[EAS] Canadians complain about misused Amber alerts

[Sean Donelan]

In Canada, all Emergency Mobile Alerts (Canada's version of WEA) are 
transmitted as mandatory alerts which cannot be disabled by the public. 
Essentially all Canadian mobile alerts are equivalent to U.S. Presidential 
Alerts including all Amber alerts.

This means Amber alerts at 3 a.m. sound everyone's cell phone, and cannot 
be disabled except by turning off the cell phone.

Instead of limiting Amber alerts to only the most serious child 
abductions, Canadian police are using the system for missing and lost 
children even when no malice act is suspected.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ont-amber-alert-cancelled-for-two-young-boys-elderly-man-found-safe-1.4503428

"An Amber Alert was then issued for the boys on Thursday at around 3 a.m. 
ET. No foul play was suspected, but police say they were concerned that 
the grandfather may have been lost as he is from Pickering, not 
Newmarket."

As might be expected the public calls 9-1-1 to complain about police 
misusing the Amber alert system and waking people up for non-emergencies 
across entire proviances.

The response by the police is to threaten 9-1-1 callers with $2,000 fines.
The police do not provide the public with other contact methods to make 
complaints.

Canadian police and CRTC don't appear to have any plans to improve their 
use of the Canadian emergency mobile alert proactices.