Robocalls

A robocall is a phone call that uses a computerized autodialer to deliver a pre-recorded message, as if from a robot. Robocalls are often associated with political and telemarketing phone campaigns, but can also be used for public-service or emergency announcements. Some robocalls use personalized audio messages to simulate an actual personal phone call.

Robocalls can be and are legitimately used by mainstream political parties in Canada to reach voters. Controversy surrounded the use of robocalls during the Canadian federal election, 2011, leading Elections Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate claims that robocalls were used in an attempt to dissuade voters from casting their ballot by falsely telling them their poll stations had changed locations. Elections Canada traced the origin of the automated calls to a disposable cellphone registered to a fictional name "Pierre Poutine" at a phony address from 450 area code of Joliette, Quebec, and issued a subpoena to the cellphone provider that produced a list of outgoing calls from the same number. One of the calls was to the toll-free number used by customers of 2call.ca, a subsidiary of Edmonton-based Internet Service Provider RackNine, to phone in and record their outgoing messages. The burner cell phone belonging to "Pierre Poutine" was used to contact the owner of Racknine at his personal unlisted number and gave the name "Pierre Jones". This burner phone initiated a series of automated robocalls mostly in Guelph but with a few dozen in other ridings, that targeted mostly non-Conservative voters with false voting location changes. Some voters attended what they had been led to believe were their voting locations, and sometimes destroyed their voter registration cards in anger.

In November 2011, the investigator served RackNine with a production order for records and had the account holder associated with the bogus calls quickly identified. Investigators have also examined the Conservative Party's CIMS voter database and showed that "Pierre Poutine" used the Conservative voter database to select who to call. Investigators have blank entries for one specific login, leading to speculation that evidence has been deleted. PayPal has also surrendered their records to investigators since "Pierre Poutine" has used a PayPal account to pay for the bill for the automated calls. The cost for these May 2, 2011, calls was $162.10, Elections Canada said in court filings. This expenditure was never reported to Elections Canada, as required for legitimate political spending.

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