Has your inbox been inundated this week with requests from all types of businesses seeking your permission to ‘stay in touch?’ Canada’s new Commercial Anti-Spam Law (CASL) takes effect July 1st, and while there is still time for non-profit organizations to become fully compliant, businesses of all shapes and sizes can only contact you via a commercial electronic method to seek your permission to stay on their contact lists until June 30th.

A “commercial electronic message (CEM) is a message sent by any electronic means (i.e., email, text, instant message, tweet) thats purpose or one of its purposes, is to encourage participation in a “commercial activity.” Commercial activity is defined as “any particular transaction, act or conduct that is of a commercial character whether or not the person who carries it out does so in the expectation of profit.”

Registered charities have been granted an exemption by Industry Canada from the new laws surrounding commercial electronic messages, (as long as the primary purpose of the communications is raising funds/directly supporting your core mission as filed with Revenue Canada). Please note that non-profit organizations are not exempt from CASL.

There is also a discrepancy between the  Industry Canada and the CRTC’s interpretation of the exemption.

Imagine Canada reported on June 24th 2014 that “The CRTC has yet to issue official guidance on the exemption as it applies to charities and has indicated that an FAQ document pertaining to registered charities will be issued in the coming weeks. As such, the full extent of the discrepancies between the interpretation provided by Industry Canada, the authors of the legislation and regulations, and the CRTC (who enforce the legislation), may only become clear after the legislation takes effect.”

To make sure that you have all the information you need to stay compliant visit the following resources:

http://www.fightspam.gc.ca
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/casl-lcap.htm
https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ecic-ceac.nsf/eng/gv00521.html
http://www.imaginecanada.ca/who-we-are/whats-new/news/canada’s-anti-spam-law-casl-imagine-canada-seeks-clarification-crtc-about