By: Pat Daley

  So the Ontario government has handled the squeegie "problem" by passing a law that prohibits soliciting of a "captive audience." The law came into effect this week.
  You're a captive audience if you're hanging around a bank machine, phone booth, public toilet, taxi stand, bus stop, or parking lot. You're a captive audience if you're getting into, out of, or standing beside any kind of vehicle.
  You're not a captive audience sitting at home, minding your own business when the telephone rings. (And anyone tired of being accosted by Boy Scouts, Air Cadets, or any number of tag day volunteers should know that entering or leaving liquor and beer stores is not covered either.)
  In Harris Ontario, it seems there can't be anything worse than being asked to fork over a loonie to have your windshield cleaned. But what about those calls offering to clean your windows, your carpets, your furnace ducts or sell your house? Who's standing up for the people who have to watch their dinner get cold while they fend off market surveys, newspaper subscriptions, and political parties?
  Canadians spent about $13.5 billion on directly-marketed - mail, telephone, internet or television - goods and services in 1998, according to the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA). That's significantly higher than the squeegie take.
  There are laws to protect you against telemarketing fraud. Both the CMA Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice and telephone company tariffs have rules on acceptable times of the day and frequency for marketing calls. Marketers are supposed to remove your name from their lists if you ask them to or if you register with the CMA's Do Not Call Service. But until you do, your name and telephone number are fair game for anyone who can get their hands on them. There's no law that outlaws the practice just because some people find it annoying or intimidating.
  The argument could be made that intimidation only happens when the soliciting is right in your face, but I'm not so sure. I didn't like saying no to the police officer who called asking me to buy a circus ticket for a needy kid. Imagine what it feels like to live in Toronto - and possibly Calgary in the near future - worrying every time the phone rings that it's going to be a pitch for the police association's True Blue campaign.
  Whenever I said no to a squeegie person because I had no change, my name wasn't put on an enemies list. My windshield was cleaned for free.

Pat Daley is a freelance writer and editor in Athlone in Simcoe County, Ontario.