The National Public Alerting System (NPAS; french: Système national d'alertes à la population), branded as Alert Ready (), is the

national warning system The National Warning System (NAWAS) is an automated telephone system used to convey warnings to United States-based federal, state and local governments, as well as the military and civilian population.Canada, broadcast to Canadian television, radio, and wireless devices. The system consists of infrastructure and standards for the presentation and distribution of public alerts issued by federal or provincial/territorial government authorities (particularly public safety authorities)—such as for weather emergencies, AMBER Alerts, and other emergency notifications—through all broadcasters and last-mile distributors in the affected region, including television stations, radio stations, television providers, and mobile networks in the affected region. The system is based upon the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP; called the Canadian Profile of the Common Alerting Protocol, CAP-CP), while wireless alerts (Wireless Public Alerting System) use a Canadian variant of the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) standard adopted in the United States. Alert Ready officially launched on 31 March 2015; it distributes alerts to broadcasters and other parties through its central technical

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

—called the National Alert Aggregation and Dissemination (NAAD) system—which was developed and is operated by

Pelmorex Media Pelmorex Corp. is a Canadian weather information and media company. Based in Oakville, Ontario, it is the owner of the Canadian specialty channels The Weather Network (English) and MétéoMédia (French), and their associated digital properties. ...

—owner of The Weather Network. Pelmorex is also responsible for public awareness campaigns surrounding the system. By order of the

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...

(CRTC), all terrestrial radio and television stations, digital

multichannel television A multichannel television service, also known as simply a television provider, is a type of service provider who distributes television programming to its customers for a subscription fee. Subscription television providers distribute television ch ...

providers, and mobile network operators using

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a telephone and mobile broadband standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement *** LTE Advanced Pro * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers produced by Compaq * ...

technology or newer, are required to participate in the NPAS. Alert Ready has faced criticism, particularly due to wireless alerts being handled under a blanket category with no opt-outs (as opposed to the severity-based system used by the U.S. WEA system), and criticism over AMBER Alerts (particularly in Ontario) being issued province-wide rather than geographically targeted to relevant regions. In April 2020, the RCMP faced criticism for not understanding and being slow to work with local officials in use of the system to warn of an active gunman, which had attacked multiple locations in the province of Nova Scotia. Environment and Climate Change Canada also maintains Weatheradio Canada, which transmits weather information and hazard alerts. Unlike Alert Ready, it utilizes Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME)—the same protocol used by NOAA Weather Radio and the Emergency Alert System in the United States.

History

Proposals

Various attempts had been made in the 20th and 21st centuries to establish a public alert system in Canada, by both departments of government and by television broadcasters. Under the 1995 Federal Policy for Emergencies,

Industry Canada Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED; french: Innovation, Sciences et Développement économique Canada; french: ISDE, label=none)''Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal I ...

led the effort for coordinating the provision of an emergency broadcasting service, based on the facilities and services of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC),

Environment Canada Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC; french: Environnement et Changement climatique Canada),Environment and Climate Change Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of the Environment ( ...

and, as necessary, privately-owned networks and stations. In 2001,

Pelmorex Pelmorex Corp. is a Canadian weather information and media company. Based in Oakville, Ontario, it is the owner of the Canadian specialty channels The Weather Network (English) and MétéoMédia (French), and their associated digital properties. ...

, owners of The Weather Network and

MétéoMédia MétéoMédia is a Canadian French-language weather information specialty channel and web site owned by Pelmorex. MétéoMédia primarily serves viewers in Quebec, although some cable TV systems in Ontario and New Brunswick carry the channel as we ...

