Changes made to province’s alert system

Changes have been made to the province's emergency alert system.

The province and police work together to ensure consistency and protocols are in place for issuing policerelated alerts, which has included a recent review and collaboration on the effective use of the Alert Ready System.

In addition to police notifications, alerts are also issued by the Emergency Management Office (EMO).

It has been the office itself responsible for sending the alerts out once requests are made and the information is provided.

A committee of senior officials from the province and police worked together recently to make changes on the effective use of the Alert Ready System.

The Nova Scotia RCMP and Halifax Regional Police (HRP) now have direct access to the Alert Ready System. The option is also available to other policing services across the province when and if they choose.

“Direct access gives police the ability to issue an alert without assistance from EMO,” reads a media release.

“RCMP and HRP have been trained to use the system and can send an alert for policerelated situations where there is believed to be an imminent threat to the public.”

"Police across Nova Scotia are pleased to have the ability to seamlessly alert the public to major events occurring in their community and that – very importantly to all Nova Scotians – we have established consistent criteria to issue an Alert,” said Chief Julia Cecchetto, president of the Nova Scotia Chiefs of Police Association.

EMO will also continue to issue police-related alerts at the request of all policing agencies in Nova Scotia, and for non-police matters such as floods and forest fires, and other emergencies.

Alerts have been issued for 12 events in Nova Scotia in the past year (April 2020 to July 2021), nine of which were police-related events.

There was much criticism in 2020 when the RCMP did not issue an emergency alert to inform the public of an active shooter situation in the Portapique area. Instead, much of the RCMP's information was shared via Twitter.