On 55 days, callers had to wait an average of 1-2 minutes for an operator, according to reports
Five minutes felt like an eternity for Brett House.
That’s how long House says he had to wait for a 911 operator to answer his call when he found a person on the street in Toronto last fall who was having a mental and physical health crisis.
“I was hoping to get a call right away,” he said.
House says he was on hold for five minutes, but that was less than the average time it took Toronto police’s 911 call center to answer an emergency call that day. The average wait time for emergency calls was 6 minutes and 28 seconds on October 30, 2022, which was the longest of the year.
“I would never have thought there would be a typical wait time,” House said. “I didn’t think that was something that could be said about 9/11.”
A CBC Toronto investigation from more than a year ago showed that long 911 wait times are not just a one-time thing in Canada’s largest city, where staffing shortages are caused by burnout. Internal police documents from a six-month period in 2021 showed that there were sometimes fewer than 10 operators answering 911 calls in the city of about 2.8 million people, with monthly average wait times of up to 33 seconds and the longest wait times of up to 10 minutes.
Now, service reports for 2022 that the city got through a Freedom of Information Act request show that 911 call wait times only got longer last year. Each of the six months’ average wait times were longer in 2022 than they were in 2021. Sometimes the wait times doubled from one year to the next, and in July, the average wait time went from 19 seconds in 2021 to one minute in 2022.
House said, “This is a real problem.” “This is a sign that our public services are getting worse as time goes on.”
Only 11 days in 2022 will meet the voluntary 911 standard
There is no provincial oversight or law in Ontario that says how long it should take to answer an emergency call. But the Toronto Police Service tries to meet a voluntary minimum standard set by the National Emergency Number Association that says 90 percent of 911 calls must be answered within 15 seconds.
In 2022, Toronto only met that standard 11 days out of 365, and the average wait time for a 911 call to be answered was 38 seconds, which was more than double the standard. There were also 55 days when the average wait on hold for 911 service was between one and two minutes. In 2021, the average wait for an operator will only be that long on five days.
Last June, Toronto’s auditor general did an audit of the 911 call center. He found that delays in answering calls were caused by high call volume and staffing problems, and that the service needed to hire more operators.
The report made 26 suggestions, such as setting new minimum staffing requirements, creating data systems to better understand and improve performance, making public awareness campaigns about when to call 911, and setting up a 911 levy to help modernize the city’s emergency services.
Police are working “aggressively” to cut down on wait times
CBC Toronto asked to talk to Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw or someone from the 911 communication center, but was told that no one was available last week because of March break to talk about 911 wait times.
In an email statement, a Toronto police spokesperson said the service is taking steps to address the auditor general’s suggestions for 911.
Stephanie Sayer said, “Like many police departments in North America, the Toronto Police Service is seeing an increase in 911 wait times due to a number of factors related to resources.” “It is something we are working hard to get better at.”
Sayer said that 20 full-time 911 operators are being hired as part of the service’s budget for 2023. The most operators that can be paid for is 301, which is the same as when CBC Toronto did its last investigation more than a year ago. Sayer said that the difference is that it now includes 301 full-time 911 operators, whereas before it included part-time jobs, but it’s not clear how many.
The police statement says that other ways to deal with the audit’s suggestions are call-diversion programs, better training programs, targeted recruitment programs, and mental health support for operators to help them stay on the job.
To follow the audit’s suggestion to add a 911 levy, the provincial government would have to pass new laws. The only provinces that don’t charge a monthly fee for 911 services are Ontario and Manitoba. In a report from last year, it was said that a tax of $1 per cellphone user in Toronto could bring in $28.8 million a year.
The office of Solicitor General Michael Kerzner didn’t answer CBC Toronto’s questions about whether the provincial government plans to pass a law for such a levy and for Ontario-wide standards for answering 911 calls.
Instead, junior press secretary Hunter Kell said in a statement that “most emergency services are handled by cities and towns.” He also said that the province is giving $208 million to 911 call centers across Ontario in the form of grants to help them update their technology.
‘Seconds always count
“There should be some minimum standards for training, and there should be some minimum standards for how long it takes to answer calls,” said Robert Stewart, board president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, Canada.
“Seconds always count.”
Stewart, who is also in charge of emergency communications in Brandon, Man., said that 911 call centers all over Canada have the same problems that Toronto does.
“The big three problems are usually staffing, mental health, and money,” Stewart said. All three of these problems are linked. “As you hire fewer people, you work them harder and harder.”
The Toronto auditor general’s report found that staffing problems meant that overtime was needed almost every day, and that from 2018 to 2021, the city’s 911 communications center only had three days with no staff absences.
Stewart said that staffing was likely the reason why Toronto had the longest average 911 wait time last year. When asked why the average wait time on October 30 was 6 minutes and 28 seconds, he said, “That tells me that hardly anyone was picking up the phone.”
In 2021, CBC Toronto looked at reports for six months. The longest wait time on hold was 10 minutes and 2 seconds, and only nine operators could take calls at once.
But it’s not clear how long the longest wait times were for each person in 2022 or how many operators were working at that time because Toronto police left that information out of the reports they gave in response to a Freedom of Information request.
In its decision letter, the service said that those statistics could not be shared because doing so would put officer and public safety at risk.