, applied to the

(CRTC) for an amendment to their licenses to encompass a mandatory "All Channel Alert" system, requiring all television providers to relay emergency messages on behalf of governments across all of their channels. The service would have used proprietary hardware developed by Pelmorex, and would have been funded primarily by a 13 cent increase in carriage fees for the two channels. However, its initial proposal was denied by the CRTC, citing the need for consultation with broadcasters, television providers, and other parties on how the system would be designed, along with its costs. There were also concerns over the means in which the system was to be implemented technologically, and that the system was not inclusive to the visually impaired because Pelmorex only specified use of a text crawl, without an audio component. Establishment of such a system in a voluntary form was hampered by CRTC rules at the time, which required television providers to obtain consent from broadcasters before they could overlay emergency notifications onto their programming. In 2005, CRTC called for proposals regarding a national alerting system; Pelmorex and the CBC submitted proposals for a national system, while Bell ExpressVu submitted a proposal requesting the removal of the consent requirement. The CBC's proposal would have fed alerts via satellite to decoders installed at local CBC Radio transmitters. It would have allowed television providers to participate on a voluntary basis by installing decoders of their own, if the aforementioned consent requirement were removed. All three applicants promised to adopt the standardized alerting specifications that were developed by the government-backed

CANALERT CANALERT was one of the names for the Government of Canada's series of initiatives between 2003–2009 to develop an all-channel national public alerting system. Work began on CANALERT in 2003 with the First Canadian Public Alerting Forum and Work ...

initiative. While broadcasters and governments supported the proposals for a national alerting system,

CTV CTV may refer to: Television * Connected TV, or Smart TV, a TV set with integrated internet North America and South America * CTV Television Network, a Canadian television network owned by Bell Media ** CTV 2, a secondary Canadian televisio ...

, Canwest Global and CHUM Limited showed concerns surrounding the Pelmorex proposal, as it would be operated by a for-profit venture that would have the power to override their signals with third-party content, and be redundant to alerts already provided as a public service by some broadcasters.

Shaw Shaw may refer to: Places Australia *Shaw, Queensland Canada *Shaw Street, a street in Toronto England *Shaw, Berkshire, a village *Shaw, Greater Manchester, a location in the parish of Shaw and Crompton *Shaw, Swindon, a List of United Kingdom ...

and Rogers argued that the Pelmorex system was less cost-efficient than the CBC's proposal. It was also disputed whether the CRTC could even order the mandatory distribution of the service, as the CRTC does not regulate alphanumeric content because it is not considered television programming. In 2007, the CRTC removed the consent requirement to ease the adoption of voluntary alerting by broadcast distribution undertakings, but stated that it would reconsider the possibility of a mandatory alert system in the future.

Development

In 2009, the CRTC approved a proposal by Pelmorex to grant must-carry status to The Weather Network and MétéoMédia on digital television services. As part of the proposal, Pelmorex committed to developing a "national aggregator and distributor" (NAAD) of localized emergency alert messages compliant with the Common Alerting Protocol. Pelmorex established a governance council for the system, including representatives of the broadcasting industry, federal government, members of the Senior Officials Responsible for Emergency Management (SOREM), and the Canadian Association for Public Alerting and Notification, to oversee its operations. The NAAD System was officially launched in 2010, becoming the technical infrastructure for the NPAS initiative. In a 2011 renewal of the must-carry status, the CRTC praised Pelmorex's work, considering the NAAD system to be "an essential element of a national public alerting system," and expressed an expectation for all broadcasters to voluntarily participate in distributing its alerts. However, as a condition of the renewal, the CRTC ordered Pelmorex to reach agreements with all federal, provincial and territorial emergency management officials to allow them to transmit messages through the system, implement the capability of processing "broadcast intrusive alerts" through the system, and develop a public awareness campaign surrounding the alert system with a budget of at least $1 million per-year. In June of the same year, the province of Alberta launched a new alerting system of its own,

Alberta Emergency Alert Alberta Emergency Alert (AEA) is a public warning system in Alberta that warns the public on impending or occurring emergencies affecting an area. The system was implemented in October 2011, replacing the former Alberta Emergency Public Warning ...

