Multiple Canadian police services experienced temporary 911 line outages on Thursday morning, with the disruptions quickly being resolved in many areas within an hour or two.
Police departments in cities such as Toronto, Ottawa, London, Ont., and Waterloo, Ont., took to social media to alert residents about the issue and advised them to use non-emergency lines in case of an emergency.
The Ontario Provincial Police acknowledged intermittent 911 outages in some parts of the province, while the Surete du Quebec mentioned technical difficulties affecting the transfer of specific 911 calls.
By around 7:30 a.m. ET, most areas reported that the problem had been fixed.
A representative from the Montreal police explained that the outage was linked to the telephone carrier responsible for 911 services. In some instances, calls coming through could potentially be rerouted to police services in other regions of the country.
In Eastern Canada, the Nova Scotia government warned of sporadic 911 outages impacting certain cellphone and VoIP users, while authorities in Saint John, N.B., noted that 911 service was unavailable on cellphones but still accessible via landlines.
The Nova Scotia government released a statement pointing out that some cellular providers were experiencing difficulty connecting to 911 nationwide, with efforts underway to assess the scope of the service disruption. The issue seems to be tied to telecommunications carrier networks rather than a flaw in the provincial 911 system.
Although the cause of the outages remains unknown, residents were cautioned against testing the system by making unnecessary 911 calls, as this could potentially hinder emergency response efforts.
