Test of Alert Ready, Canada’s Public Alerting System Scheduled for Nov. 25, 2020

Test Alerts will be issued on Television, Radio and Compatible Wireless Devices in most provinces and territories.

On November 25, 2020, a public test message will be issued through Alert Ready, Canada’s public alerting system, by most provincial and territorial emergency management organizations. Each participating province and territory will issue one test message to be distributed over television, radio and compatible wireless devices at the times indicated below.

Testing of Alert Ready across the country, and on a regular basis, is an important and necessary part of any public alerting system. It provides an opportunity to validate and improve the performance and reliability of the system and to ensure it operates as it is intended in the event of an imminent life-threatening situation.

Alert Ready is designed to deliver critical and potentially life-saving alerts to Canadians, including but not limited to tornadoes, flooding, fires and AMBER alerts. As of November 23rd, Alert Ready has enabled government authorities to deliver more than 170 emergency alerts since January 1, 2020.

Alert Ready was developed in collaboration with federal, provincial, and territorial government agencies, Pelmorex, the broadcasting industry and wireless service providers. “Pelmorex operates the technical infrastructure of the Alert Ready system,” says Martin Belanger, Director of Public Alerting at Pelmorex. “Pelmorex receives alerts from authorized alert issuers who consist of provincial, territorial and federal authorities and makes those alerts available to alert distributors which include television, radio, satellite, cable and wireless service providers.”

Given the importance of warning Canadians of an imminent threat to life, Canadians do not have the option to opt-out of this essential life-saving service.