, which distributes alerts on radio and television, as well as online and via

social networking service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

s. This replaced the previous

Emergency Public Warning System The Emergency Public Warning System was a system used in the province of Alberta, Canada until October 2011, whereby local or provincial authorities could warn the public about impending or current emergencies affecting their area. The system wa ...

which had been used since 1992.

, the Canadian Council of Emergency Management Organizations, and the provinces of Manitoba and New Brunswick endorsed the potential use of the NAAD framework as a backend for a mandatory public alerting system. On 26 May 2013, SOREM published a "Common Look and Feel" specification for alerts. Developed with guidance from the broadcasting industry, it describes how and when alerts are to be distributed and presented to the public. As part of a license renewal in May 2013, CBC Radio agreed to implement an alerting system using NAAD by 31 December 2014. On 27 February 2014, the CRTC issued a proposal to mandate participation in the national alert system by all television and radio broadcasters, and cable and satellite companies. The commission felt that owing to the importance of the endeavour, broadcasters had displayed an inconsistent level of commitment to implement it voluntarily. This mandate was passed by the CRTC later that year through regulatory amendments. The Wireless Public Alerting System (WPAS) initiative was also launched that year as a three-year pilot project led by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, in collaboration with Defence Research Development Canada and Public Safety Canada, with the purpose to develop the use of

-based technology for emergency wireless public alerting.

Alert Ready

On 29 August 2014, the CRTC ruled that all Canadian broadcasters, including over-the-air television broadcasters, radio broadcasters, and broadcast distribution undertakings, must begin participating in the National Public Alerting System by 31 March 2015. Community, campus, and aboriginal broadcasters were given an extended deadline of 31 March 2016 to implement the system. In 2015, through television and radio,

launched a public awareness and education campaign about the new emergency alerting service. This campaign was branded Alert Ready (

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

: ''En Alerte''), launching on 31 March 2015. Alert Ready is now the public-facing brand name for the NPAS initiative. Bell Satellite TV, MTS, Shaw Direct, and

Sogetel Sogetel is a private Canadian telecommunications company founded in 1892. Sogetel is a landline independent telephone company that serves multiple areas, most rural, in Quebec. Sogetel Numérique (9164-3122 Québec Inc.) operates as a co ...

do not fully participate in the system, as some of their customers utilize legacy set-top boxes that cannot be updated to support the display of public alerts. They were granted a six-month extension for the implementation deadline by the CRTC in order to address these issues, under the condition that they inform customers that they cannot receive public alerts unless they update their hardware, and must present bi-weekly progress reports to the CRTC. CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais criticized the providers for their inability to properly implement the system, stating that the commission "will not hide our disappointment that certain television service providers are not ready, despite having been given more than enough time o implement it. In December 2015, the CRTC granted an indefinite extension of the exceptions and reporting guidelines to Bell, Shaw Direct, and MTS until they completely phase out hardware that is not compatible with the NPAS. The CRTC felt that the providers had made a good-faith effort in informing customers of their inability to receive public alerts and offering hardware replacements. Bell reported that some customers had declined their offering of a free set-top box replacement as they did not want to participate in receiving alerts. MTS discontinued its legacy "Classic TV" service due to its inability to display alerts, and urged its remaining subscribers to migrate to its current "Ultimate TV" (now Bell MTS Fibe TV) platform. Provincial tests began to improve public awareness of the new system, such as in Manitoba, and Quebec. One of the tests in the province on May 19, 2015, simulating a tornado emergency in the

Centre-du-Québec Centre-du-Québec (, ''Central Quebec'') is a region of Quebec, Canada. The main centres are Drummondville, Victoriaville, and Bécancour. It has a land area of and a 2016 Census population of 242,399 inhabitants. Description The Centre-du- ...

region, surprised many people tuned in to radio or TV in the region, leading some to believe that there was an actual tornado emergency.

Launch of mobile alerting

On 6 April 2017, the CRTC required all wireless carriers in Canada to begin relaying public alerts over their

and post-LTE wireless networks by 6 April 2018, using

Cell Broadcast Cell Broadcast (CB) is a method of sending messages to multiple mobile telephone users in a defined area at the same time. It is defined by the ETSI’s GSM committee and 3GPP and is part of the 2G, 3G, 4G LTE (telecommunication) and 5G s ...

