The CRTC on Monday distributed several letters to telecom industry players requesting information on recent incidents in which 911 callers were unable to access service in French, according to the letters.
The letters were sent to mobile service provider Rogers, VoIP service provider Transat Telecom and third-party call centre Northern 911.
In two separate incidents, which have been reported on by La Presse here and here, 911 calls were delivered to Sudbury-based Northern911 and served in English, despite the fact the callers who were requesting emergency help were speaking French.
A 911 call made on Dec. 29, 2023 originated from a mobile phone on the Rogers wireless network near Chicoutimi, Quebec, while a call made on Jan. 9, 2024 originated from a home phone connected to Quebec-based Transat Telecom’s VoIP service in Montreal. Northern911’s role was to confirm the caller’s location and manually route the 911 call to the appropriate public safety answering point (PSAP).
Northern911, Rogers and Transat Telecom have until Feb. 2 to provide information concerning the respective incidents, including a detailed description of the sequence of events related to the incidents and any role they played, confirmation of where the third-party call centre routed the call and an explanation of how it was determined it was routed to the appropriate PSAP, and if it was not, an explanation as to why.
The three parties are also required to provide details on any existing provisions in their respective service agreements regarding the provision of French language or bilingual services by Northern911. Rogers and Transat Telecom are asked to provide details on any options they provide to their customers to allow them to select upon subscription or to modify later their preferred language of communication, including whether this selection applies to 911 calls treated by third-party call centres and how this information is relayed to the third-party call centre, as well as how they ensure the customer’s preference is respected and what happens if no preference has been indicated.
Among other information requested by the CRTC, Rogers and Transat Telecom are asked to explain if there has been any breach of the terms of their service agreements with Northern911 regarding the provision of 911 services in the caller’s official language of choice, or an explanation if their service agreements do not provide for the provision of call processing services in French or in both official languages.
They are both asked to describe the means by which callers using their services to make 911 calls can access services in the callers’ language of choice when connected to the third-party call centre employed by Rogers and Transat Telecom, and to explain why such means apparently were not used during the events in question. Northern911 is also asked to provide similar information, as well as an explanation as to why the 911 callers were unable to obtain services in French.
Rogers, Transat Telecom and Northern911 are also asked to explain what actions or measures they have taken or intend to take to avoid these types of situations being repeated in future.
Clarification: In the Dec. 29 incident involving a Rogers mobile subscriber, the French-speaking 911 caller was asked by the unilingual English-speaking Northern911 operator if translation services were needed, but the caller said it wasn’t necessary and she could describe the emergency situation in English, according to the La Presse article.
