Widespread 911 outage hits Canada, Bell network failure restored

A widespread 911 outage disrupted emergency services across multiple Canadian provinces early Thursday morning, September 17, 2026, before being largely restored within a few hours. The failure originated in Bell's core next-generation 911 network, with the company reporting the issue began at approximately 3:13 a.m. ET and service was restored by 4:40 a.m. ET. The outage affected 911 services in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and other provinces. Police services in Toronto, Peel, York, Niagara, Durham, Ottawa, Winnipeg, and other jurisdictions reported disruptions and urged residents to use non-emergency lines. The Ontario Provincial Police stated that while the system was largely restored, intermittent disruptions might still exist and advised the public not to call 911 to test the service. Bell, which provides 911 services in several provinces, stated that backup systems were activated to reroute calls. A company spokesperson said the vast majority of calls from Bell customers were immediately picked up by the SafetyNet system and rerouted to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Points.