-based standards by ATIS similar to the U.S. Wireless Emergency Alerts system, collaborating with the SOREM Common Look and Feel guidelines. The CRTC required at least half of devices offered by wireless carriers to support wireless public alerts (including at least one device available at no-charge on-contract, and one "accessible" device) by the implementation date. As of April 2019, all devices sold by wireless carriers must support wireless public alerts. The mandate does not apply to networks older than LTE; the CRTC chose to exclude older network technologies (such as 3G) from the mandate, citing wide deployment of LTE networks across the country, and that government funding has been used to support its deployment in underserved areas. On 29 January 2018, the CRTC informed the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence of concerns surrounding the possibility of false positives (such as a false missile alert in Hawaii earlier that month), and ensuring that the industry meets its goal of at least 50% of devices being capable of receiving mobile alerts by that date.

Operation

Alert Ready alerts are broadcast to last-mile distributors using the

Anik F1R The Anik satellites are a series of geostationary communications satellites launched for Telesat Canada for television, voice and data in Canada and other parts of the world, from 1972 through 2013. Some of the later satellites in the series ...

satellite over C-band on virtual channel 206 (with virtual channel 550 as a backup), and prior to 1 September 2019, using the

Anik F2 Anik may refer to: * Anik (satellite), satellites launched by Canadian telecommunications company Telesat * Anik, Iran, a village in South Khorasan Province, Iran * Anik Mountain * Anik Bissonnette, a Canadian ballet dancer * Anik Jean (born 1977) ...

satellite over Ku-band. The Ku-band signals were terminated August 31, 2019 after consultation with the Last Mile Distributors determined that it was underutilized and sufficient alternate services exist. Alerts are also distributed over the internet from web servers based in Oakville and Montreal on TCP port 8080. An

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

feed of past alerts is also available. The presentation of alerts is dictated by the NPAS Common Look and Feel Guidance. Messages are formatted using the Canadian Profile of the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP-CP), and are provided in at least one of Canada's official languages (either English,

, or both, as determined by local policies and laws). Alerts can contain text and audio components, and contain information designating the region that an alert applies to. Messages marked with "Broadcast Immediately" flags are used to designate alerts that present "an imminent or unexpected threat to life, that alerting officials wish to be distributed and presented to the public as soon as possible, even if it means disrupting the programming of last mile distributors." On television and radio, relevant alerts marked with this flag are immediately presented to viewers when they are received, interrupting programming to facilitate their display. These alerts are prefaced by the Canadian Alerting Attention Signal. The attention signal is an 8-second sequence of alternating half-second duration complex tones, the first being a combination of tones at frequencies of 932.33 Hz, 1046.5 Hz and 3135.96 Hz, and the second at 440 Hz, 659.26 Hz and 3135.96 Hz (the same signal that is used by Alberta Emergency Alert). The attention signal is followed by the audio of the alert where applicable or supported by hardware (in the absence of audio, the alert may be read using a text to speech system, or a generic message played). The Common Look and Feel Guidance prescribes that, on television, the text of alerts be displayed on either a crawler, or as a full screen notice that covers programming, in white text on a red background in both cases. Crawlers inserted by television channels are positioned at the centre of the screen out of respect for those inserted by broadcast distribution undertakings at the bottom of the screen. The guidelines note that "automated broadcast interruption need not be used if a person can present the text of an audience alert message verbally and visually mindful of the other guidance found in

he guidelines He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

Wireless alerting

In addition to television and radio, Alert Ready issues emergency alerts to cell phones and wireless devices that are compatible with the Wireless Public Alerting System (WPA). The WPA system uses a Canadian version of the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) standard adopted in the United States. A separate "Wireless Immediately" flag is used to require

