911 service resumes following early-morning outages across Canada, including Winnipeg
Posted September 17, 2026 6:43 am.
Last Updated September 17, 2026 11:31 am.
Several police services across Canada reported that their 911 lines were down Thursday morning, though the outages appeared to be resolved within an hour or two in many cases.
Police services, including in Winnipeg, reported the disruptions on social media, urging residents to call non-emergency lines in case of an emergency.
Ontario Provincial Police also said they were alerted to intermittent 911 outages in parts of the province, while the Surete du Quebec said technical issues were affecting the transfer of certain 911 calls.
The Winnipeg Police Service issued a notice about the lines being down at 4:08 a.m. It said the system was restored about an hour later.
Bell said an issue was detected 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.”
A spokesperson for Montreal police says the outage affected the telephone carrier responsible for 911. Even if calls came in, the spokesperson says, there was a possibility they would be transferred to police services elsewhere in the country.
Further east, the Nova Scotia government says intermittent 911 outages may affect some cellphone and VoIP users, while police in Saint John, N.B., say 911 is down on cellphones but still available from landlines.
“There are reports that some cellular carriers are having difficulty connecting to 911 across Canada,” the Nova Scotia government said in a statement.
“The province is working to understand the full extent of the service disruption. The issue appears to be related to telecommunications carrier networks and is not a problem with the provincial 911 system itself.”
