Some parts of Ontario can’t dial 911 and northern MPPs want that to change

Calling 911 is a service most Ontarians can rely on in their communities, but others see it as a luxury.

Dialing the three-digit number gives people access to three emergency services in one call and gives first responders more accurate data on the caller’s location.

However, in the unincorporated township of Foleyet, west of Timmins, those with landlines — namely seniors — are not connected to the 911 call system and have to call a separate 10-digit number for each emergency service.

The community’s local service board chair, Mary Lynn McConnery, said that makes it difficult for first responders to locate the caller.

“They don’t even know where to go because our houses aren’t numbered properly, we have new emergency paramedics in town,” said McConnery.

“So it’s difficult for them to even find the homes that they’re trying to go to.”

It’s even worse for many First Nations communities and other rural areas unserved by the 911 system, according to several New Democrat MPPs in Northern Ontario.

Mushkegowuk-James Bay MPP Guy Bourgouin said people who don’t realize their area is not served find themselves confused, feeling forgotten and with no first responders coming to their aid.

“This is a long weekend, people from down south are coming and most people don’t know that there are regions in Ontario that don’t have 911,” said Bourgouin.

“If something serious happens, it could jeopardize their lives.”

The assumption that one can call 911 from anywhere in the province is a natural one to make for Temiskaming-Cochrane MPP John Vanthof.

“(It’s) one of the first things you teach your kids … the emergency number to call, everyone knows 911,” he said.

“The fact that populated parts of this province don’t have it, that just shouldn’t be.”

That’s why Vanthof, Bourgouin and others joined NDP health critic and Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas in reintroducing the 911 Everywhere in Ontario Act in provincial parliament Wednesday morning. It calls for expanding the call service to the rest of the province.

The NDP politicians said Ontario is the only holdout in the country to implement a province-wide 911 system. Every other province has ensured even remote communities have access, they said.

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Const. Robert Lewis at the Ontario Provincial Police’s northeast headquarters said while 911 is a convenient service, dealing with unserved areas can make responding to emergency calls much more laborious.

“If we don’t have either a municipal address or latitude-longitude to locate these people, we need to speak to these people longer … to just get an identification as to where we need to send these emergency vehicles to,” said Lewis.

Last year, Queen’s Park committed to spending more than $200 million to upgrade the system, which would include the ability to send photos and videos to dispatchers.

However, Mary Lynn McConnery of Foleyet said in order to get her community access to the current version of system, signage for roads and houses would need to be installed or replaced.

That would cost well more than $100,000, she said, where the unincorporated town’s board only gets around $60,000 annually in provincial funding to operate existing services.

“We’d appreciate it if the government would pay for that, I think that every Canadian citizen should be able to have 911,” said McConnery.