distribution. Wireless alerts on devices specifically supporting Cell Broadcast alerts utilize the same attention signal sound and a specific vibration pattern mimicking this sound. The Common Look and Feel Guidance specifies that the phone's software must display these alerts with a capitalized, bilingual heading reading "EMERGENCY ALERT / ALERTE D'URGENCE", and a limit of 600 characters due to device limitations. Devices may not be configured to allow users to opt out of alerts: they are coded using the same priority level as U.S. presidential alerts—the only U.S. category which may not be disabled. If the device's software is primarily designed for the U.S. implementation of WEA, it will typically identify Canadian wireless emergency alerts as a presidential alert. Mobile apps are available that distribute alerts as push notifications to mobile devices such as smartphones.

Public awareness testing

Public awareness tests are held twice per-year, in which a 30-second test message (60 seconds in provinces where bilingual messages are issued) is distributed to radio and television outlets, and a Cell Broadcast message is sent to wireless phones. One is held on a Wednesday in May during Public Safety Canada's Emergency Preparedness Week, and the second is held in November. Initially, four, quarterly tests were scheduled annually, on the third Wednesday of every third month of the year, along with the Emergency Preparedness Week test. After the introduction of wireless alerts in May 2018, however, SOREM quietly ceased all quarterly tests, citing concerns that tests only directed to broadcast media could cause confusion to the public over the effectiveness and correct operation of the extended system. The CRTC supported this position, officially requiring wireless service providers to participate in two public-visible alerts per year, distributed on all platforms. There is precedent for alert tests to be postponed or cancelled on a regional basis if there is an ongoing threat of an actual emergency in an area, such as for instance, Spring flooding in parts of Ontario and Quebec in May 2019.

Alert types

Federal and provincial/territorial government officials have developed a specific list of the types of alerts that are considered a "threat to life." Effective June 2021, broadcast intrusive alerts are now issued for severe thunderstorm warnings if winds exceed , or hail exceeds . On 21 May 2022, a broadcast intrusive alert was issued for a derecho in Ontario and Quebec (identified as a severe thunderstorm warning) under this criteria for the first time.

Alerts issued

The following is the total number of emergency alert messages issued by Canadian government authorities through Alert Ready.

Participating agencies

Only authorized government agencies may issue alerts. Alerts distributed by NAAD originate from specially-designated government agencies/ministries and provincial alerting agencies. Tornado alerts are issued by the federal Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), while all other emergency alert messages are issued by the respective provincial/territorial government organizations. * — has a pre-existing alert system,

(AEA), which is also based on CAP, was voluntarily adopted by broadcasters serving the province prior to the federal alerting mandate, and has since been distributed through NAAD as well. Participation in AEA therefore became mandatory. * — BC Emergency Alerting System (under

Emergency Management BC Emergency Management BC (EMBC), formerly the Provincial Emergency Program, is a division of the Executive Council of British Columbia, Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General of British Columbia, Canada. EMBC works with local governments a ...

) * — Manitoba Emergency Measures Organization (under Manitoba Infrastructure) * — New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organization (NBEMO; under the Department of Justice and Public Safety) * — Emergency Management Organization (under the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs) * — Emergency Management Office (under the Department of Municipal Affairs) * — Emergency Measures Organization (under Nunavut Emergency Management) * — Emergency Management Ontario (under

Ministry of the Solicitor General The Solicitor General of Canada was a position in the Canada, Canadian The Ministry, ministry from 1892 to 2005. The position was based on the Solicitor General for England and Wales, Solicitor General in the Great Britain, British system and was or ...

) * — Prince Edward Island Emergency Measures Organization (under the Department of Justice and Public Safety) * — Québec En Alerte (under Ministry of Public Security) * — SaskAlert is the Saskatchewan government's emergency public alerting program. SaskAlert participants at the provincial level include the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency,

Ministry of Environment An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment ...

