It's within every province.
Evidence of meeting #100 for Status of Women in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was alerts.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #100 for Status of Women in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was alerts.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Public safety is a provincial jurisdiction, so it's up to them.
Twenty-six first nations in Alberta have access to the system. Basically none—
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
The provinces are saying they're not adding the first nations because it's not a provincial jurisdiction, it's a federal jurisdiction.
12:15 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
No, they've just chosen not to. For instance, some provinces have one agency or two agencies in total that use the system, so you would want to talk to the provinces about why they aren't pushing that out further.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
We heard clearly here about indigenous-led—like Jennifer from Nova Scotia—and how important that is.
Right now, you're not dealing with any of the first nations. You're just dealing with the provincial authorities.
12:15 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
That's correct.
About a year and a half ago I appeared before the indigenous and northern affairs committee and said that we would love direction from the federal government, provincial governments or both to work directly with first nations because of the nature of the jurisdiction there. We're still waiting for that.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
What recommendation would you have?
Obviously, this is a federal committee, so we're looking at federal jurisdiction.
What is the separation between the provincial and the federal?
What do you need from the federal government to make this more national and also indigenous-led?
12:15 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
We would need direction, which would come probably from SOREM. We would want the federal government and the provinces together to tell us to please go and start working with the first nations.
Alternatively, another group works with the first nations and comes to us with the technical aspects that are needed to add to the system. As a technical provider, that's what we would do.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Can you work with, for example, the Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq organization that has an app?
How can your system integrate with existing first nations-led apps?
12:15 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
We have a piece of national, secure infrastructure. We can take other alerts and run them back through our system, if needed.
Ideally, we would work with them directly and they wouldn't need another vendor or another private company to do it; they could use the system.
To be clear, I applaud what they've done to take that on, but I think that's not necessarily necessary.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Can you explain the process in 30 seconds?
Do you need to get a call from the OPP? Can the Anishinabe first nations call you or is it only the OPP?
12:15 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Do you mean to set up an account?
12:15 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
We don't issue the alerts. We give an interface. They type it in. We don't touch it. It goes in five seconds.
The provincial government would say to the first nation that they can have an account and give the instances for which they can issue an alert—
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
12:15 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Because we're operating—
12:15 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
We don't let the OPP do it. The Ontario government lets the OPP do it.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
What about training? I know you do the software, but is there any element here, from a provincial perspective, like training, to ensure that alerts are done properly?
I ask because the community doesn't have confidence and doesn't have trust in the systems.
12:15 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Yes. I hear that.
We train on how to use the technology. We're not public safety officials, so we don't train on what the threshold is for when an alert should be sent or what the content should be. Although we provide examples of what you typically put in an alert, we don't do that training.
It's a public safety matter. People like Ms. Jesty would know that better than us. They just need the technical tool to issue the alerts.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
How do you deal with regions that don't have cell coverage and don't have Internet?
12:20 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Right now, all the alerts also go over the radio and over the air on TV. We have the Weather Network app. We're working on another app more specific to alerting, because people might want to get alerts, not just on the Weather Network app—
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you so much.
We're going to move it over to Andréanne Larouche. You have six minutes.
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Eby, for being with us today. As we can see, your services have become extremely useful, especially in the era of climate change. The weather alerts we receive can sometimes even save lives.
My questions follow up on my colleagues' line of questioning. The first question came from my colleague, Mrs. Vien. I am also concerned about wave technology. We see that in certain rural communities that waves, telecommunications, still lead to problems. They don't make it everywhere. It poses a safety problem in many rural areas.
How do you deal with the telecommunications inequality these communities experience, which compromises their safety?
How do we ensure they can participate in this initiative?
12:20 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Absolutely. I agree.
It's really interesting to hear about all the different use cases, from billboards to “direct to land line”. Anything is possible. We can do anything.
Right now, we work under a structure whereby we are directed on what to do, and we've been directed to do TV, radio and cellphone alerts, but all of that is possible and, I think, wonderful. It's great to make sure that you can reach everyone who needs to be reached.