A look at 150 years of communications at Ottawa Police

by Dawson Hebert-Arsenault, December 2017
(with information from The History of the Ottawa Police by Gilles Larochelle)

Today's technology provides many ways to contact police but what about 150 years ago?

Ottawa in the 1800's was a very different time and place. This logger's town was feared across North America for the brawlers and bruisers that lived here.  Construction on the Rideau Canal brought in hard-working and hard-drinking men from across the globe. Frequent arrests of the day included drunk and disorderly conduct, insulting language, and visiting or operating brothels (called bawdy-houses back then).  During these early years, the only way to alert an officer to an emergency was to flag him down on the street.

In 1877, Alexander Graham Bell came to Ottawa to negotiate the first public lease of a telephone in Canada, which was installed at Rideau Hall. In 1882, the city installed a telephone in the Police Chief's private residence. This telephone would be the first 24/7 line to contact Ottawa's police force.

Residential phones weren't in common use until the introduction of the first common battery telephone system, which came about in 1900. Prior to this time citizens wouldn't have been able to make a phone call to police.

Other communication improvements to the police service included the installation of one-way radios in police cars in 1935 (there were only four cars at that time). Officers on patrol received two-way radio in 1941, enabling them to communicate with the police dispatcher.

As the century continued, the role of the telephone in emergency services advanced considerably. By the 1970's, the Ottawa Police brought in new handheld radios for every beat officer. This drastically increased the safety and efficiency of officers while on duty.

The Ottawa Police became the first service in Canada to implement a computerized aided dispatch system (CAD) in 1978. CAD was the most advanced system of its day.

In 1988, Ottawa upgraded to the 9-1-1 Emergency telephone system we know today. This system made it simple for people of all ages and backgrounds to dial 9-1-1 into any available phone for help.

These days, with 120 members, the Communications Centre manages emergency calls and all other calls from across the city. They support and dispatch officers to ensure they arrive quickly in their service to the community.

Ottawa's 9-1-1 Communications Centre handles roughly 400,000 calls for service annually and includes 24/7 translation services  in142 different languages.