Gaps in 911 service are unacceptable and dangerous

Opinion

There was a time when you’d keep a list of separate numbers for the fire department, the police and for calling an ambulance.

The advent of 911 services put an end to all that, with essentially one number for all emergencies. But what is your fallback plan if 911 isn’t working? Do you even have one?

Probably not — and the fact is, you shouldn’t need one. By definition, 911 is an essential service and it should work all the time, every time — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year.

But recent cases in Manitoba, raised in the legislature by the PC opposition, have found gaps in 911 service, gaps that have to be addressed immediately.

On one case in the Fisher Branch area highlighted a critical issue with Telus phone users and 911: 55-year-old Dean Switzer died of a heart attack while family and friends spent 90 minutes performing CPR, unable to get in contact with a 911 operator despite calling the number 22 times. They finally got an ambulance to respond by calling an off-duty RCMP officer on his cellphone — and the RCMP officer contacted ambulance services.

The problem? Well, cellphone provider Telus said a technical issue blocked all of its users from being able to reach 911 on Telus phones from 8:15 p.m. on March 22 until 11 a.m. on March 24, 2025. How many Manitobans were affected? Apparently, that’s confidential business information.

You would think that in a situation as serious as 911 not working, Telus would have gone out of its way to inform customers that the problem had occurred. After all, cellphone providers seem able to reach into their customers’ direct messages at will to inform them of the latest corporate offer: a text to inform customers of an issue with 911 service hardly seems like too much to ask.

Innovation and New Technology Minister Mike Moroz said he had a meeting with officials from Telus and had “a very long and comprehensive conversation” about the issue. Does that solve the problem and prevent it from happening again? No.

The company has submitted a report to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Cold comfort for those trying to get help for Dean Switzer.

That’s not the only recent issue: in another case, Willy Ginter, who lives on a farm near Zhoda, kept being put on hold while trying to report a wildfire. He phoned the municipality instead, and firefighters were dispatched. In that case, there are questions about whether a 911 service centre was understaffed and unable to take calls.

PC MLA Konrad Narth says that when he spoke to eight fire chiefs at a fire evacuation centre in Piney, they said the last 12 months has seen regular issues with callers being unable to reach 911.

That’s simply not good enough.

Cellphone providers should have full secondary backup equipment to keep 911 services available at all times, and, if regional 911 centres don’t have the staff to answer calls, finding a solution to that issue should be dealt with as its own emergency.

Time is critical in an emergency: a fire doubles in size every minute and every minute you spend trying to reach 911 or, worse, trying to find an unanticipated workaround to reach the fire department is time lost. The time implications are worse still for someone who has stopped breathing or whose heart isn’t beating due to a medical emergency.

Gaps in 911 service are far from an everyday glitch in customer service.

Too much is at stake.