On Thursday morning, multiple police departments throughout Canada reported that their 911 services were down. Fortunately, many of these outages were fixed within an hour or two.
Police forces from cities like Toronto, Ottawa, London, and Waterloo Region took to social media to inform residents about the disruptions and advised them to use non-emergency lines for urgent matters.
The Ontario Provincial Police noted they received reports of sporadic 911 outages in different areas of the province. Meanwhile, the Surete du Quebec mentioned that technical difficulties were impacting the transfer of specific 911 calls.
By around 7:30 a. m. ET, most issues seemed to be resolved.
Bell identified a problem with its next generation 911 network just before 3:15 a. m. ET.
“Backup systems were brought online to route calls to emergency services while technicians investigated the outage,” it stated in a post on X, adding that 911 service has been fully restored.
“We are investigating the root cause of the issue and will have further details once available.”
Updated Post
911 technical issues have been resolved.
All reporting lines are now operating for Police, Fire, and Ambulance.
We thank you for your patience. https://t. co/2Vv LFeb GTu
– Waterloo Regional Police (@WRPSToday) September 17, 2026
During the downtime of the 911 lines, residents were asked not to test the service and promised more updates as they became available.
To the east in Nova Scotia, officials warned that some cellphone and Vo IP users might experience intermittent outages with their 911 services. In Saint John, N. B., police confirmed that while cellphone access was down for 911 calls, landlines remained functional.
The Winnipeg Police also reported issues with their 911 system on Thursday in Manitoba.
With files from The Canadian Press
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