Status of Women Committee on March 19th, 2024

[Leslie Varley]

I think government is going to work together to ensure this happens.

We're all astonished at how little it actually costs, from Ms. Jesty's perspective. I think there is going to be some movement here to move this along. Certainly, from a first nations' perspective, the fact that she can set this up in an hour is going to accelerate a lot of requests coming to her to set this up.

From what I am understanding, we would love to talk with Ms. Jesty right now and get this going without asking the government for permission or the funds to do it. It's such an urgent matter, and it seems so straightforward and—as she said—simple to do.

Do we need government? Yes, we do, over the long term. To start it up and get it going, I'd love to act right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

This has been an extraordinary first panel on this study. I would like to thank both of you for coming and providing us with excellent testimony to start this off.

There is only one witness in the second panel.

I'm going to suspend for about two minutes, and then we'll be right back to business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We're getting back to our second panel.

Kurt, be sure your earpiece isn't too close to the microphone, and make sure you are using French or English interpretation—whatever your choice of language is. It is excellent to have you here.

I would like to welcome our guest today. From Pelmorex Corp., we have Kurt Eby, director, regulatory affairs and government relations.

As I mentioned, we had a last-minute change. We'll be giving Kurt his five minutes. Our other person is now rescheduled for Thursday.

Kurt, I'm going to give you the floor for your opening statement.

[Kurt Eby, Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.]

Thank you.

I am pleased to be here to speak with the committee about the critical issue of red dress alerts.

Founded in 1989, Pelmorex is best known for The Weather Network and MétéoMédia television channels, websites and mobile apps. Indeed, we are a Canadian institution. Most recent public polling has shown that The Weather Network and MétéoMédia are Canada's most trusted media brand and Canada's most trusted news source.

Pelmorex is also a global trilingual weather, alerting, safety and technology company that serves consumers, governments and businesses alike and reaches 60 million people every month, all while remaining a family-owned Canadian business.

For the past 14 years, Pelmorex has operated the national alert aggregation and dissemination, NAAD, system, which is the software infrastructure of Canada's first and only national public alerting system, also known as Alert Ready.

The CRTC approved Pelmorex's proposal to build the NAAD system in 2009, which initially enabled emergency alerts to be sent to TV and radio stations. Cellphone alert capability was added in 2018. If you have ever received an alert, for instance, for a tornado, flood or wildfire, or to notify of an abducted child anywhere in Canada, that alert was processed and delivered by our NAAD system in less than five seconds from the time the issuer hit “send”.

In 2023 more than 1,000 emergency alerts—the types that interrupt TV or radio or set off the attention siren on your phone—were sent in Canada to warn of an immediate threat to life or property. An additional 70,000 warnings, watches and advisories for non-life-threatening situations are processed by the NAAD system every year and distributed by services such as The Weather Network.

Pelmorex is constantly innovating and exploring opportunities to deploy the latest advances in technology for better alerting. Each year the NAAD system is being used more and more to issue alerts that are helping to mitigate impacts and unquestionably saving lives. Nothing we do at Pelmorex makes us prouder than that.

We also recognize that, as with any evolving technology solution, there are opportunities for improvement. Specifically any instance in which the NAAD system could be used to save a life should be explored, and that includes red dress alerts.

Red dress alerts should be issued and processed using the NAAD system. It is the national system. It is secure, fully redundant, supported, tested and reliable. It is the only system that delivers life-saving alerts directly to all TV and radio broadcasters and cellphone providers without requiring consumers to sign up or opt in. The system has been constantly enhanced and improved over 15 years at the direction of federal, provincial and territorial public safety officials, and the technology is second to none. In fact, no alerting system in the world processes more alerts and reaches more people than the NAAD system.

Pelmorex is set to add a red dress event code to the NAAD system and can do so in a matter of hours. However, we do not determine what situations warrant an alert. That decision rests with public safety authorities and government agencies.

Technically, Pelmorex is a software provider for Alert Ready. We provide and maintain the user interface and the processing system. We upgrade the technology. We train users on how to use the technology, and we administer accounts. Therefore, we can answer questions about the technical requirements to enable red dress alerts in the NAAD system.

In practice, we also take a broader and active interest in advancing public alerting in Canada overall. We led and defined the concept of a public alerting system in Canada 15 years ago. We built the system, and we helped to bring all of the relevant authorities to the table to use it and continue to improve it. We have knowledge of public alerting that extends well beyond the technology.

I would be pleased to share any knowledge that could help make red dress alerts a reality. That includes how new alert types are added to the approved list of events and how system access is managed.

Finally, if any additional technical solutions or additions are needed to address any challenges specific to red dress alerts, Pelmorex can assist with those things as well. With more than eight million app users and 24 million digital users overall in Canada, we are the Canadian company with the most proven track record of delivering critical information to the greatest number of people.

Thank you for your time.

I'm looking forward to answering your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much, Kurt.

We'll be starting off with our six-minute rounds of questions.

