The CRTC set up a National Do-Not-Call list to protect Canadians from unwanted phone calls from telemarketers. It now turns out that anyone who registered for the DNC list is more likely to get these kind of calls since the CRTC has been putting up the list for sale online. Of course, these are the same people who gave us the three-headed cellphone monopoly, officiated all those marriages of convenience between Global TV stations the CanWest papers across the country, and lifted the 'local' out of local radio - anyone remember CKST AM 1040 when it was the edgy alt-rock "Coast 1040"? How about 104.9 XFM? One is now an all-sports station with ample syndicated filler, the other is some kind of wishy-washy elevator music this page can't be bothered with. BTW, CRTC does not mean Canadian Radio & Telecommunications Commission, it means Can't Regulate Telecommunications Coherently.
As far as protecting oneself from unwanted telemarketing calls is concerned, this page offers this advice for those of you who can't be bothered to subscribe to call dispaly. Usually, the phone jockeys are calling from some kind of autodialling terminal, so there's a gap of about a second and a half before someone comes on the line with their pitch. During that pause, press down on one of the keys of your touch-tone phone - the caller usually thinks they've dialled a fax machine and they hang up. Or you can just screen all of your phone calls.
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