Ministry of Health Ministry of Health may refer to: Note: Italics indicate now-defunct ministries. * Ministry of Health (Argentina) * Ministry of Health (Armenia) * Australia: ** Ministry of Health (New South Wales) * Ministry of Health (The Bahamas) * Ministry of ...

, Ministry of Social Services, Ministry of Highways, Ministry of Parks Culture and Sport, SaskPower, SaskTel, and Saskatchewan Water Security Agency. * — Emergency Measures Organization (under the Department of Community Services) As the system was designed primarily to handle domestic situations such as weather, ECCC is currently the only federal agency that is capable of issuing alerts. Following the false alarm in Hawaii in January 2018, discussions began on how the possibility of an actual missile attack threat would be handled, and the

Canadian Press The Canadian Press (CP; french: La Presse canadienne, ) is a Canadian national news agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1917 as a vehicle for the time's Canadian newspapers to exchange news and information, The Canadian Pre ...

reported in December 2018 that they were "finalizing" a protocol for the handling of such events.

Reception

An activation of the system in Manitoba for a tornado spotting led to criticism over the quality of the text-to-speech system used by Manitoba's implementation of the alert system, with viewers reporting a "garbled" message and mispronunciations of community names. On March 6, 2016, Alert Ready was used to distribute an AMBER Alert in Ontario relating to an alleged kidnapping of a child in Orillia (the child's father was actually picking up the child after they had run from home). Viewers felt that the frequent notifications (especially as it occurred during the U.S. airing of the series finale of '' Downton Abbey'', seen via PBS stations carried in Canada) with full-screen messages and alarm sounds as being disruptive, in comparison to the previous, voluntary practice of Canadian broadcasters displaying AMBER Alert messages on tickers. At the same time, the move was praised for providing a higher degree of prominence to the alert; Orillia Ontario Provincial Police commander Patrick Morris defended its use, stating that "while I will apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, we won't apologize for using all of the tools available to us to find a missing child." ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with M ...

'' columnist Matt Gurney provided similar praise, but noted that the system's operation hindered its ability to disseminate information quickly. He explained that while the purpose of such a system is to " etinformation to the public as rapidly and as clearly as possible", on his television provider's set-top box "the text was arriving on my screen incredibly slowly. Several minutes into the alert, we were just starting to get the description of the child and the suspect vehicle. It was embarrassing — when seconds count, the province needed minutes to deliver incredibly basic, utterly crucial facts about the emergency. The contrast between the urgently screeching buzz of the alarm and the text crawling up the screen in ultra-slow motion seemed designed for comedic effect." He also, similarly, noted the poor quality of the text-to-speech systems.

Wireless alerting

The first public awareness test to include

transmission occurred in Ontario and Quebec on May 7, 2018, with the remaining provinces following suit on May 9, in observance of Emergency Preparedness Week. In Quebec, a syntax error in the test message's XML file caused the wireless alert to fail, while users in Ontario reported mixed results. Testing in the remaining provinces and territories, excluding

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' ...

, occurred May 9, 2018, again to mixed results, with people reporting having not gotten an alert despite their phones meeting the requirements. Though the test was reported to have worked in Nova Scotia and PEI, reports from Alberta, Manitoba, the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan saw people failing to get alerts (although the crown telecom SaskTel deemed it a success). Following the first test,

Bell Mobility Bell Mobility Inc. is a Canadian mobile network operator, wireless network operator and the division of Bell Canada which offers wireless services across Canada. It operates networks using LTE (telecommunication), LTE and Evolved HSPA, HSPA+ on i ...

