What the New Cell Phone Law Actually Covers (and What It Doesn't)

Before you adjust a single calling campaign, get clear on one thing: the "new cell phone law" making headlines in Canada has nothing to do with telemarketing or outbound calling. According to the CRTC's official announcement, the changes target how Canadians buy, manage, and leave their phone plans — not how businesses contact them.

The legal foundation is a set of Telecommunications Act amendments that passed in June 2024 and came into force on October 30, 2025. Those amendments directed the CRTC to implement new consumer protection measures, which arrived through two decisions in 2026.

The first, Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2026-43, bans fees that act as barriers to switching providers. The second, CRTC 2026-78, requires providers to let customers change or cancel plans through an app, online, or by email — no mandatory phone call to a retention department required.

Here is what the new rules actually cover:

• Early cancellation fees are banned entirely when no subsidized device is provided, effective June 12, 2026.
• Activation and plan-modification fees are prohibited under the same decision.
• Customers can change or cancel Internet or cellphone plans via app, online, or email.
• The CRTC is consulting on merging consumer codes for Internet, mobile, home phone, and TV into a single harmonized code.

None of these provisions mention outbound calls, dialing rules, or telemarketing. As CRTC Chairperson Vicky Eatrides put it in the official release, the decisions "make it easier to manage services, shop around, and switch plans" — a consumer-empowerment framing, not a calling regulation.

Layered underneath the new rules sits the Wireless Code, which still protects every Canadian with a mobile plan. It guarantees no cancellation fees after two years, a 15-day trial period (30 days for persons with disabilities), and capped overage and roaming charges. These protections concern the carrier-customer relationship, not business outreach.

So what actually governs your outbound calls? Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) remains the controlling framework for commercial electronic communications, including calls and texts that encourage commercial activity. The stakes are serious: penalties reach up to $10 million CAD per violation for organizations, according to legal analysis from Bloomberg Law, which characterizes CASL as one of the strictest anti-spam laws in the world.

Enforcement data shows where businesses stumble most. In one six-month period, CRTC complaint records show lack of consent drove roughly 53% of online-form complaints — 3,586 of 6,740. Consent, not the new telecom rules, is the compliance issue that defines outbound calling risk in Canada.

The practical takeaway: the 2025–2026 changes signal a tightening consumer-protection climate, and consent documentation will only matter more. That is exactly why My AI Call Center reviews list source and consent records before any campaign launches — and flags or declines bought lists without clear permission records, before you spend anything.

The Rules That Actually Govern Outbound Calls: CASL and Consent

While the 2025–2026 telecom changes make headlines, the rules that actually decide whether your outbound calling campaign is legal come from a different law entirely: Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, better known as CASL.

CASL has been in force since 2014, and it requires businesses to obtain consent before sending commercial electronic messages — a category that includes calls and texts encouraging commercial activity. According to ISED's official guidance, asking for permission is both a legal requirement and a signal that a business respects consumer privacy.

The enforcement data shows why consent sits at the center of compliance. In just six months — April through September 2023 — the CRTC's Spam Reporting Centre received 210,772 complaints, according to the CRTC's CASL enforcement report. Of the complaints filed through the online form, roughly 53% cited lack of consent as the core issue.

The financial exposure is significant. As legal analysts at Bloomberg Law note, CASL carries administrative monetary penalties of up to $10 million CAD per violation for organizations, and up to $1 million for individuals — assessed per violation, per day. They characterize CASL as one of the strictest anti-spam laws in the world.

Enforcement is not theoretical. The same six-month CRTC report documents an active, internationally coordinated posture:

• 11 warning letters and 29 notices to produce issued in a single six-month window
• 4 preservation demands, 2 searches, and 1 notice of violation in the same period
• Over $3.2 million in administrative monetary penalties issued since 2014
• Cooperation agreements with partners in more than 26 countries, including MOUs with the US FTC and FCC

Text messages fall squarely within this scope. The CRTC explicitly encourages Canadians to report spam SMS to the Spam Reporting Centre, which means multi-touch campaigns combining calls, texts, and emails carry CASL obligations on every channel — not just voice.

This is where list discipline stops being a preference and becomes a legal shield. If more than half of complaints trace back to missing consent, then the single most important pre-launch question is whether you can document permission for every contact on your list.

That is the standard My AI Call Center applies before any campaign launches. Every list goes through a source and consent review, and bought lists without clear permission records are flagged — in most cases, declined. If the list will not support the campaign, clients hear that plainly before they spend anything.

The practical takeaway for Canadian outbound programs: the new telecom laws changed how consumers manage their plans, but CASL still governs how businesses reach them. Consent records, documented list sources, and immediate opt-out handling are not optional extras — they are the difference between a structured campaign and a $10 million compliance problem.

