There are two 911 PSAP's for Manitoba, one for the capital city region of Winnipeg and one for the rest of Manitoba.

It appears that the cell phone link to rural 911 failed today from at least one part of the provence.

They story does say if the cell phones were on the MTS Mobility, Rogers or Telus networks.

MTS as the ILEC provides the exchange service to both centers

Read story here

I know it's scary when the 911 networks fails.
We have all been so programmed to dial 911 in an emergency that we forget about dialing "0" if 911 were to fail.

It now appears that the closest cell tower was not part of the Manitoba 911 network because it was located in a provincial park, and the parks department did not want to pay to have the park covered by the provincial 911 service.

Because of the accident and publicity this park and adjacent coverage area will now be added.

story here