and Telus acknowledged issues preventing receipt of the messages. In September 2018, Scott Shortliffe, chief consumer officer of the CRTC, acknowledged that the effectiveness of the system was being affected by technical problems, following a province-wide AMBER Alert in North Battleford, Saskatchewan where the wireless cell broadcast was delayed by several hours (as well as complaints by Manitoba residents over the cross-provincial extension of the alert), and mixed reports during tornadoes in the Ottawa-Gatineau region (including some users not receiving any message, and users in Quebec only receiving an English-language message). On October 3, 2018, CRTC Secretary General Claude Doucet issued a letter ordering service providers to participate in another visible all-channel alert test that was being scheduled in November (scheduled for November 28). SOREM also requested that the CRTC mandate biannual tests of wireless alerts rather than just annual. Criticism emerged following an AMBER Alert in Ontario on May 14, 2018 for a child allegedly kidnapped in Thunder Bay, Ontario—the first to have included mobile alerts. Three different emergency messages were sent, the first contained only English text, but was resent merely a half hour later in order to add a French-language translation, followed by one more alert message stating that the AMBER Alert had been cancelled, and the child found safe. Criticism was directed primarily towards the intrusive presentation of the message, and that all AMBER Alerts are sent across the entire province rather than regionalized to only cover a vicinity around the city (the alert was received as far as Toronto, which is at least away from Thunder Bay), and the fact that all wireless alerts are mandatory and cannot be disabled (unlike in the U.S., where AMBER Alerts are one of three categories of alerts users may opt out from, while "Presidential" level alerts are mandatory and may not be disabled). There were concerns that such excessive use could result in alarm fatigue and desensitization to actual local emergencies. In a 2019 follow-up to his previous criticisms of the system, Gurney noted that several instances of AMBER Alerts issued during the early-morning hours in Ontario had prompted residents to call

9-1-1 , usually written 911, is an emergency telephone number for the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Palau, Argentina, Philippines, Jordan, as well as the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), one of eight N11 codes. Like other emergency nu ...

to complain. He argued that such alerts were only of immediate relevance to recipients that were awake, attentive, and "out-and-about" (who could be targeted via radio and television rather than cell broadcast), but were being given the same intrusive presentation as alerts for imminent threats to public safety that affect a larger population. Gurney thus argued that in such a situation, those who were not awake could learn the details of the alert in the morning instead. He also acknowledged similar opinions presented by Philip Cross in an editorial for its sister publication, the '' Financial Post''; Cross felt that AMBER Alerts on phones should be optional as in the U.S., comparing the disruption of sleep caused by late-night alerts to health effects associated with daylight saving time, and noting that the public would be "more likely to arrive at better solutions if we can discuss the issue sanely, rather than have all complaints dismissed as callous disregard for children's safety." In response to an Ontario AMBER Alert that concluded with the victim found murdered, a '' Maclean's'' columnist,

Scott Gilmore Scott Gilmore is a Canadian social entrepreneur, former Canadian foreign service officer, and writer who is known for founding the non-profit Peace Dividend Trust, Building Markets and as an advocate for capitalist expansion in the international ...

, pronounced all critics of the system to be "horrible" and expressing entitlement for their refusal to participate in the civic duty of locating a missing child in imminent danger. In October 2019, a 70-year old resident of Hamilton, Ontario was charged with mischief for disrupting emergency services, after repeatedly calling 9-1-1 to complain about an AMBER Alert broadcast.

False alarms

On January 12, 2020 at 7:24 a.m. ET, an emergency alert was issued for the entire province of Ontario, advising that an incident had been reported at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. The alert stated that "there has been no abnormal release of radioactivity from the station", staff was responding to the situation, and that no immediate protective actions were required. Approximately 40 minutes later, Ontario Power Generation issued a statement on its Twitter account indicating that the alert had been sent in error. At around 9:10 a.m., a second emergency alert message was issued, containing a similar retraction. Solicitor General

Sylvia Jones Sylvia Jones (born ) is a Canadian politician who has served as the deputy premier of Ontario and Ontario minister of health since June 24, 2022. Jones sits as the member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Dufferin—Caledon, representing th ...

stated that the erroneous alert was the result of a mistake during a "routine training exercise" by Ontario's

emergency operations centre An emergency operations center (EOC) is a central command and control facility responsible for carrying out the principles of emergency preparedness and emergency management, or disaster management functions at a strategic level during an eme ...

