Premier presses Bell Canada about ‘unacceptable’ 911 outages

Premier Wab Kinew said the province is doing all it can to ensure that Manitobans aren’t hit with another 911 service outage — including asking the head of Bell Canada to help.

“At the end of the day, when you dial 911, we need to get emergency services to you as quickly as possible,” Kinew said.

On July 22, an hours-long outage prevented nearly 90 calls to 911 from being routed to the public safety answering point in Brandon. Backup systems that reroute 911 calls when an outage occurs also experienced “issues” after a third party cut the cable during construction near Winnipeg, Bell Canada said earlier.

At the time, Kinew called the 911 outage “unacceptable,” and told reporters that Prime Minister Mark Carney assured him he would raise the matter with telecom executives.

“I was grateful that he shared our perspective, which is that it’s unacceptable when 911 service in Manitoba goes offline,” the premier said.

Telephone service outages have occurred occasionally in Manitoba. More than 50 callers were unable to access 911 services during a Bell MTS service outage on April 28 of this year. In March 2025, the family of Fisher Branch resident Dean Switzer, unaware their Telus service was temporarily disrupted, was unable to get through to 911 after he suffered a heart attack that proved fatal.

Kinew said he spoke directly to Bell Canada president and CEO Mirko Bibic about Manitoba’s 911 outages.

“I told Mr. Bibic that a 911 outage is unacceptable.”

The telecom executive reiterated the explanation about a third party damaging a cable during a construction project that resulted in the most recent loss of 911 service.

The premier said he pressed the CEO “a little bit, respectfully of course” about the lack of a backup system when that happens.

“If that is the situation — where 911 service can be interrupted by a mishap on a construction site — can we look at a technical fix there?’” Kinew said.

The company has repeatedly said that replacing “legacy” systems with next-generation 911 service by 2027 will prevent such outages in the future. Kinew wants to see a plan to prevent outages in the meantime.

“I said ‘Can we have an interim solution here to make sure if there is another cut to the fibre line?’”

He and the Bell Canada boss had a “productive and constructive discussion,” Kinew said.

“We’re going to continue to follow up on that.”

The union representing Bell MTS technicians says cuts to service and maintenance are to blame for Manitoba’s 911 outages.

“We need more boots on the ground,” said Richard Ferris, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 435 that represents Bell technicians.

“We’re down 80 positions from probably this time last year. Ten years ago, we had almost 700 members. Today we’re standing at about 440,” Ferris said. “The IBEW is genuinely concerned that Bell’s continued efforts to reduce its workforce and skirt its responsibilities will result in catastrophic consequences.”

Bell Canada said it adheres to “hundreds of technical standards for its operations and networks, including robust 911 network design and contingency plans to protect service continuity for our customers.” Company spokesperson Elise von Scheel said in an email that she could not share any records to show when testing, inspections and maintenance of backup power systems were conducted in Manitoba.

“The specifics of these processes are kept confidential to maintain the security of our networks,” von Scheel said.

Ferris said he and representatives of the Telecommunications Employees Association of Manitoba and Unifor met Tuesday with Innovation and New Technology Minister Mike Moroz. They talked about the 911 outages and the need to ensure they don’t happen in the future.

“Everyone agrees that Manitobans deserve better,” Ferris said.

Moroz’s office said the province is doing what it can and that he has raised concerns with his federal counterpart.

“The federal government needs to ensure that Manitobans have uninterrupted access to emergency services,” a spokesman for Moroz said. “We will continue to put pressure on the federal government to have the CRTC take immediate action to ensure no disruption in critical 911 services.”

The Tory critic for innovation and new technology agreed 911 service failures are “flatly unacceptable.”

“No more excuses, no more arguing about jurisdiction. It’s time for the government to act to hold Bell accountable, including by imposing fines, modernize the system and guarantee that when Manitobans need help, help can get to them,” said Borderland MLA Josh Guenter in an email.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca