Nearly half of 911 calls to Peel Region are non-urgent. A new campaign aims to change that

Peel Region has a new campaign to let people know when they should call 911, which may sound silly until you realize that about half of the calls to its emergency line aren't urgent at all. 

Despite years of warning, some residents are still calling 911 about the temperature of their coffee. 

Peel's Commissioner of Health Services Nancy Polsinelli said Thursday that more than 30 per cent of Ontarians don't know what number to call when they have municipal issues or when they require municipal services like garbage pickups or utility outages.

"911 is for urgent life-threatening calls. 911 is no joke," she said. "There are other numbers to call if you have a non-urgent need or a question."

Polsinelli said the campaign will use advertising in 90 languages to help residents connect with the right resources for a non-emergency situation and help people understand the importance of keeping 911 calls free for people who really need it.

In January 2024, Peel region council voted to explore whether fines or other penalties could be issued for those who misuse 911. Peel police said at the time that 40 per cent of the calls were categorized as non-legitimate, inappropriate, or misuse.

Peel Police Deputy Chief Anthony Odoardi said on Thursday that the non-emergency calls are usually a pocket dial or a misunderstanding of what qualifies as an urgent call.

He says police have also received "pretty ludicrous calls where people should know not to call police."

Some of those calls involved people asking police if they could borrow objects or even complaining about a wrong pick-up order or their coffee temperature. 

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said at the announcement on Thursday that "every second counts" when it comes to urgent 911 calls and asked residents not to take first responders away from a critical response. 

"We had calls from people complaining about their cricket game being noisy. That's not the right reason to call 911," Brown said.