Why the Regulatory Climate Is Tightening — and What That Signals

Individually, each of Canada's recent telecom decisions looks like a consumer contract story. Read together, they describe something bigger: a regulator that is actively expanding its consumer-protection mandate, not maintaining it.

Consider the pattern. The Telecommunications Act amendments that took effect October 30, 2025 required the CRTC to implement new consumer protection measures, and the regulator has moved quickly — banning early cancellation fees outright where no subsidized device is provided and prohibiting activation and modification fees, with protections effective June 12, 2026, according to Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2026-43. Weeks later, a separate decision required providers to let customers change or cancel plans by app, online, or email, as outlined in the CRTC's April 2026 announcement.

The structural signals matter even more for businesses planning outbound contact. The CRTC is currently consulting on merging its consumer protection codes for Internet, cellphone, home phone, and TV into a single harmonized code — and it suspended annual provider compliance reporting on February 4, 2026 while that work proceeds, per the CRTC's Wireless Code page. A regulator consolidating its rulebooks is a regulator preparing to enforce them more uniformly.

For any organization that phones or texts Canadians, the signals worth tracking are:

• Consent is the dominant complaint category — lack of consent drove roughly 53% of online-form complaints (3,586 of 6,740) in a single six-month window, according to the CRTC's CASL enforcement report.
• Enforcement is active and international, with CRTC cooperation agreements spanning more than 26 countries, including MOUs with the US FTC and FCC.
• Penalties scale fast — up to $10 million CAD per violation for organizations, which legal analysts describe as arguably the most severe of any Canadian consumer protection statute.
• The framework demonstrably works — Canadian-based spam fell 37% within a year of CASL's introduction, and Canada went from hosting 7 of the world's top 100 spamming organizations in 2014 to zero by 2019, per ISED's CASL overview.

That last point deserves attention. CASL's track record proves the model: when consent rules carry real penalties, the worst actors exit and disciplined senders inherit a cleaner channel. There is no reason to expect the CRTC's current expansion to reverse that direction.

The practical takeaway is that consent documentation and list discipline are appreciating assets. Records that feel merely prudent today — where a contact came from, what they agreed to, when — become the evidence file if a complaint ever lands. And with over $3.2 million in administrative monetary penalties issued since 2014, complaints do land.

This is the logic behind how My AI Call Center structures every campaign: list source and consent records are reviewed before launch, bought lists without clear permission records are flagged or declined, and opt-outs are logged and honored immediately. In a tightening climate, "approved, permissioned, or reviewed" stops being a marketing phrase and becomes the operational baseline.

How to Run Compliant Calling Campaigns Under These Rules

Compliance isn't a checkbox you tick after the campaign launches — it's a decision you make before the first call ever goes out. With CASL penalties reaching up to $10 million CAD per violation for organizations, the cheapest place to catch a problem is during list review, not after a regulator does.

Start by verifying where your list came from and what consent records back it. CRTC enforcement data shows lack of consent was the largest complaint category — roughly 53% of online-form complaints in a recent six-month period. If a bought list arrives with no permission records, flag it or decline it outright. A cheap list with no paper trail is the most expensive list you can buy.

Opt-outs deserve the same discipline. When someone says stop, honor it immediately — and carry that request across every campaign, not just the one where they opted out. The Spam Reporting Centre received over 210,000 complaints in a single six-month window, and the CRTC cooperates with enforcement partners in more than 26 countries, so a "we'll get to it next week" attitude doesn't hold up.

Multi-touch campaigns need special attention. If your reactivation blitz mixes calls with texts and emails, remember that text messages fall squarely inside CASL's scope — CASL requires consent before sending commercial electronic messages, and the CRTC actively encourages Canadians to report spam SMS. Every text in the sequence is a CASL-covered message, not just a friendly nudge.

A compliant campaign launch looks like this:

• Verify list source and consent records before anything launches — and decline lists that can't support the campaign.
• Log and honor opt-outs and DNC requests immediately, across all current and future campaigns.
• Treat every text in a multi-touch sequence as a consent-required commercial message.
• Get appropriate legal guidance before launch — requirements vary by industry, contact type, and consent status.

This is why My AI Call Center runs every campaign against approved, permissioned, or reviewed lists only, checking list source and consent records before launch and telling clients plainly when a list won't support the campaign. It's also why nothing launches until the client approves the script, disclosure, opt-out handling, and escalation path.

The safe path is simple to describe: approved, permissioned, reviewed. In a regulatory climate where the CRTC's consumer-protection activity keeps expanding, consent documentation is only going to matter more — and the businesses that treat it as a launch requirement, not an afterthought, will be the ones still dialing next year.