The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) may give the centres that receive and process 911 calls across the country an extra year to implement next-generation technology, but one Ottawa man argues it’s too important to delay.
While callers might not notice the difference right away, next-generation 911 (NG911) would improve the system for operators and allow for new features down the line, like allowing callers to text or send photos.
All municipalities were supposed to phase out older systems by March 4, 2025, but the CRTC received three applications in December 2023 from eight groups including associations representing chiefs of police, paramedics and firefighters calling to push the deadline back as far as a year, to March 4, 2026.
In September, Ottawa businessman and college professor Michael Wood filed his own intervention, declaring the CRTC should “urgently facilitate the implementation of NG911 across Canada and reject proposals to delay it.”
“These are life and death situations for the most part, and we have to buckle down and make this happen,” Wood told CBC.
What’s so urgent?
Wood became an advocate for better emergency services when he tried to call 911 for his brother, who lived in Toronto. The operators in Ottawa were unable to transfer his call there.
Wood helped Ottawa transition to a system that would allow inter-city call transfers, but notes that capability isn’t available everywhere. NG911 software will allow operators to transfer calls between cities and geolocate callers.
Wood also started a petition that received over 500 signatures and will be presented in the House of Commons. He said he intends to do the same in the provincial parliament.
Executive director of Ottawa Victim Services Heidi Illingworth agreed the technology upgrade could help save lives.
“There’s situations where you can’t speak or it might be dangerous to speak,” Illingworth said. “The more options that you have for folks who are in emergency situations, in distress, the better.”
She acknowledged other steps the Ottawa Police Service has made to help survivors of domestic violence and other victims, like filling out police reports online, but said the need for NG911 is “urgent” and it should be made a priority.
‘Mistakes might kill’
Eric Janus, head of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police’s (CACP) NG911 working group, pointed out that emergency services in Canada are held to a national standard, and believes that baseline must be protected.
He worries if the transition to NG911 is rushed, some regions — particularly rural areas with less funding — could get left behind.
“We can’t really have any mistakes because our mistakes might kill somebody,” Janus said.
According to Akram Askoul, co-chair of the CACP’s information and communications technology committee, the COVID-19 pandemic was a major factor in delaying the implementation of NG911.
“When the world started to recover from COVID … you almost had to take a reset and go back,” he said.
Askoul said the pandemic affected the process at every level, from the public safety answering points (PSAPs) that receive the calls to the vendors they rely on.
The deadline for NG911 implementation has already been extended once: In June 2017, the CRTC directed that non-NG911 networks should be decommissioned by June 30, 2023, but in June 2021 it pushed the deadline to March 4, 2025.
In their comments to the CRTC, other groups raised concerns about the limited resources available for the transition, the late start for some PSAPs, software defects in the network and the increase in 911 calls.
Janus estimates that only around half of PSAPs in Canada think they can make the 2025 deadline despite their best efforts.
“I have not been in any meetings that people are taking their time because they want to. Everybody’s pushing this as quickly as [they] can,” he said.
Wood was sympathetic to those challenges, and agreed safety is paramount.
“I’m not here to say that they’re not working hard enough,” Wood said. “I think we just need more focus, more direction and potentially more funding in order to make that happen.”
A CRTC spokesperson told CBC by email the commission is unable to provide a timeline for a decision on another possible extension.
LISTEN | Why the fight for better 911 is personal for Michael Wood
Ottawa Morning5:55Why a Barrhaven man is behind the push for 9-1-1 call transfers
When Michael Wood called 9-1-1 in Ottawa back in 2022, he was shocked the city didn’t have the technology to patch him through to emergency services in Toronto to help a family member who was experiencing a mental health crisis. Thanks to Michael’s advocacy, Ottawa adopted new technology that can do just that. Now he’s pushing the province to make it easier for other Ontario municipalities to do the same.
Read Wood’s full intervention: