Telecom and Broadcasting - Staff Letter addressed to Monica L. Auer (Forum for Research and Policy in Communications)
Gatineau, 21 November 2025
Reference: 1011-NOC2025-0180
BY E-MAIL
Monica L. Auer, M.A., LL.M.
Executive Director
Forum for Research and Policy in Communications (FRPC)
Ottawa, Ontario
execdir@frpc.net
Subject: Telecom and Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2025-180, Call for comments - Improving the public alerting system — Procedural Request Submitted by FRPC
Thank you for your correspondence of 05 November 2025, in which you made a procedural request in the above-referenced proceeding for the Commission to:
- change the focus of the Notice of Consultation 2025-180 (the NoC) in light of the proposal on Renewing Canada’s National Public Alerting System (NPAS) set out in the recent federal budget, Budget 2025 - Canada Strong, and extend the timeline to comment in the proceeding;
- add to the public record of the proceeding the relevant studies, research reports, or information the CRTC has undertaken since 2014 related to the emergency alert system; and
- add a public hearing and preparatory conference to the NoC 2025-180 process.
Your procedural request asks for the Commission to consider completely redesigning the NPAS and to consider federal government proposals for the NPAS as set out in the Budget 2025. However, the Commission’s proceeding focuses on the following targeted improvements to the NPAS:
- the accessibility of the NPAS for persons with disabilities;
- the language of alerts in the NPAS - official languages, Indigenous and additional languages;
- potential wireless public alerting gaps across the country;
- the test schedule for public alert tests; and
- possible measures the Commission could implement to monitor the system’s status more effectively.
The NoC sets out the scope of the issues to be considered in this proceeding, and a complete redesign of the NPAS is out of the scope of this proceeding. The details of the federal government proposals for the NPAS are unknown at this time and in staff’s view, it would be premature to propose altering the scope of the proceeding at this time.
CRTC staff notes that the Commission regularly publishes information about the NPAS, as referenced below, which any interested person can consult at any time and raise in their submissions:
- Location of Broadcast and Wireless Emergency Alert Distributors | CRTC incorporates the data sets and maps of the entities that report on compliance relating to the NPAS in annual surveys.
- National Public Alerting System – Implementation Summary - Open Government Portal provides summary of staff’s analysis on annual survey data for compliance relating to NPAS.
- Departmental Results Report 2023-24 | CRTC provides summary of departmental annual compliance targets and actual result reports (which address departmental results relating to public alerting).
- Staff reviews and investigates public inquiries related to NPAS matters in Telecom and Broadcasting.
In light of the above, Commission staff is of the view that there is no need to change the scope, timeline or procedures of this proceeding.
Commission staff takes note of you requested areas for further inquiry. Staff will keep these in mind when recommending further proceedings to the Commission.
Yours sincerely,
Simon Levasseur
Director, Financial and Multiplatform Technology Analysis
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
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