In this episode of Redacted Opinions, the hosts discuss why crisis communications must be planned in advance as part of emergency management, business continuity, stakeholder protection, and public trust.

They review cases where communications failed under pressure: the July 8–9, 2022 Rogers national outage that disrupted 911 and left Rogers’ own incident staff unable to communicate without buying SIM cards; the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster where Montreal, Maine & Atlantic was criticized for protecting reputation over truth and later went out of business; the 2019 LifeLabs cyberattack affecting sensitive health data and undermining trust; and the 2019 Desjardins breach that went undetected for 26 months and led to a settlement framework over a quarter billion dollars.

They contrast these with Maple Leaf’s listeria response and emphasize fast, coordinated, consistent messaging and empowering trained staff to act.