An expert in emergency alerts says Canada has serious issues with its company-led model based on “discriminatory” technology that differs from alert systems worldwide, and should build one that puts the federal government in control.
Michael Hallowes spoke Wednesday during the ongoing public inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting on April 18 and 19, 2020, and said he’d also presented his concerns to Canada years before the tragedy.
Hallowes is an independent advisor to governments on the design and delivery of public warning systems, and also helped build and run Australia’s alert program.
“It’s back to basics, if I may be so bold, about getting it right for the future,” Hallowes said.
Currently, the Ontario-based company Pelmorex owns Canada’s Alert Ready software system and operates it on behalf of the federal government.
Hallowes said this approach, where the supplier of the alert system also owns it, gives a lot of power to Pelmorex officials because they can choose how they want to handle the alerts or any upgrades to the system.
Michael Hallowes, an independent advisor on the design and delivery of public warning systems, speaks via video to the Mass Casualty Commission in Dartmouth, N.S. on May 11, 2022. (CBC)
“If it’s going to affect the bottom line, that it requires investment to improve the technology to keep pace with … capability requirements, they can choose to say no,” Hallowes said.
“In Canada, it’s very odd that you’ve put the commercial supplier in charge.”
In most other jurisdictions around the globe, Hallowes said a directive comes from the government that any upgrade would be a condition of the alert supplier’s license.
This means a federal minister and their office can be held accountable for the service, Hallowes said. On the next rung of the framework would be the frontline groups like emergency management offices, fire and police — who send the alerts — and then, Hallowes said, “quite deliberately at the bottom” of this ladder are supplier and regulator.
In Canada the system is regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which as of 2018 requires participation from all wireless phone, radio and TV providers.
Canada’s alerts, according to commission documents, are now distributed simultaneously via television, radio, the Weather Network app, and LTE devices such as smartphones — but only on 4G networks.
Hallowes said this is a significant problem because many older phones can’t access 4G.
He said the alerts should be available to 95 per cent of the population — but Canada fell far short of that mark. When the first Alert Ready tests were done in 2018, Hallowes said only 35 per cent of cell phones received them.
“All of my warnings were born out by the results of those tests — that it was not reaching the vast majority because Canada’s choice of technology was discriminatory,” he said.
“It did not provide access or reach to the vast majority of cell phone users. And that is still the case today.”
Instead, most countries use SMS text messages for their alerts, Hallowes said, which can be sent to any cell phone connected to a network in a certain area.
He said this method also allows users on the other end, like police or emergency offices, to gather a “heat map” of cellphone points — randomized to protect privacy — so they can track in real time whether citizens are evacuating an unsafe area.
The SMS option offers a key advantage in active shooter situations where people may be hiding from a dangerous person with a gun, Hallowes said. If someone’s phone is on silent, the alert won’t override their settings and make a loud sound.
Canadians can’t silence alerts
He said this was a devastating lesson to learn after the 2011 Norway shooting, where dozens of teens who were killed by a gunman on a remote island were given away by the alert sounds on their phones.
Australia and other countries have systems that don’t override user settings, Hallowes said, but Canada does not. Currently he said someone hiding from a shooter in Canada would have to turn off their phone completely and give up the ability to call for help to ensure their location wasn’t revealed.
In February 2015, Hallowes said he attended an alert conference in Alberta where he outlined best practices like SMS. He also spoke about the importance of having guidelines for what an alert system should achieve —and then finding the technology to deliver it.
However, he said Canada has done things the other way around.
“What I found was that CRTC, the Defence Research and Development Canada, and the wireless service providers were dictating their technology was going to be sold to broadcast,” Hallowes said.
When Hallowes said he asked for any evaluation on what was behind this decision, he was “firmly told” the alerts would be retrofitted into what the technology could deliver.
At the time of the mass shooting, all agencies had to go through EMO to request an alert, which the provincial agency would then issue. The inquiry heard this week that the RCMP and regional police forces in Halifax and Cape Breton had been offered direct access to the alert system in 2016 and 2017, but declined.
Now, both the RCMP and Halifax Regional Police can issue alerts independently, which Hallowes said should be the case for not only all police forces but any first responder groups like fire departments.
In Australia, he said there are 38 organizations that have direct alert access, including eight police forces.
Hallowes also said that Australia’s alert system has been streamlined to have a standard of just eight minutes between a 911 call or emergency event, and an alert being sent out.
“I’m always very concerned by something called the paralysis of accuracy, whereby you wait and wait for the perfect situation awareness and you miss telling the public what they need to know right now,” Hallowes said.
“If I get it wrong, I’ll tell you I got it wrong and I’ll correct it. But waiting for this perfection of the information, it doesn’t happen.”
While Hallowes said he’s heard various concerns in Canada of police wanting to avoid alerts because 911 dispatch call centres would be overwhelmed, or people might get tired of the alerts popping up, he’s never seen any evidence of this being an issue internationally.
This tweet, posted at 11:32 p.m. AT, was the only public communication Nova Scotia RCMP issued about the mass shooting on April 18, 2020. The next update wouldn’t be until the following morning. (CBC)
Instead of requesting an alert from EMO, the RCMP tweeted late on April 18 about a firearms complaint in Portapique. They turned to Twitter again the next day around 8 a.m. AT to report that it was an active shooter incident.
The RCMP did not release the fact that the gunman, Gabriel Wortman, was driving a mock police car until 10:17 a.m. on April 19. An image of the vehicle was posted to Twitter.
When asked about using social media as emergency communication, Hallowes said it leaves out “a lot of people” who might not have the right app, be following the right accounts, or actively checking their phones at a crucial time.
Sandra McCulloch of Patterson Law, whose firm represents many of the N.S. mass shooting victims’ families, repeated her clients’ long-standing position that an alert would have kept their loved ones home “tucked inside” on April 19 and not crossing paths with the gunman.
She said an alert with clear instructions would not only have reached more Nova Scotians than a social media post, but properly carried the seriousness of the situation.
Twenty-two people died on April 18 and 19, 2020. Top row from left: Gina Goulet, Dawn Gulenchyn, Jolene Oliver, Frank Gulenchyn, Sean McLeod, Alanna Jenkins. Second row: John Zahl, Lisa McCully, Joey Webber, Heidi Stevenson, Heather O’Brien and Jamie Blair. Third row from top: Kristen Beaton, Lillian Campbell, Joanne Thomas, Peter Bond, Tom Bagley and Greg Blair. Bottom row: Emily Tuck, Joy Bond, Corrie Ellison and Aaron Tuck. (CBC)
An alert would have allowed those on social media the ability to “distinguish this horrific event from all of the other content that gets glanced at and scrolled past,” McCulloch said.
The inquiry heard that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police passed a resolution in June 2021, echoing many of Hallowes’ concerns and calling for a review of the country’s public alerting system.
The resolution also asked that the police association be actively involved in the review, with the aim of extending alerting authority to all first responder public safety agencies.
It noted the Pelmorex licence to operate the alert system expires in August 2023, and said Public Safety Canada should “immediately suspend” any pending procurement around the system.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
