In September, Mike McDerment called 911 after spotting a car on fire on a Toronto freeway, but couldn't get through for a long time: more than four minutes passed, and no operator answered.
"It's 911," he said in an interview. "I'm reporting something that seems very important, but in an emergency, every second counts. ”
After waiting more than 4 minutes and 23 seconds, Mike McDerment hung up: He said he thought someone had called 911 and was worried that he was "busy."
On Sept. 22, the average wait time for emergency calls at Toronto Police's 911 Communications Centre was 2 minutes and 44 seconds. According to an internal service report, the maximum wait time is 10 minutes and 14 seconds.
"I want to have a higher standard," Mike McDerment said. "At the end of the day, it's a public safety measure. The connection was fast, which showed that we were all well protected. ”
About two years ago, a media investigation revealed that the 911 waiting time was not an accident in Canada. In the largest city, there is a shortage of personnel due to the low professional quality of 911 operators.
Since then, a report by the Toronto Auditor General found that phone volume and staffing issues were central to the delay in phone answering and the need to hire more operators.
But according to internal records obtained through a freedom of information request, more than a year after the report was released, the wait time for Toronto 911 has only become longer and more frequent.
The monthly service level report from June to September showed that the average answering time for 911 calls increased by 44 seconds over three years, from an average wait time of 24 seconds in 2021 to 1 minute and 8 seconds this year. This year (as of the end of September), the longest wait time for a caller to wait for 911 to answer was 12 minutes and 40 seconds on June 3.
CBC Toronto asked Toronto Police why 911 call answering times are still getting worse, whether the service plans to increase the number of 911 operators in the budget to reduce wait times, and how many positions are currently open at the communications center.
The Toronto Police Service did not respond to these questions.
In one such report in July, the department noted that it had partnered with the Toronto Police Association on a project to review current staffing levels and shift deployments at call centers. As a result of this partnership, a third-party consulting firm was engaged to conduct an analysis of the new minimum staffing requirements and review staffing levels, on the recommendation of the Auditor-General.
"Once the vendor completes the analysis, the project team will use the results of the analysis to determine new staffing requirements," the police report said. "If a staffing gap is identified, the service will follow the appropriate channels to seek any necessary supplemental communications services. According to the report, the work is expected to be completed in the spring of 2024, and once completed, the project team "will consider other initiatives to support employee retention."
At the same time, internal reports show that the service almost always fails to meet the minimum standards for 911 call answering. Ontario does not have provincial oversight or legislation that sets standards for emergency call answering times.
But Toronto police use a minimum standard voluntarily established by the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) to answer 90 percent of 911 calls within 15 seconds. Last year, it took only 11 days for a communications center to meet that standard. Every day through the end of September this year, the service failed to meet the minimum standards.
CBC Toronto previously reported that there were 55 days in 2022 when the average wait time for 911 calls was between one and two minutes, and by the end of September this year, that number had almost doubled to 100 days.
One day in April, a family in Etobicoke, Ontario, was interviewed by CBC Toronto and waited 5 minutes and 23 seconds while waiting for a 911 call while their baby son choked up, then hung up and tried to save the child himself. By the time they called 911 a second time, the child's father had cleared the blockage in his son's throat and brought him back to life.
According to the monthly service report, on April 15, the average wait time for 911 calls was 1 minute and 39 seconds, and the longest wait time faced by callers was 6 minutes and 10 seconds.