Ugh. Without a doubt this was a terrible situation, but the vast majority of the people commenting seem unable to separate what the father did from the way the amber alert was dealt with.
Here's the way I see it.
1) What the dad did was awful and I applaud efforts to try to save children from harm (this one is the most important)
2) I think they need to drastically rethink the amber alert notification system. I have no problem sending a message to everyone's phone, but the audible alarm is beyond excessive. Issuing a third alarm to cancel the amber alert is completely ridiculous. Hopefully they had a smaller notification area this time, the last time I got a notification that a child was kidnapped an hour before in Thunder Bay. The notification area should be roughly correlated with reality. Start by notifying those within an hour of the possible travel distance. Issue an alert in a larger area if and when that is required. If someone's phone is on do not disturb or silent, respect that and stfu (unless the person has opted in to receiving all alarms). Feel free to send the text message, but waking up half the province does nothing to help find the child. My wife ended up turning off all phones as the alerts just kept coming. We were doing nothing to help the girl and in fact we became completely unreachable by anyone that may need to get us. My wife was also concerned that if the alarm went off while driving, it would create a dodgy situation as her phone normally lives in her purse so she would need to pull over and dig her phone out of her purse to cancel the alarm. Meanwhile, half the people driving will probably be fumbling with their phones while driving to shut the damned thing off.
Again, I have no problem with notifying people, but they need to think through the process to ensure the response is effective and commensurate with the situation (eg. if tornados are in the area, sound the alarm because people need to wake up to move to safety).
Obviously, all the people that called 911 to complain need a swift kick to the side of the head. It should be simple enough to do as PP said and add $1000 to their cell phone bill as an idiot tax. Just give 911 operators an idiot button that they can press to trigger the charge.
EDIT:
Macleans published a whole opinion piece that said anyone that complained was a horrible person. That proves my point exactly. Anyone that could reasonably help the situation should be notified appropriately. Notifying millions of people that will have zero impact on the situation and then calling them horrible??? wtf.
https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/the-myth-of-american-greatness/
Here's the way I see it.
1) What the dad did was awful and I applaud efforts to try to save children from harm (this one is the most important)
2) I think they need to drastically rethink the amber alert notification system. I have no problem sending a message to everyone's phone, but the audible alarm is beyond excessive. Issuing a third alarm to cancel the amber alert is completely ridiculous. Hopefully they had a smaller notification area this time, the last time I got a notification that a child was kidnapped an hour before in Thunder Bay. The notification area should be roughly correlated with reality. Start by notifying those within an hour of the possible travel distance. Issue an alert in a larger area if and when that is required. If someone's phone is on do not disturb or silent, respect that and stfu (unless the person has opted in to receiving all alarms). Feel free to send the text message, but waking up half the province does nothing to help find the child. My wife ended up turning off all phones as the alerts just kept coming. We were doing nothing to help the girl and in fact we became completely unreachable by anyone that may need to get us. My wife was also concerned that if the alarm went off while driving, it would create a dodgy situation as her phone normally lives in her purse so she would need to pull over and dig her phone out of her purse to cancel the alarm. Meanwhile, half the people driving will probably be fumbling with their phones while driving to shut the damned thing off.
Again, I have no problem with notifying people, but they need to think through the process to ensure the response is effective and commensurate with the situation (eg. if tornados are in the area, sound the alarm because people need to wake up to move to safety).
Obviously, all the people that called 911 to complain need a swift kick to the side of the head. It should be simple enough to do as PP said and add $1000 to their cell phone bill as an idiot tax. Just give 911 operators an idiot button that they can press to trigger the charge.
EDIT:
Macleans published a whole opinion piece that said anyone that complained was a horrible person. That proves my point exactly. Anyone that could reasonably help the situation should be notified appropriately. Notifying millions of people that will have zero impact on the situation and then calling them horrible??? wtf.
https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/the-myth-of-american-greatness/
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If a person is a snowflake, maybe customer service is not the best career choice. 
