If your business sends marketing texts, appointment reminders, or quote follow-ups in Canada, CASL applies to you. Most home service owners have heard of it but skipped reading the actual rules \u2014 and the penalty for getting it wrong is up to million per violation for a sole proprietor, 0 million for a corporation. Worth twenty minutes of your day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This guide is the practical version. We’ll skip the legal jargon and tell you what to actually do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) came into force in 2014 and governs commercial electronic messages \u2014 emails, texts, and certain social DMs sent for the purpose of selling, promoting, or building toward a sale. To send one legally, you generally need three things: consent<\/strong> (express or implied), identification<\/strong> (your business name and contact info), and a working unsubscribe mechanism<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The law is enforced by the CRTC. The bigger fines tend to land on companies that ignore unsubscribe requests or buy email lists; the smaller fines tend to land on small businesses who didn’t realize their customer list wasn’t actually a consent list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the part most contractors get wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Express consent<\/strong> is when the customer actively opts in: ticks a checkbox, signs a form, replies “YES” to a confirmation text, or otherwise affirmatively says they want to hear from you. The opt-in must clearly state the purpose, your identity, and how they can unsubscribe. Express consent doesn’t expire on its own \u2014 once given, it stands until the customer revokes it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Implied consent<\/strong> covers the situations where the customer hasn’t actively opted in but has a relationship with you that the law treats as consent. The two types you’ll use most:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For most home service businesses: a customer who hired you in 2024 has implied consent until 2026. After that, you need to either get express consent or stop sending marketing messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the CRTC ever audits you, you have to be able to prove consent existed. The minimum record per contact:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They’ve been a customer for years” is not a record. A row in your CRM with a date, a source, and a method is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every commercial text you send has to include a clear, working unsubscribe option, and the carrier-standard for SMS in Canada is the keyword STOP<\/strong>. When a customer texts STOP back, three things have to happen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, QUIT, and END are also recognized by Canadian carriers. A good SMS platform handles all of these as opt-out triggers automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Print this. Tape it next to your monitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\nExpress vs. implied consent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What records you need to keep<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The STOP keyword is mandatory<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Five mistakes that get small businesses fined<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The practical checklist<\/h2>\n\n\n\n