OPINION: A national public safety broadband network can help border security

As Canada explores ways to address the American government’s concerns about Canadian border security, deploying a national public safety broadband network would help ensure border security officials have access to the latest technology that not only helps law enforcement, but can also save lives. In the 2024 fall economic statement, the federal government confirmed that it would spend $1.3-billion to address concerns raised by the then-incoming U.S. President Donald Trump about Canada’s border security. It was part of an effort to avoid Trump’s threat to impose a 25-per-cent tariff on Canadian goods sold to the United States. As part of this plan, the federal government has confirmed it will increase the number of officers at the border and buy additional equipment, such as drones and helicopters, to increase patrols. In January, the Ontario government announced its intent to build Fortress Am-Can to strengthen security on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. That’s a strong plan. But there’s a problem. Canada does not have a modern, national public safety broadband network (PSBN) that would enable law enforcement to use the latest technology to patrol and monitor our border effectively. Existing legacy public safety networks are costly systems that are challenging to manage, and require more spectrum to utilize modern technology. This means that these legacy PSBNs are voice-only (no video) networks that lack interoperability between different public safety agencies. They also hinder the efficient sharing of critical data, and rely on a single carrier network. In other words, if the network fails, our border security agents would operate literally in the dark. To resolve the deficiencies of legacy public safety networks and to help our border patrol agencies, the Government of Canada and both national network carriers—Bell/TELUS and Rogers—must agree to have a third-party entity uphold specific technical standards for a national PSBN. These standards are slicing, priority, and pre-emption. By implementing a standard known as slicing, a national PSBN can ensure that first responders can use more advanced technology requiring higher spectrum volumes. Second, by mandating priority, a PSBN would ensure communications networks prioritize all first responder communications traffic. Finally, by ensuring pre-emption, a PSBN would knock non-priority, non-first responder traffic off the network in cases of response to a disaster. A national PSBN does not necessarily require any new or additional spectrum bands. A modern, national PSBN could be operated using the existing spectrum for 5G services as long as specific technical standards are upheld. Moreover, this approach could be funded by redirecting funding from legacy Push-To-Talk narrowband technologies to the entity responsible for upholding the technical standards. If the government follows the national PSBN approach, it would not only drastically improve border security, but also the federal and provincial/territorial governments will save billions of dollars while saving the lives of first responders, and improving crime- and disaster-response procedures. As the Peel Regional Police recently told me, Canada is behind other G7 countries in equipping first responders with access to communication technologies that save lives, reduce costs to taxpayers, and improve emergency service response capabilities. A national PSBN would support security, and help first responders better manage the Canadian border to curb illegal immigration and criminality. A modern PSBN would have applications beyond border security, too. Imagine a toddler lost in the woods—every parent’s worst nightmare. A modernized PSBN that upholds the specific technical standards outlined above could use drone technology to search for the missing toddler in real-time, and relay that information directly to search and rescue teams. This would allow the child to be located sooner while ensuring there is limited time between identifying their location and deploying a first response to that location. Another example is body camera footage. For years, advocacy groups have called for social services to be deployed with law enforcement when responding to someone in distress. Well, with the technological advances made available to law enforcement through a modern PSBN, body cameras could be used so that a social worker could virtually assess the situation in real-time, and relay an assessment of the individual’s mental health to responding officers, along with advice for de-escalating the situation. Most importantly, if Canada were to use a national PSBN to uphold these standards, we could ensure that first responders responding to a disaster could access a “failover” network for communications. In other words, if the disaster disabled the network that the first responders were using, there would be a backup network. The U.S. government’s tariff threat must be taken seriously; the threat to our economy is too significant to do anything else. However, we can’t lose sight of the fact that improvements on border security management could have a tremendous potential upside for Canada’s first responder communications. As we respond to America’s concerns, modernizing Canada’s approach to public safety communications must be part of our response. Such an approach would not only save lives, but also save billions of dollars across all levels of government while improving public safety response without costing the government a single taxpayer dollar. This opinion piece was originally published by The Hill Times. Ibrahim Gedeon is the executive director of GuardianSafetyNet, a not-for-profit group seeking to establish a national public safety broadband network for first responders. He is TELUS’s former chief technology officer. The Wire Report welcomes submissions of opinion pieces from outside contributors who are knowledgeable on the subject matter discussed. For more information on what should be included with opinion piece submissions, click here: hilltimes.com/submit-an-article. Submissions can be sent to editor Hannah Daley at hdaley@thewirereport.ca. To see previous opinion piece submissions, click here: thewirereport.ca/tag/opinion/.

OPINION: A national public safety broadband network can help border security

Opinion |
By Ibrahim Gedeon
| February 19, 2025

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OPINION: A national public safety broadband network can help border security

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Opinion |
By Ibrahim Gedeon
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