Edmonton, Alberta
February 18, 2015
Peter Menzies, Vice-Chairman of Telecommunications
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Check against delivery
Thank you for the opportunity to join you today and to be back in Edmonton, a city where I spent the first 10 years of my life and of which I have many fond recollections.
Among those cheerful memories of trudging back and forth to school in February 40-below temperatures is one that came to mind when I first received the invitation to speak with you.
On my school grounds – some of you may remember these – was an air raid siren that in retrospect constitutes my first encounter with emergency alerting. It was there to warn us in the event the Cold War turned hot and Soviet nuclear missiles would be launched against us. My teachers taught us how to take cover. My father instructed my sister and I where to be in the event our mother had time to pick us up so we could flee the city and the immediate blast zone. It was, particularly for a little boy, unsettling. But it was emergency preparedness. And it was emergency alerting.
Well, the Cuban Missile crisis faded. The Cold War has long been over. The Soviet Union is no more and the threat of incoming missiles from that source at least has dissipated. Yet the need to alert Canadians – and there are a lot more of us now than there were then – surely remains at the core of public sector responsibilities.
Alberta has been the nation’s leader in this for a very long time – certainly in terms of its use of the broadcasting system. When, in my prior role as the CRTC regional commissioner for Alberta and the Northwest Territories, I first began travelling to Ottawa and dealing with these matters. I was shocked to discover that Alberta was the only province to have a system in place to make use of licensed broadcasting signals to warn the public of imminent threats.
Next month, following a process conducted last year by the CRTC, broadcasters in the rest of the country will catch up and, starting on March 31, broadcasters and television service providers will begin relaying emergency alerts to Canadians.
Campus, community-based, Native broadcasters and radio distribution undertakings have until March 31, 2016 to comply.
Last fall, the CRTC reached out to all Canadian broadcasters (including tourist radio stations) and television service providers for an update on their implementation of the technology that will enable their participation in the national system.
I’m happy to report that for the most part the implementation is well underway and most sectors of the industry are on track to meet the March 31 deadline.
Some broadcasters and television distributors have told us about the challenges they have experienced, for sure. We are aware that good work is rarely easy and that there are some challenges with technology that we are aware of. Nevertheless, we are also very conscious of the fact that public alerting is fundamental to the public good. We have not sprung this on the industry. It has had many years to prepare. Cable and satellite subscribers have been subsidizing the creation of the National Alert Aggregation and Dissemination System via Pelmorex for many years now.
It is time for Canadians to receive alerts, so I will state for the record that we have little patience for foot-dragging or the dog ate my homework style of excuses. A broadcast or distribution licence is not a right. It is a privilege bestowed on behalf of Canadians. When their safety is at stake, we expect performance. In fact, we insist on it.
Later this spring, we will reach out to hear how the actual implementation went. What we hear will inform future public-alerting initiatives.
In the meantime and before I forget, I would like to publicly thank the Pelmorex Alerting Governance Council, which has played a key role in the system’s roll out.
Its membership includes major broadcasters, the senior officials responsible for emergency management (SOREM), Pelmorex (the operator of the actual alert system), Environment Canada, and Public Safety Canada. Together, this group represents both the private broadcasting industry, as well as federal, provincial and territorial governments.
All of this is good.
Things are better than before.
But as we are all aware, we live in one of the most dynamic periods of change in human history. Never before has so much changed so quickly, particularly in the manner in which human beings interconnect and communicate. So there is really no such thing anymore as crossing a finishing line and pausing to catch one’s breath. The race to ensure Canadians have a modern, comprehensive communications infrastructure that can facilitate emergency alerting on all platforms and through all facilities is – at least so far ahead as we can see right now – an ongoing marathon.
The Telecommunications Act states as a primary objective in Section 7 (a) that:
You will note that I emphasized the word “safeguard.”
And you will also note that it is not our role to do any safeguarding per se but it is very much our role – indeed an obligation placed upon us by Parliament – to ensure the “orderly development” of a system that safeguards Canadians.
As noted earlier, we no longer require safeguarding from the major threat of my childhood – the Soviet Union. But threats to public safety never end. They just evolve. Alberta’s alert system expanded its distribution platforms following the F4 tornado that cut a swath 40 kilometres long and a kilometre wide through this very city and parts of Strathcona County on July 31, 1987. Twenty-seven people died; more than 300 were injured. A similar number of homes were destroyed.
Less than two years ago, Calgary and High River were overwhelmed by floods and 100,000 people evacuated. Two weeks later an unattended train ran away, derailed and unleashed a fireball into the community of Lac-Mégantic. Forty seven people died in the worst rail accident in this country since Confederation.
And just this past October, I found myself among many thousands locked down in Ottawa and Gatineau when a gunman murdered a Canadian soldier and launched an assault on Parliament.