. In its aftermath, Dave Ryan and John Tory—the mayors of

Pickering Pickering may refer to: Places Antarctica * Pickering Nunataks, Alexander Island Australia * Pickering, South Australia, the original name (1872–1940) of the town of Wool Bay * Pickering Brook, Western Australia, Australia Canada * Pic ...

and Toronto, made calls for a full investigation into the incident. MPP and Ontario NDP energy and climate change critic Peter Tabuns also responded, stating that "confidence in the accuracy of the

lert Lert may refer to: * Lert (surname) *Lerd, Ardabil , settlement_type = Village , pushpin_map = Iran , mapsize = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Ardabil , subdivisi ...

system is essential for public safety." U.S. media outlets drew comparisons between the incident and the

2018 Hawaii false missile alert On the morning of Saturday, January 13, 2018, a ballistic missile alert was accidentally issued via the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alert System over television, radio and cellphones in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The alert stat ...

(coincidentally, the Pickering incident occurred on the eve of the Hawaii incident's second anniversary). On February 27, 2020, the results of a formal investigation were published. It found that the alert was triggered by a duty officer of Ontario's emergency operations centre at the beginning of his shift, who had accidentally remained logged into the live alert system when performing a regular internal test. It was considered common practice for officers to log into the live system first to ensure it is functioning before switching to a secondary, internal instance of the system designed specifically for testing purposes. The officer had realized his error, but the alert retracting the previous message was delayed due to an inability to receive clear instructions from Emergency Management Ontario supervisors on how to make an alert broadcast-intrusive, or whether the second alert should have been at all.

Testing errors

On May 12, 2021,

accidentally re-issued a test alert that had been used for the biannual provincial test one week prior.

Non-usage

During the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police was criticized following a killing spree by Gabriel Wortman on April 19, 2020 in Nova Scotia, for not having used the alert system to warn of the active gunman at-large. Premier

Stephen McNeil Stephen McNeil (born November 10, 1964) is a Canadian politician who served as the 28th premier of Nova Scotia, from 2013 to 2021. He also represented the riding of Annapolis in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 2003 to 2021 and was the le ...

stated that he had not formally received any request for the issuance of an emergency alert, and explained that "I can tell you, I'm not going to second-guess why someone or the organization did what they did or didn't do at this moment in time. This was an active environment, I can tell you. Deaths, gunfire. Let's give them an opportunity as an organization to explain that to you." RCMP Chief Superintendent Chris Leather stated that they had primarily relied on Twitter to issue timely updates on the situation due to its fluidity. However, the areas where the shootings occurred had poor internet access, and a large population of seniors (who may not necessarily be active users of social media). On April 22, Premier McNeil stated that at 10:15 a.m. AT, provincial emergency management officials had attempted to contact RCMP officials "a number of times" for permission and cooperation in issuing an alert. However, the RCMP did not respond; the suspect was shot and killed by police just over an hour later at 11:26 a.m. The RCMP did not have a national strategy or policy for use of emergency alerts during such situations, but some law enforcement agencies began to express interest in evaluating future use of the system as part of their communications strategies.

During the 2021 British Columbia floods

chose not to use the alert system during major floods in November 2021, with the province's Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth stating that "It is one tool. It is not a silver bullet." In response to the criticism and ahead of further storms expected to make landfall, on November 28, Farnworth stated that the province would use the system "should a community or communities feel there is an imminent threat to life or public safety".

Notes

References

External links

* *, a third-party website that displays an interactive map of current and previous alerts distributed via NAAD. {{Cell Broadcast System Emergency population warning systems in Canada Pelmorex 2015 establishments in Canada

History

Proposals

Development

Alert Ready

Launch of mobile alerting

Operation

Wireless alerting

Public awareness testing

Alert types

Alerts issued

Participating agencies

Reception

Wireless alerting

False alarms

Testing errors

Non-usage

During the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks

During the 2021 British Columbia floods

See also

Notes

References

External links