Toronto police, emergency services launch campaign in effort to redirect calls from 911

Toronto officials have launched a new public awareness campaign in an effort to reduce the large number of non-emergency calls coming into the police 911 communications centre and to lower periods of lengthy wait times.

Dubbed the ‘Make the right call‘ campaign, posters at transit stations and social media messages will be shared on City of Toronto channels and public spaces.

Using examples like accessing social and mental supports, loud house parties, dead animals, there are requests to refer issues to services like 311, 211, 811 or the Toronto police non-emergency number.

The Toronto police communications centre is the first point of contact for anyone in the city who calls 911, and that includes people who are calling about medical-, fire- and crime-related emergencies.

“Seconds matter,” deputy police chief Lauren Pogue said during a news conference Monday morning.

“We want to empower the public with information that ensures everyone gets the right help when they need it, especially those in an emergency.”

Mayor Olivia Chow said non-emergency calls, or calls that could be diverted to other staffed services, account for around three out of every 10 calls to 911. She added there has been a slight reduction in 911 calls since 211 began answering mental health and addictions crisis calls.

“By making the right call, we are helping other Torontonians that desperately need that 911 call responded to quickly and we owe it to each other to make the right call,” she said.

Pogue added hang-ups and pocket dials can bog down response times as operators need to follow-up with the callers.

“When you call 911 and you wait, stay on the line … and that takes valuable time away from those emergency calls as well,” she said.

“In one particular instance, the people had called and hung up several times and when the operator finally got through, they found out that another call operator was actually on the phone with them.”

When asked about the campaign launch on Monday, newly elected Toronto Police Association (TPA) president Clayton Campbell said it was a familiar approach but doesn’t address underlying issues.

“It’s basically the same thing over and over again … a poster campaign around calling the right numbers. We agree with it, but the reality of it is it’s not dealing with the real issues,” he said.

“The real issues of health and safety in the building where those members work, and a massive retention issue where our members are going to other services, where they’re paid more for less work, less burnout.”

As CityNews recently reported, wait times in the Toronto police 911 communications centre were just shy of 11 minutes and 45 seconds on Oct. 17.

Campbell, who previously confirmed he heard similar information from the association’s membership, called the situation “really atrocious.” He said he’s been made aware of other recent instances of eight-to-nine-minute waits to get through to 911.

Since the story was published, Campbell said he’s heard from employees and residents.

“They’re burnt out down there … and to raise this, they’re happy about it. The members of the public, again, we’ve had lots come through to us and to our other members out on the street to let them know that they’ve experienced the same thing,” he said.

A representative for the Toronto Police Service wasn’t made available for an on-camera interview when CityNews initially asked the incident and other lengthy wait periods. A spokesperson said through statements they didn’t have specific information about Oct. 17. They said on Oct. 21 the average answering time for 911 calls in October is a minute and seven seconds.

Both the service and the union cited recruiting and retention issues along with call volumes as contributing factors to occasional major delays in getting through to 911.

Kerry-Anne Murray-Bates, the manager of the Toronto police communications centre, said she agreed staffing is an issue, noting call volume and wait times “are linked and it’s a complex issue.”

“To call volume, what happens is major events can contribute to that in that you get multiple calls at the same time,” she said.

“When I say multiple, an accident on or collision on the Gardiner or the DVP can cause 50 to 100 calls at the same time, so those calls all have to be answered and our operators work diligently to clear the queue as quickly as possible but it fluctuates daily as call volume fluctuates.”

During Monday’s news conference, CityNews asked about the data kept to track 911 wait times and if the service would share more of it so the delays could be better understood.

“The data is available. I mean we keep data based on 15-minute increments, so our data is actually sound and we use that data to make decisions moving forward,” Murray-Bates said.

In a letter to the Toronto Police Services Board on Monday from the TPA, it called for an end to the “cycle of inaction” on staffing by addressing issues like compensation, training and retention along with proceeding plans to retrofit the communications centre so employees can have a dedicated break space versus using communal areas.

CityNews asked Pogue about the staffing issues raised by the TPA and its members.

“We are working very hard on hiring and retention, certainly looking to leverage technology to make things easier for everyone as well as a number of environmental things within the facility,” she said, adding there are plans to hire 90 more operators.

Toronto’s auditor general had similar findings in 2022 when the office examined 911 operations, which resulted in 26 recommendations in several areas.

After analyzing data between 2018 and 2021, the auditor general’s office found the Toronto Police Service on average didn’t meet the National Emergency Number Association (NENA)‘s standard of answering 90 per cent of 911 calls within 15 seconds and 95 per cent of calls within 20 seconds. They said call volume and staffing levels were the two biggest factors. They also noted many other jurisdictions had difficulties too.

The report said the average answer time in the three-year period was 28 seconds and the peak times were between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. However, in the years following that average increased.

The service receives approximately 1.8 million calls a year with a large majority going to 911 versus the non-emergency number.