Ontario New Democrats have started to push for enhancements to 911 especially on how the emergency service affects rural areas.
Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas is behind the drive as she introduced a Private Member’s Bill at Queen’s Park on Wednesday.
The call for a better service follows a Coroner’s inquest that made 27 recommendations after examining the deaths of four people.
Three of the victims were Sudbury residents who died in 2013 in a boating accident on Lake Wahnapitae.
The fourth victim was an Ottawa-area woman, who lived in Casselman, and died in 2014 as a result of a medical condition.
Gelinas says the way the system is structured now, a person in trouble in a rural area calling 911 will have that call bounced from dispatcher to dispatcher until it reaches a person in the area close to the caller.
Gelinas says during this bouncing period, valuable time is lost getting help to the caller.
Gelinas says it’s important that the provincial government implement the Coroner’s recommendations.
She says it would improve 911 and “help people regain confidence in this critical service”.
