontario PCs paid an $85,000 fine for two robo-call campaigns that occurred between Sept. 1 and Sept. 7, 2011. It didn’t name the party or provide sufficient contact information, the CRTC ruled. The Ontario PCs co-operated, and spokesman Alan Sakach called it “an administrative error.”
The federal NDP was fined for robo-calls made Jan. 11 and Jan. 20, 2012, in the riding of Lise St-Denis, who crossed the floor and joined the Liberals. They calls didn’t say they were on behalf of the NDP, and didn’t include sufficient contact information. The party paid a $40,000 fine and co-operated. “We apologize for the error and are committed to ensuring it does not happen again,” the party’s national director, Nathan Rotman, said in a statement.
Mr. Garneau was fined for calls made in March of this year as part of his campaign for the Liberal leadership. They identified “the originator of the call” and had some contact information, but did not explicitly state they were on Mr. Garneau’s behalf and had no mailing address. He paid a $2,500 fine and co-operated.
RackNine paid a $60,000 fine and co-operated after 15 robo-call campaigns it carried out between March, 2011, and February, 2013, when Mr. Goodale complained. “RackNine was not aware that its practices were in violation,” the CRTC said.
The Conservatives were fined for robo-calls in Saskatchewan related to electoral boundary changes. They did not co-operate. Mr. Richards, an Alberta MP, was fined for two robo-call campaigns in 2012 that did not say they were on his behalf, or include a mailing address. He did not co-operate.
If either the Conservative Party of Mr. Richards chooses to argue a case, they’ll appear before a three-commissioner panel that has the power to reduce their fine, Ms. Rosen said. “You know, all I can say in terms of those two cases is that they were given an opportunity like everyone else,” Ms. Rosen said.
That revelation comes after Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer said the Conservative Party was not co-operating with his agency’s investigation into fraud committed during the 2011 election. A court ruling last week on another robo-call scandal – where voters, mostly in Guelph, Ont., were misled about polling station locations – found six Conservative MPs engaged in “trench warfare” to block or delay proceedings.
RackNine works often for both Wildrose and the federal Conservatives, but says it’s nonpartisan and doesn’t refuse any client. In an interview earlier this week, RackNine founder Matt Meier said he co-operated with the CRTC but declined to comment on specifics of the case, suggesting the CRTC case is still ongoing. “I can’t comment on any of this until I know [the outcome],” he said.
Last week, when its fine was first revealed, Wildrose warned that the ruling could affect other parties, including Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservatives. The parties have traded jabs, each writing Alberta’s provincial chief electoral officer to ask for an investigation.
Wildrose has said it didn’t know so much contact information had to be included, and pointed to a previous TV interview by former Alberta PC campaign strategist Stephen Carter, saying such calls don’t require identification. He declined comment.
The Alberta PCs did not use RackNine during the last provincial election and officials wouldn’t comment on the unidentified survey type robo-calls that Wildrose is complaining about.
“We have not had any contact with the CRTC so we don’t know whether there’s anything going on with regards to investigating us,” said PC Party president Jim McCormick. “We have a high level of confidence that we obeyed the rules as laid out.”
Conservative spokesperson Fred DeLorey declined comment.
Drew Westwater, a spokesman with Elections Alberta, said his office received more than 800 complaints about robo-calls during the 2012 provincial election. Of the complaints, 15 to 20 per cent were about anonymous surveys, he said.
Elections Alberta passed them onto the CRTC along with all the other complaints. “This is the first time we’ve really run into this on a large scale like this and we really didn’t have a lot of authority in our act or legislation to deal with the calls related to surveys, which was a big bone of contention,” he said. It’s not clear what the CRTC did with those complaints.
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