From Radioworld magazine: Canada's shutting down the weather radio/alerts

I think it significant that author of that letter to Radio World is meteorologist Bruce Jones and spokesman for Midland Radio Corporation, and he's familiar with the events where people died depending on optional methods of alert that couldn't make it through:

"... it is disheartening to see a radio-based alerting system deemed unnecessary because cell phones and internet are naively trusted to replace it. ... .. When your nearest cell tower, your fiber optic internet connection, your landline phone and your electricity are burned, flooded or blown out, only a radio-based alert signal will be able to get through. Time and again.... Weather radio broadcasts, on the other hand, awakened residents eleven minutes before the tornado arrived, saving many lives. Nineteen people died in this well-warned tornado..."

Here in the US, to avoid deaths like that Texas made it a law that all camps and RV parks have weather radio alert, which is in stark contrast to Canada eliminating the service entirely. However, the original article it does say:
"Emergency weather alerts will continue to be available through partners like Alert Ready, the national public alerting system in Canada .... .. Environment Canada also operates a number of continuous marine broadcast stations, and Bayard said those stations will continue. The stations cover most Canadian marine regions, including the Great Lakes, Manitoba Lakes and Great Slave Lake.
https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/headlines/canada-to-shut-down-its-vhf-weather-radio-service

But it's not clear to me if "Alert Ready, the national public alerting system" also is an internet or cell tower based system -:but certainly their marine stations are radio based, so maybe it's not as bad as it all sounds. But it still seems like a foolish move to eliminate their primary government funded safety service

@richpowers If the marine broadcasts will still operate how come I can't still get a broadcast on one of the weather channels on the radio from Toronto that is right on Lake Ontario?

Posted by: @mark

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@richpowers If the marine broadcasts will still operate how come I can't still get a broadcast on one of the weather channels on the radio from Toronto that is right on Lake Ontario?

I don't know, I was just quoting the original article about the shutdown, it says the marine radio broadcast were not affected by the shutdown.

@richpowers I  think that as I read was on the east coast(ocean) where it would be retained and maybe west coast too but that's all. So in the Maritimes maybe still broadcasting.
The Maritimes is the provinces on the East coast of Canada.

@mark it said: "The stations cover most Canadian marine regions, including the Great Lakes, Manitoba Lakes and Great Slave Lake."

Trusty Google AI says:

• Inland Backcountry: Areas far from the coasts or major lakes, such as national parks (e.g., Algonquin Park) and remote northern forests.
• Rural Farming & Residential Communities: Thousands of small towns and rural settlements that relied on local land-based transmitters for storm alerts.
• Secondary Waterways: Smaller inland rivers and local lakes that fall outside the Coast Guard’s primary mission of monitoring major commercial and navigation routes.
• Highway Corridors: Remote stretches of major roads, like the Trans-Canada Highway between Eagle Pass and Rogers Pass, which previously received transmitter signals. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

• Coastal Waters: Coverage within roughly 40 nautical miles of the East and West coasts.
• Great Lakes & St. Lawrence: Major commercial shipping routes.
• Specific Large Inland Lakes: Manitoba Lakes and Great Slave Lake remain covered by the Coast Guard's marine broadcast. [1, 2]

• Cellular data or Wi-Fi (often missing in the backcountry).
• Power grid stability (weather radios are often battery/crank-powered). [1, 2, 3]

@richpowers Interesting. Toronto even though on Lake Ontario, A Great Lake, isn't included so that explains why I don't get it.

@mark I wonder if some kind of booster antenna would enable you to receive your nearest marine transmission.

@richpowers My all the time radio is the Sangean H 205 which is weatherproof and no worries outside in anything. Outside in all seasons and weather. Very sensitive and on the weather channels I can sometimes get the Buffalo weather channel on one of the other frequencies from Toronto. But the nearest what would be considered marine to Toronto would maybe Port Hope or Cobourg which was on that list but that is kinda far from here and I don't think the weather channels are high power stations. Buffalo is 40 miles from Toronto via airwaves across lake Ontario and it as I said comes in intermittently and not like a local.

Strikes me as an unwise move. I do not have sirens close enough to me, so if I were in the Canadian countryside I would be in trouble knowing of a disaster. Wow.

There's also personal weather alerts that don't depend on any service, they actually read the skies in a 30 mile radius for its data. Those weather sensor receivers always intrigued me, "Unlike existing warning technologies, Tornado Alert constantly monitors the skies in real-time for electrical activity, the scientifically proven cause of tornado formation. Tornado Alert will tell you when a tornado, lightning or severe weather is detected within a 30 mile radius of your location, that’s up to 30 minutes warning with live proximity status,"

ISS used to sell them or you could pick one up at Home Depot for about $100. I never tried one but looked into them one time trying to determine how one might be able to utilize it so it would send a sign to Zara to automatically announce these warnings over the air.

Claims are they're actually very accurate, but at the same time they're known to go off when your refrigerator or blender or whatever kicks in!

Evidently they are also shutting down their shortwave time stations too. What is going on here?

Better article 

https://swling.com/blog/2026/05/canadas-chu-will-go-silent-on-shortwave-on-june-22-2026/

This news feels especially discouraging, coming so soon after Canada discontinued much of its weather radio service earlier this year. One can’t help but wonder how many legacy public-service broadcasts remain vulnerable simply because they no longer fit modern cost-benefit calculations.

To tell you the truth I never knew about a shortwave station that's purpose was to tell the time. 
I guess this is useful for some out on a canoe trip in wilderness with no other way to know what time it is. But then, do you need to know the time in that case?
I am retired and I don't care what time it is. Just like I don't care what day it is. or what the date is.

Unlike the weather stations I don't think a shortwave frequency to get the exact time is that important. I think that only a handful of people, the same amount of people that do hobby radio ever even knew such a station existed. 

"Shortwave (SW) time stations broadcast highly accurate atomic time and standard frequencies over long distances. Their primary importance lies in providing a dependable, GPS-free time reference used to synchronize global infrastructure, calibrate scientific equipment, and monitor space weather.. ..Before the advent of satellite navigation, mariners and aviators relied on shortwave time signals ...For general listeners and hobbyists, time stations are invaluable for testing a receiver's health and learning how atmospheric "skip" works at different times of day..."

I was curious what the significance of SW time stations, and that in part is what Google AI told me.

Kind of sad considering this particular Canadian station (CHU) has been broadcasting non-stop since 1933 and had an interesting history. Seems a significant loss - even though I really don't know much about them.