Man’s death during 911 outage raises concerns from Manitoba minister

The minister of innovation and new technology for Manitoba sent a letter to the CRTC May 26 complaining about lack of 911 service in March, during which the family of a man suffering from a heart attack were unable to get a hold of emergency services. The outage lasted from March 22 to 24. The network is operated by BCE Inc.’s Bell Canada but other carriers piggyback on it. On March 23 Dean Switzer of the community of Fisher Branch in the western part of the province suffered a heart attack. His family used their Telus Corp. cell phones to call 911 but were unable to connect for one hour, the provincial legislature was told. Switzer later died from his attack. The story was originally reported by the Winnipeg Free Press. Mike Moroz, the minister in question, wrote to the commission following Telus’ post-incident report (PIR) filed with the regulator. “We have reviewed the report filed to your office by Telus and are not satisfied with the information provided by Telus at this time,” the letter stated. “The lack of information in the interim report and in communications by Telus with my office does little to reassure Manitobans that they can count on these telecommunications companies.” The Telus PIR is redacted to prevent potential attacks on the grid, the firm stated. “The technical details, could, if made public provide a roadmap for bad actors to attack Canadian 911 networks and as such is treated consistently by Telus in a confidential manner,” the PIR says. Telus told the CRTC it worked with Bell to discover the cause of the outage. The cause was found but the details are blacked out from the PIR as they are confidential. The western telecom said it has made enhancements to its call routing protocols. “Telus has also done a complete review of its outage process and procedures with respect to 911 tagged facilities,” the company told the commission. “Telus is confident that with these enhancements to its connectivity processes and procedures an outage of this kind could not occur in the future.” In a statement to The Wire Report, Telus said it has reached out to the Switzer family following Dean Switzer’s death. “Our customers’ inability to access 911 the evening of Mr. Switzer’s passing is something we are taking extremely seriously,” the firm said. “We have discussed the report and its key findings with the Switzer family.” Bell explained to The Wire Report that the problems were at Telus’ end of the network. Bell and other carriers did not have trouble connecting 911 calls to the public safety answering point (PSAP) which processes emergency calls. ppark@thewirereport.ca

Man’s death during 911 outage raises concerns from Manitoba minister

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By Paul Park
| May 30, 2025

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Man’s death during 911 outage raises concerns from Manitoba minister

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