911 service restored after outages across Canada affected emergency calls

Emergency 911 service experienced intermittent outages across Canada on Thursday morning, affecting police services in Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada before being resolved by approximately 7:30 a.m. ET.

Toronto, Ottawa, London and Waterloo police all reported 911 disruptions. The Sûreté du Québec reported technical issues affecting the transfer of certain 911 calls. Saint John, New Brunswick police confirmed 911 was down on cellphones but available from landlines.

Nova Scotia government said the outage appeared related to telecommunications carrier networks rather than the provincial 911 system itself, though the cause had not yet been determined. The province cautioned residents against calling 911 to test whether the system was working, as this could further affect emergency operations.

Police services urged residents to call non-emergency lines during the disruption. Montreal police confirmed that calls that came in during the outage could be transferred to police services elsewhere in the country. The specific telecommunications carrier or carriers responsible for the outage has not been identified.