With Do Not Call List regulations coming into effect later this week, it is important to note the role of advocacy and education in ensuring that financial advisors and planners are protected and prepared for the change in the way they do business, stated Advocis in a release issued on Monday.

“This is not an issue that just happened overnight or we just jumped into,” said Advocis’s chief operating officer, Taylor Train, in a statement. “Advocis started working on this file more than two years ago when the proposals were first released by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.”

Advocis states that there were a number of troubling initial proposals for financial advisors and planners that have been successfully resolved over the last two years, including ensuring that contacting clients as a result of a transfer of a book of business would be not be considered an unsolicited telephone call.

At one point in time, the CRTC was considering a flat fee for all entities regardless of size or telemarketing activities. Today, after a number of interventions by Advocis, advisors and planners are not required to pay an annual registration fee — although they will still have to register with the DNCL.

Now that the rules are in place, Advocis has moved to the next phase of the management of this issue: ensuring that members are compliant and can effectively continue to do business and build their client base within this new regulatory framework. Advocis states that it will continue to monitor additional developments.

“With the issuing of the bulletins, changes to our best practices manual, postings on the CLU blog, information in FORUM magazine, the creation of the continuing education module, we are ensuring that our members know what’s in store come tomorrow,” adds Train.