🚨 Public Safety Innovation @ Niagara Falls! 🌊
A series of posts reflecting on APCO Canada 2025 by Aaron Page (Principal 
Consultant, Actica Consulting)
Part 1 of 5
I had the true privilege of joining British APCO Trusties (Darryl Keen, Tracy Pemberton, and Teressa Latimer) at the recent APCO Canada 2025 conference✈️ all thanks to the British APCO Ian Thompson Bursary 🌟
The conference has been outstanding and covered topics such as:
✅ Wellbeing focus for “first” first responders — dispatchers & call takers
✅ AI presentations (including mine!) 🤖
✅ Tour of Niagara’s PSAP (equivalent to UK Control Rooms)
✅ Incredible conversations with Canadian police, fire, vendors & legislators
✅ An engaging and dynamic trade floor
A huge thank you to the incredible people at APCO Canada for bringing together a wonderful event and ensuring we all felt so welcomed! (Gavin, Jennifer, Ronald, Robert, Joel and many others that I didn’t have the pleasure to speak to but who’s efforts are vital!)....
.…a
nd yes, I even got to see the iconic Niagara Falls! 🌊
If you’re early in your public safety career, based in the UK & Ireland, apply for the Ian Thompson Bursary ASAP, it’s a game changer for learning, networking and contributing within this incredible sector.
📢 I’m sharing my key takeaways in a 5-part series…..
Part 2 of 5
Reflections on APCO Canada 2025 | Day One | Healing, Cyber Security & AI Readiness
🚨 Key Note | The Wounded Warrior 💚 Tim O’lean - Powerful. Emotional. Humbling.
A session grounded in toxic shame, the value of speaking openly about our struggles, and how unprocessed pain manifests physically.
A message for those who hold space for us on our hardest days; frontline officers or the first voice we hear when we make an emergency call.
And lessons we can all carry back into daily life: honesty, empathy, and courage.
🚨 Cyber Threats to Canadian Public Safety 🔐
Mission Critical systems are the next opportunistic target.
- A cyberattack every 19 days.
- An 11% rise year-on-year.
- 13% now target Mission Critical Systems.
- And a 50% increase in AI resources on the Dark Web.
A strong opening from the Motorola team and a clear reminder of why Canadian National Cybercrime Coordination Centre (NC3) is vital for Canadian cybersecurity, and I expect this is a growing concern internationally.
The good news? Their are ‘easy’ steps; strong passwords, restricted remote access, and controls on geography/time/IP.
🚨 AI Readiness for Public Safety 🤖 Dr Aaron Page (me 😁)
AI Readiness is Digital Maturity, across organisational capabilities
AI is already present in BAU workflows — email, documents, content generation, even Copilot. And most organisations are using AI, formally or informally, with or without policies.
AI is a tool, one that may be able to transform work, unlock opportunity, while also introducing new risks, much like computers and the internet once did. To adopt it safely and with value, we must have a clear grasp of the digital fundamentals.
I introduced the AI Readiness Triangle, and applied it across six areas:
Data | People | Organisation | Technology | Responsibility | Objective
Combining these forms three readiness hexagons for ecosystem, maturity, and implementation preparedness.
AI is already here. The real question is: Are public safety organisations ready?
We ended the day with a Hard Rock Café rock-and-roll social, hopefully I did British APCO proud! But I will let you be the judge of that - I’m the one in gold!
Part 3 of 5
🔍 AI Readiness at APCO Canada - Exploring what it really means to be ready for AI in Public
Safety.
I was delighted to have a full room during my presentation at APCO Canada 2025, a clear reflection of the excitement, curiosity and healthy caution circulating around AI implementation within the public safety sector. This post summarises the core themes from my presentation. It is important to recognise the support received from the British APCO Iain Thompson Bursary, and that my musings are an ongoing voluntary activity.
“All models are wrong, but some are useful.” — George E. P. Box I hope the models I shared prove to be some of the useful ones.
🧭 Why an AI Readiness Model?
The model has been developed to support technical and non-technical teams, understand the wider organisational capabilities required for AI adoption.
Whether preparing the organisation for new AI initiatives or assessing internal readiness for one’s already underway, the model supports better awareness, preparation and decision-making.
🔺 The AI Readiness Triangle
When considering AI readiness, we begin with three core lenses:
- Ecosystem: understanding the wider environment we operate in.
- Maturity: assessing capabilities, strengths and weaknesses.
- Pre-Implementation Questions: asking the right questions.
🔑 Key Building Blocks of Readiness
When considering AI implementation the organisation must be considered holistically.
Data: Is our data good enough to trust the output?
People: What is AI, when to rely on it, and when to challenge it?
Organisation: How well do we manage change and processes?
Technology: tools, infrastructure and integration capabilities?
Responsibility: Is it ethical and legal?
Objective: What do we want AI to achieve… and why?
Applying the AI Readiness Triangle to each of these capabilities helps ensure awareness, maturity and clarity before and during implementation activities.
🌐 Between the Triangles
External Forces (Ecosystem):
What pressures are being applied to our organisational capability, and what pressures are we applying to the wider sector?
Interlinking Capabilities (Maturity):
Capabilities no longer operate in isolation. They interlink across departments, disciplines and expertise, meaning alignment, governance and policy are essential.
💡 A Final Thought
AI Readiness isn’t only for organisations planning to use AI…
…AI Readiness is digital maturity in action; capability, responsiveness and resilience.
We had a fantastic range of questions in the room, from legislation and security risks, to bespoke vs third-party models, to how AI integrates into the wider public safety ecosystem.
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