Manitoba mayors call for contingency plan after 911 outage

Manitoba's 911 emergency communication system experienced a significant outage on Wednesday afternoon, leaving residents outside Winnipeg unable to reach emergency services through the standard number for approximately two hours. While the Manitoba RCMP reported no knowledge of emergency responses being negatively affected, local and provincial officials are raising concerns about the system's reliability and the need for contingency plans.

Steinbach Mayor Earl Funk highlighted the incident as exposing flaws in the province's emergency system. "What we need to do now is make sure that we’re proactive, and that we’re ready for this if ever happens again, hopefully it never does," Funk stated, emphasizing the need for preparedness.

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What we need to do now is make sure that we’re proactive, and that we’re ready for this if ever happens again, hopefully it never does

In Brandon, Mayor Jeff Fawcett explained that their city managed the interruption using backup software called RapidSOS. "It was able to see calls were coming and return them," Fawcett said, though dispatchers could not initiate new calls. He noted that dispatchers were able to call most people back within minutes, and ambulance services continued to operate.

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It was able to see calls were coming and return them

Bell, the telecommunications company responsible for the service, attributed the outage to a fiber cable being cut by a third party engaged in construction work. The company also stated that its backup systems encountered issues during the outage, though it remains unclear if these were also related to the damaged cable.

Fawcett suggested that the incident necessitates a thorough review of the entire system. "If it was just one cut somewhere that put the whole province outside of Winnipeg out, we need to have that reviewed quickly and say, what are the alternatives to that," he urged. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew indicated that Prime Minister Mark Carney committed to discussing the issue with telecom CEOs. Bell is required by the CRTC to submit a post-outage report within 14 days, and all emergency dispatch centers in Manitoba are slated to transition to a new, more robust Next Generation 911 system by the end of 2026.

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If it was just one cut somewhere that put the whole province outside of Winnipeg out, we need to have that reviewed quickly and say, what are the alternatives to that