I have personal experience with both the Calgary and Ottawa anecdotes. In the former, members of the broadcasting– Shaw in particular – and telecommunications – Telus in particular – industries performed admirably to serve their citizens. And so they did in Ottawa as well. But in both places it was noted that one of the new sources of information was social media – Twitter in particular.
We have all seen examples, however, where misinformation has spread quickly via social media, especially during a crisis where the situation can change minute by minute. Could there be a way to provide Canadians with authenticated and authoritative information on new platforms?
So just as the nature of threats evolve, the nature of the infrastructure required to alert people to their imminence must evolve too.
I know you are all working to do that. It is the very nature of this summit.
We have a keen interest in the progress being made in developing a set of national standards, especially as it relates to the Network Working Group on wireless public alerting.
This forum, which operates under the umbrella of the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee, is working on developing standards that would enable emergency management officials to relay information to Canadians on their cellphones.
The standards that the working group is validating emerged from SOREM and a live demonstration will hopefully take place later this year. We will be following this trial with great interest, in the hopes that it paves the way for its adoption by all jurisdictions.
It is also our understanding that the province of Alberta may once again be taking an active role in this space, and examining options to expand its existing alerting network to encompass wireless alerts. We will be closely following these efforts, too.
We will act, within the confines of our mandate, to ensure that the appropriate policies are in place in as timely a manner as possible. That being said, we do recognize the technical challenges associated with creating and testing standards, and the effort needed to overcome the technical challenges that may arise.
So, we are looking forward to getting to know your needs and capacities better.
We are also aware that emergencies come in big and small packages and that a very large part of the jobs of emergency personnel is not alerting, but responding. And in order to do that, Canadians and their emergency responders need an effective 9-1-1 system.
Most provinces, but not all, have enacted 9-1-1 legislation – notably Alberta and Newfoundland within the past year and approximately 96% of Canadians have access to these services. There remain parts of the country and citizens within the country for whom the system remains inaccessible. However, thanks to recently announced initiatives, it is comforting to see the gap closing in this regard.
Newfoundland and Labrador is in the process of implementing its new legislation, the Yukon has taken steps toward full implementation of a 9-1-1 system and the Northwest Territories is trying to get that ball rolling.
All good stuff, but let me re-emphasize that the establishment and maintenance of call centres and first responders are matters of municipal and provincial jurisdiction. Our job at the CRTC is to ensure that the telecommunications systems under our jurisdiction are available to meet your needs and the needs of all Canadians, particularly when the time comes to connect citizens with emergency services.
(On the matter of call centres, among the many I have visited was the one in St. Albert where last year I was afforded the most wonderful hospitality by the folks there. Like all Canadians, I was deeply shocked and saddened by the murder of Const. David Wynn and would like to express my condolences to his family, his colleagues and those who loved him most.)
Here’s what we have been doing in regards to 9-1-1.
A few years ago the CRTC required wireless companies to upgrade their networks to help emergency responders more accurately locate someone using a cellphone to call 9-1-1.
More recently, these same companies were required to make changes to their networks in order for Canadians with speech and hearing disabilities to communicate with 9-1-1 call centres via text messages. Many Canadian call centres have already implemented this new feature – including most recently in Nova Scotia, where the service has been available province-wide since mid-January. The rollout is continuing across the country.
Last year, we approved the provision of a new service called video relay service. When it launches, Canadians will be able to conduct “telephone” calls via the Internet using American Sign Language or langue des signes québécoise with the assistance of an interpreter. A key feature of the new service is that it will prioritize calls to 9-1-1 call centres during its hours of operation. Emergency calls will be placed first in line for an interpreter, who will then connect the call to emergency responders.
Last June, following an inquiry report by then-Commissioner Timothy Denton, the CRTC issued its action plan for 9-1-1 services.
The plan includes more initiatives aimed at enhancing the current 9-1-1 system, and will lead us to a review of the regulatory framework for next-generation 9-1-1 services in 2016. The future is not so distant when Canadians will be able to access and benefit from emergency services in new ways, and the CRTC is ready to play its role.
Our goal for this proceeding is to provide a framework through which Canadian telecommunications networks are equipped to support next-generation 9-1-1 services as the call centres are ready to implement the new capabilities.
In closing, be assured that we, like all Canadians, know that it is because of your efforts that most of us can sleep a little more peacefully at night and we are grateful for your wisdom, your calm and your courage.
We will continue working with you, and with industry and government, as well as within our role and mandate, to ensure there is a reliable system available to you so that Canadians can be guarded safe and alerted to emergencies on all communications platforms and devices. We are very much aware that people need to be reached where they are and not just where they used to be.
Thank you.
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