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Can you imagine how much poop would hit the fan if a disaster such as the tsunami hit Canada ... and it became public knowledge that the CRTC had willfully and deliberately stalled an emergency warning system ... for five years ... ? Only in Canada, eh? Pity ...
Disaster warnings may come to TV
Proposal would beam alerts in Canada
CRTC has stalled scheme for 5 years
Peter Calamai, Science Reporter (The Star)
OTTAWAâ â€For less than 10 cents a month, government warnings of impending disasters â †natural, technological or even terrorist â †could be instantly beamed onto every TV channel in Canadian homes that use cable or satellite.
But objections by the federal broadcast regulator have stalled the warning system for about five years, although federal and provincial governments and public safety officials back the proposal.
A disaster warning system has been active on all TV channels in the U.S. for three decades.
The regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Communications Commission (CRTC), is currently weighing a revised warning proposal submitted in November by Pelmorex Inc., a Mississauga company that operates The Weather Network and its French counterpart, MétéoMédia.
"It's tragic that Canadians aren't being as well informed about natural hazards and other dangers as they could be," said Gordon McBean of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at the University of Western Ontario in London.
The proposed system would flash a warning across the bottom of the TV screen on every channel within two or three minutes of any government agency alerting Pelmorex.
While most of the warnings are expected to be for ice storms, tornadoes and other severe weather, plans call for the system to also be used for other threats like forest fires, leaking tank cars and even terrorist attacks.
Initially the warnings would be beamed to every subscriber in a particular cable system but experts say continued growth of digital cable and satellite â †now reaching more than four million Canadian homes â †would eventually allow fine-tuning to neighbourhoods and even individual streets.
The CRTC rejected a 1999 Pelmorex proposal largely because it didn't hook up to digital cable or satellite systems, the same limitation as the existing U.S. warning system. The regulator also criticized Pelmorex's proposed monthly fee of 13 cents as too high and said visually impaired TV watchers needed special help.
Pelmorex vice-president Paul Temple told the Star the company had dealt with all these objections in its revised proposal and the fee would add less than a dollar a year to subscribers' bills.
Pelmorex has developed new technology so the warning system connects with satellite and digital cable and not simply old-fashioned analog cable as in the original proposal. A recording will now play as the warning crawled across the screen to alert everyone but especially those visually impaired or with reading problems.
With fewer than one in five Canadian households now getting their TV signals via antenna, the bulk of the country would be covered by the proposed All Channel Alert system.
But disaster experts also favour automated phone alerts in special circumstances, such as radiation accidents at nuclear power stations.
Disaster warnings may come to TV
Proposal would beam alerts in Canada
CRTC has stalled scheme for 5 years
Peter Calamai, Science Reporter (The Star)
OTTAWAâ â€For less than 10 cents a month, government warnings of impending disasters â †natural, technological or even terrorist â †could be instantly beamed onto every TV channel in Canadian homes that use cable or satellite.
But objections by the federal broadcast regulator have stalled the warning system for about five years, although federal and provincial governments and public safety officials back the proposal.
A disaster warning system has been active on all TV channels in the U.S. for three decades.
The regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Communications Commission (CRTC), is currently weighing a revised warning proposal submitted in November by Pelmorex Inc., a Mississauga company that operates The Weather Network and its French counterpart, MétéoMédia.
"It's tragic that Canadians aren't being as well informed about natural hazards and other dangers as they could be," said Gordon McBean of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at the University of Western Ontario in London.
The proposed system would flash a warning across the bottom of the TV screen on every channel within two or three minutes of any government agency alerting Pelmorex.
While most of the warnings are expected to be for ice storms, tornadoes and other severe weather, plans call for the system to also be used for other threats like forest fires, leaking tank cars and even terrorist attacks.
Initially the warnings would be beamed to every subscriber in a particular cable system but experts say continued growth of digital cable and satellite â †now reaching more than four million Canadian homes â †would eventually allow fine-tuning to neighbourhoods and even individual streets.
The CRTC rejected a 1999 Pelmorex proposal largely because it didn't hook up to digital cable or satellite systems, the same limitation as the existing U.S. warning system. The regulator also criticized Pelmorex's proposed monthly fee of 13 cents as too high and said visually impaired TV watchers needed special help.
Pelmorex vice-president Paul Temple told the Star the company had dealt with all these objections in its revised proposal and the fee would add less than a dollar a year to subscribers' bills.
Pelmorex has developed new technology so the warning system connects with satellite and digital cable and not simply old-fashioned analog cable as in the original proposal. A recording will now play as the warning crawled across the screen to alert everyone but especially those visually impaired or with reading problems.
With fewer than one in five Canadian households now getting their TV signals via antenna, the bulk of the country would be covered by the proposed All Channel Alert system.
But disaster experts also favour automated phone alerts in special circumstances, such as radiation accidents at nuclear power stations.
