OAKVILLE – The Weather Network/MétéoMédia said today it will make available to broadcasting and telecom companies a data feed of emergency and public safety messages received from Environment Canada and provincial authorities.
The service is free of charge and available immediately, said Pelmorex, TWN/MM’s parent company, in a press release.
With the launch of Pelmorex’s data feed, radio and TV broadcasters, cable and satellite companies will be able to begin developing systems that will allow them to automatically access emergency and public safety messages for broadcast over their networks.
This expanded service gives Environment Canada and provincial authorities the potential to reach a much broader audience quickly during situations which pose an imminent threat to life, such as those caused by extreme weather, forest fires, toxic spills, floods and other disasters, reads the release.
“This enhancement to our alerting services is another step towards a permanent solution to the distribution of emergency warnings across Canada.” said Paul Temple, senior vice-president of strategic and regulatory affairs at Pelmorex. “Public officials need to get their warnings out over as many networks as possible so we’re trying to help where we can but a permanent system is necessary.”
Canada has no Emergency Broadcast System, as exists in the States and Canadian broadcast, cable and telecom companies have issued weather alerts largely on their own. The CRTC has asked Canadian media companies to remedy that missing piece of the public safety puzzle in Canada.
“Use of the Common Alerting Protocol-Canadian Profile (“CAPCP”) standard proposed by Canadian public authorities in Pelmorex’s public alerting data feed ensures that it is an open and non-proprietary service,” Temple added.
Under its All Channel Alert family of public safety and emergency alerting products and services, Pelmorex receives and distributes weather warnings from Environment Canada. The company also has agreements in place with the provinces of New Brunswick, Québec, Ontario and Manitoba, to distribute provincial public safety messages on its television, web site, email and text messaging services.
Pelmorex’s ACA public alerting data feed and related services are available to all provincial and territorial governments at no charge.
Complete information about the Pelmorex’s ACA public alerting data feed and the technical specifications are available at www.publicalerting.theweathernetwork.com.
