More than six in 10 Canadians plan to register their phone numbers once the national Do Not Call List is in effect, a recent national survey says. That’s bad news for financial advisors who rely on cold-calling to acquire new clients.

According to the poll from VoxPop, a project of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, 44% of Canadian adults are aware that the registry will be coming into effect and 63% of them say they will definitely register once it’s implemented. “Such high awareness and support so early indicates Canadians will rush to sign on when the registry is introduced,” says Brendan Wycks, executive director of the MRIA.

“Because it will eliminate and prohibit cold calls on an unsolicited basis to Canadian households, financial advisors will have to find new, creative ways to establish leads, and use referrals and relationships to build their businesses,” says Wycks. “They’ll have to remove from their quiver the arrow that they’ve had through the cold-calling technique.”

The national DNCL was initiated following complaints received by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. According to the CRTC’s Web site, consumers had complained about “inconvenience or nuisance caused by receipt of unsolicited telecommunications made for the purpose of selling or promoting a product or service or for the solicitation of money or money’s worth (i.e., telemarketing telecommunications).”

Feedback from the survey indicates that the impact on financial advisors’ ability to telemarket will be significant. Awareness of the registry was highest in Ontario, with 53%, and lowest in Quebec, with 23%. British Columbia and Alberta each showed 50% awareness, followed by Atlantic Canada (49%) and Saskatchewan (41%).

Support for the registry was even higher: 70% in Ontario; 68% in Saskatchewan; 66% in B.C.; 63% in both Alberta and Atlantic Canada; and 52% in Quebec.

The registry is likely to be running by the fall of 2008, when individuals will be able to register any Canadian phone number on the DNCL, including those with a land line, a cellphone or a fax machine. The DNCL will require telemarketers to check the list at regular intervals, probably every 90 days, and scrub all phone numbers that are registered on the list. If a number on the list is called and a complaint is filed, it’s expected the fine will be up to $1,500 for individuals and up to $15,000 for companies. Telemarketers must ensure they do not call someone who has been on the list for more than 31 days, the grace period that will allow telemarketers time to update their lists.

DNCL registration will expire after three years, at which point the phone number will automatically be removed from the list. It will be the individual consumer’s responsibility to re-register a number after the three-year period. If an individual’s number changes during the three-year period, he or she will have to register the new number.

According to the CRTC: “Tele-marketers will not be allowed to place an unsolicited telemarketing call prior to subscribing to the list. If the telemarketer is placing calls on behalf of a client, the telemarketer will have to ensure that each of its clients is a registered subscriber of the national DNCL before placing a telemarketing call on behalf of the client.”

Some calls will be exempt from the list, including those made by or on behalf of registered charities, political parties, leadership contestants or candidates of a political party, telemarketers collecting information for a survey or soliciting a subscription for a general-circulation newspaper, and organizations that have an existing business relationship.

The “existing business relationship” includes businesses from which an individual has purchased goods or services within the previous 18 months. Wycks says one of the questions asked was whether companies that do business with the person being called should be permitted to contact those Canadians when the DNCL is implemented. Nationally, 53% of survey respondents agreed they should.

A similar registry has been in place in the U.S. since 2003. If that experience is any indication, says Wycks: “Canadians are right to believe their ‘do not call’ registry will be an effective barrier to telemarketing calls.” IE