Telecom - Staff Letter addressed to The Honourable Mike Moroz (Minister of Manitoba Innovation and New Technology)
Gatineau, June 2, 2025
Reference : 8000-C12-201909780
BY EMAIL
The Honourable Mike Moroz
Minister of Manitoba Innovation and New Technology
Legislative Building
Winnipeg, MB R3C 0V8
Subject: 9-1-1 Service Outage in Manitoba
Dear Minister Moroz,
Thank you for your letter to the CRTC’s Secretary General dated May 26, 2025, which was forwarded to me in my role as head of Telecommunications. I can assure you that the CRTC shares your deep concern about the 9-1-1 service outage that affected parts of rural Manitoba from March 22 to 24 (TELUS 9-1-1 Outage).
As you know, the CRTC is an independent quasi-judicial tribunal that regulates the Canadian communications sector in the public interest. The CRTC holds public consultations on telecommunications and broadcasting matters and makes decisions based on the public record. Federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, as well as telecom service providers (TSPs), all play a role in ensuring that Canadians can access 9-1-1 services. The CRTC’s role is to regulate the TSPs that connect 9-1-1 calls to first responders.
When a 9-1-1 service outage happens, the CRTC’s interim rules require the TSP to submit a comprehensive post-incident report. These reports, which can be found on the CRTC’s website, inform Canadians of what happened and help other TSPs avoid similar outages.
Following the TELUS 9-1-1 Outage, TELUS provided its initial post-incident report to the CRTC. In its report, TELUS redacted many of the details of the outage, its causes, and its effects, designating this information as confidential. CRTC staff then asked TELUS to disclose as much information as possible and to provide weekly reports as its investigation of the outage progressed. Abridged versions of these reports can be found on the CRTC’s website.
As highlighted in your letter, all 9-1-1 outages have significant effects on public safety. The CRTC is carefully reviewing the reports it received from TELUS with the aim of ensuring greater public disclosure to serve the public interest.
The CRTC will soon be launching public proceedings and releasing a decision to finalize its approach to ensuring the public and emergency service organizations are notified and informed about any outage to 9-1-1 services. These proceedings will consider additional protections, including clearer communications, refunds, and potential administrative monetary penalties for TSPs when Canadians experience an outage with their home Internet, cellphone, telephone, or television services.
Thank you again for reaching out to share your concerns with us. We would be pleased to meet to discuss these issues further.
Yours sincerely,
Leila Wright
Vice-President, Telecommunications Sector
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
c. c. The Honorable Stephen Guilbeault, P.C., M.P., Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture
Ian Baggley, CRTC, ian.baggley@crtc.gc.ca
Noah Moser, CRTC, noah.moser@crtc.gc.ca
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