Status of Women committee  No, we could do it without that.

Status of Women committee  I was consulted by MP Gazan and MP Damoff about a year ago. They asked very similar questions to what's happening right now. How does the official system work and how would you add the red dress alert? I provided pretty much all the same information I'm sharing today about that.

Status of Women committee  I think the existing privacy law would be the law in place. It's not relevant to our current alerting system, because it's a one-way distribution feed. We don't have any personal information within the system. None is gathered or used, at all.

Status of Women committee  Presently, as a broadcasting company and alerting provider, we reach those places through satellite TV. All of the alerts are intrusive on satellite TV, as well as cable. There is cable in some remote areas, obviously. There are cellphone services in some remote areas, as we discussed.

Status of Women committee  The way it works right now, because we have a fixed budget, is that the budget is directed by all the provinces and territories. I would envision that it is possible that there might have to be a commercial model to build out some additional channels, and we would wait to see where this committee goes and where the results go for that.

Status of Women committee  I'm not too young to remember that. There are other discussions going on through the CRTC with the communications providers about that exact issue, because I think everybody recognizes it. I know that, out east when the hurricane came, a lot of power went down. If there's not power to the cellphone towers, can you issue alerts?

Status of Women committee  As I mentioned, we've operated this alerting system since 2010, when it launched for free, at no cost, so I don't—

Status of Women committee  That's a great question. That is true. All of our app users are gained by our company through reputation and quality. People have to go and download the Weather Network app themselves, and we're superproud of that. We didn't pay to be on something. Right now, the broadcast and media alerts don't go through the app; they just go right to your phone.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely, there's no question. Any technology that needs to be added, we can do. Our track record is that we would take whatever steps are necessary to make it work. Also, as we heard from the previous witnesses, we could make it work the right way, a way that has trust and reliability.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely, there is a movement. I would have to ask HR. I don't believe we have many indigenous employees. We have an indigenous advisory circle of paid indigenous advisers. We meet with them a few times a year and ask them about content for The Weather Network and MétéoMédia, and things like the use of place names on our apps and websites, things like red dress alerts.

Status of Women committee  Is that in terms of alerting, or everywhere? We're an innovation company. We started as a broadcaster and we are the most popular Canadian app in Canada. We're constantly innovating. We're doing a lot of work with AI right now that we want to apply certainly to weather forecasting and better early prediction of weather events, but that can be used in conjunction with alerting and all sorts of opportunities.

Status of Women committee  No, not specifically, but I could get back to you.

Status of Women committee  Obviously, that final reach in terms of coverage can sometimes be an issue. Even if a town has good cellphone service in a rural area, when you get outside the city, it is probably not as good. Certainly I think that's well known, which is why we have the broadcast channel, the radio channel, because the propagation is usually quite good for that, but certainly just for that region.

Status of Women committee  I don't know. What we do presently in terms of privacy is well beyond what's required under current privacy laws, so in our case we wouldn't need any additional incentive. We would never jeopardize any privacy at all.

Status of Women committee  Yes, that's definitely one option. They've chosen silver alerts because usually the missing person has stayed within a confined area. They're only using the cellphone channel; they're not using TV and radio, which are extremely broad, because they have a sense that the missing person is probably within blocks or within a confined urban area.