Disaster can strike with little to no notice and Alert Ready, Canada’s new national emergency alert system, aims to benefit all Canadians by notifying them immediately to potentially life-threatening events. Governments and broadcasters will now have the ability to bring more alerts to more Canadians, faster, enabling them to take action and stay safe. Alert Ready’s distribution infrastructure is operated by Pelmorex Media Inc., the parent company of The Weather Network and MétéoMédia, and developed in partnership with federal, provincial and territorial emergency management officials, Environment Canada and the broadcast industry.
“Canada’s broadcast industry has worked together with the federal, provincial and territorial governments to ensure alerts about potentially life-threatening events are quickly delivered to affected communities,” said Paul Temple, SVP, Regulatory Affairs, Pelmorex Media Inc. “Alert Ready benefits all Canadians by giving everyone immediate exposure to important, life-saving information, allowing them to take action and protect themselves, their families and property.”
To raise awareness of Alert Ready, a $2 million national integrated marketing campaign begins April 6, 2015 and includes bilingual public service announcements (PSA) across radio and television, digital advertisements and a new website, AlertReady.ca. The site includes additional information about the type of alerts Canadians will receive, examples of the alert notifications, links to provincial and territorial emergency preparedness resources and videos to help Canadians be prepared for emergencies.
“The launch of the Alert Ready public awareness campaign is a welcome step to inform Canadians about public alerting,” said the Honourable Steven Blaney, Canada’s Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. “Building awareness empowers citizens to prepare for and help to mitigate the impacts of emergencies.”
The system provides authorized government agencies across Canada with a simple and easily accessible method to issue public safety messages. Cable and satellite companies, radio stations, over-the-air television stations and video-on-demand services will use the Alert Ready system and transmit crucial emergency alerts to their audiences.
Only alerts that represent an imminent or unexpected threat to life will be broadcast based on a criteria developed by government officials. The list includes a broad range of events such as tornados, floods, biohazards and wild fires.
