Residents in most of the country’s provinces and territories will receive an audible alarm on their compatible cell phone, television or radio on Wednesday, as Canada’s Alert Ready system performs a test.
According to the Alert Ready website, the system provides “critical and potentially life-saving alerts to Canadians,” about situations considered a “threat-to-life.”
System operators are mandated to conduct nationwide testing of the service twice annually, blasting out distinctive electronic tones to LTE-enabled wireless devices that have their speakers turned on, and through television and radio.
“While more than 120 emergency alerts have been successfully transmitted to Canadians over television, radio and wireless devices since April 2018, having regular tests allows us to better educate Canadians about Alert Ready and provide an opportunity to validate and improve the end to end performance and reliability of the system,” Martin Belanger, Director of Public Alerting at Pelmorex and operator of the technical infrastructure of Alert Ready, said in a news release.
WATCH: National emergency alert system test run (May, 2018)
Alerts are issued by government agencies and notify residents of a number of threats including fires, natural disasters, biological or chemical emergencies, environmental emergencies, terrorist threats or civil emergencies, including Amber Alerts or animal danger.
Test alerts demonstrate what an emergency alert will look and sound like in the event of a life-threatening situation.
Here is a schedule of when you can expect to receive the alert:
- Alberta 1:55 p.m. MDT.
- British Columbia 1:55 p.m. PDT.
- Manitoba 1:55 p.m. CDT
- New Brunswick 10:55 a.m. ADT
- Newfoundland & Labrador 10:55 a.m. NDT, 10:25 a.m. ADT in Labrador
- Northwest Territories 1:55 p.m. MDT
- Nova Scotia 1:55 p.m. ADT
- Nunavut 1:55 p.m. EDT
- Prince Edward Island 12:55 p.m. ADT
- Saskatchewan 1:55 p.m. CST
- Yukon 1:55 p.m. PDT
Public Safety Canada says it received notifications last week from Ontario and Quebec that the provinces would be opting out of the testing because neither wants to send unnecessary alert tones to residents dealing with historic flooding.