911 interim service in rural Yukon faces one more hurdle

The Yukon Government says it is working to meet one more condition before it launches an interim 911 service in rural Yukon.

In December, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved Yukon's application for a temporary solution that will allow rural Yukoners access to 911, but it stipulated the government must have a live person to answer all calls.

The call can't end up at voice mail or a pager. 

The interim 911 system will feature an automated message that offers three choices, one for police, two for fire, three for emergency vehicles.

Brad Cathers, Yukon's Minister of Community Services, says the government anticipated that not all calls would immediately be answered by a live person.

"In some cases, dialing the existing seven-digit number in certain communities might be forwarded to someone's cell phone — whoever was on call, be it the fire chief or someone else — and so that could end up with it routing to voice mail," he says.

Cathers says he wasn't expecting the CRTC's condition that there must be a live person to answer the 911 calls after the automated prompt.

"We're happy with the decision, it wasn't quite what we wanted," Cathers says.

"We think at this point it should be workable, but that is the reason for the additional time required."

Emergency responder Jim Regimbal says he's not surprised.

"As president of the Association of Yukon Fire Chiefs, we anticipated that and we knew that 911, your basic 911 enhancer has to be a live voice at the other end," he says.

Regimbal says he hopes it's worked out soon.

Cathers says Bell Mobility and Northwestel are working on the technical challenges, but he can't say when the interim system will be working.