Alert Ready sending a national test to Canadian smartphones on Wednesday

Your phone is going to blow up on Wednesday. Not in the literal sense, but in the “you’ve got an incoming message” sense.

Provincial and territorial emergency management organizations will be issuing public test messages through Alert Ready.

“The testing sound will simulate an emergency alert, beginning with the alert tone, known as the Canadian Alert Attention Signal. The message will indicate that it is a test and does not require action from the public,” Alert Ready said in a press release.

Tests are conducted twice a year, during Emergency Preparedness Week in May and the third week of November.

“Conducting regular tests allows us to better educate Canadians about the Alert Ready system and it provides an opportunity to validate that the system is working end to end” says Martin Bélanger, Director of Public Alerting at Pelmorex Corp., operator of the technical infrastructure of Alert Ready known as the National Alert Aggregation and Dissemination System.

Alert Ready allows provincial, territorial, and federal public safety officials to issue critical safety alerts to the public. Given the importance of warning Canadians of imminent threat to the safety of life or property, Canadians do not have an option to opt-out of the test or actual alerts distributed through Alert Ready.

Those who would like to check their device compatibility prior to Wednesday’s test can do so by contacting their wireless carrier or by visiting alertready.ca.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story said the test was happening Thursday. It’s happening Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2022.