I'll pass the floor over to Dominique.

Dominique, you have six minutes.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, Mr. Eby. I want to welcome you to the committee, which is undertaking a very important and very serious study of indigenous women and girls' safety. Thank you for your presentation.

I am probably not the most technologically well-versed person in this group. However, I'm sure you can tell us about various aspects of the solution you could design.

While you were in the room, you heard the testimony from both previous guests. Ultimately, what they are asking for is that this project, which could be deployed on a national scale, be developed by indigenous communities and, if possible, by women.

Taking into account the very specific challenges indigenous women and girls must face, how can a business like yours, which develops many alert systems, design such a system while working with them?

[Kurt Eby]

I think what the previous witness has said is exactly right in terms of working with the communities. Right now, we work within the jurisdictions in Canada to issue alerts, so the federal government, primarily Environment and Climate Change Canada, and then all the provincial and territorial public safety agencies. They typically decide within their jurisdiction who gets to issue an alert. We heard a bit about that from Ms. Jesty. Obviously this is a different case. It's really important to work with the communities. If we were given that direction by our board, we would do that. If the alternative is another private company doing it, we would want to step up and do that as well.

We hear it's a different use case and the witnesses talked about having maybe a clearing house to share information on where victims may have been seen and about protecting privacy. This is different from what alerts are used for right now. We could build all of that. We would want everything to be processed by the national system. That's what it's made for. This is a national issue. I think that this should be part of the national system, but we recognize that it would be important to have this consultation with and direction from those it affects the most.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I assume you have more than two employees, right?

[Kurt Eby]

Yes, correct.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

That's reassuring, thank you very much.

What about the costs of doing business with your company? How does it work? How do you get paid?

In the event that we launch a Canada-wide system in collaboration with indigenous communities, which would be aligned with their principles and values, how would it work afterwards?

How would we get the revenue needed to do business with a company like yours?

[Kurt Eby]

We pay for the whole system and we and we have from inception, through a condition of our broadcasting licence that is part of having The Weather Network and MétéoMédia on the basic cable package, which guarantees us access to all homes in Canada and a certain amount of fixed revenue. That was the model that we proposed in 2009 to the CRTC when we envisioned this whole system, and that's the way it is now.

We have a budget that we put forward and we work to that budget every year. If we're talking about adding new channels and things like that, we would probably seek some additional funding for that, but commensurate with the costs, but just to be clear—

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

To whom do you send the bill? How does that work?

[Kurt Eby]

The concept of charging every first nation or every community, I think, is not the best option. You want it to be a national system with open access for all first nations and all communities. I think either the provinces or the federal government singularly would be most ideal. These are more business decisions, but that would probably be the easiest way to open it up and have everyone be able to use it.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Could we combine the alert that flags the disappearance of indigenous women or girls with the existing Amber alert system? Everyone is now familiar with it and it's integrated. No one is surprised or wonders what's going on when that alert comes up, and it still generates concern.

Is that feasible, maybe even desirable?

[Kurt Eby]

Absolutely. Everyone is familiar with the amber alert. We've recently added silver alerts to the system, which is when someone with Alzheimer's, dementia or cognitive disabilities goes missing. That's been piloted in Quebec. It's really no different from that. It's another vulnerable person use case and we would add that to the system and issue the alerts the same way. I think this is a well-known issue. I think Canadians generally, if they saw a red dress alert, would understand what it was about.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Ms. —

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Sorry.

Your time is up.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

In rural areas, problems due to cellular network access cause concern.

Does anyone else want to keep the ball rolling?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We'll have lots more questions. We've got a couple of rounds, so it's okay.

I'm now going to pass the floor over to Marc.

Marc, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank Mr. Kurt Eby for being with us to participate in our important study.

Right now, you do missing persons alerts in Ontario, the amber alerts.

You just mentioned that you added the silver alert for dementia. Thank you for doing that. I think it's very important.

Why are you not just adding the red dress alert? You've done it for other categories.

[Kurt Eby]

As I said, we don't decide to add those. We built a national system, so we—

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Who decided to put the silver alert for dementia?

[Kurt Eby]

It was the senior officials responsible for emergency management, SOREM. Basically, the senior officials for emergency management from all the provinces, territories and Public Safety Canada sit on a board. They meet and talk about all sorts of public safety issues and this is one.

There's a thing called the “BI list”, or the broadcast immediate list, which is all the events. We get told what the event is. We add it into the system and then when someone logs into the user interface, they see that as one of the options for an alert they can send.

Those are the rules right now.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

That's a systemic problem we seem to have. We've heard from witnesses in the past and even today that a lot of the missing indigenous women are not getting through the proper police authority.

You're saying you don't decide. You work in Ontario with the OPP only.

Is that correct? Do you work with first nations?

[Kurt Eby]

We have contracts with every province and territory, Environment and Climate Change Canada, NRCan and Public Safety Canada. Within every province, they decide how to use the system.

I have a list here that shows all—