Abstract: The Canadian Multi-Agency Situational Awareness System (MASAS) is rapidly becoming Canada's national system for exchanging emergency management incident-relevant information amongst multiple agencies and jurisdictions. Through the use of structured information aligned with open standards, and a centrally managed open architecture, MASAS provides a trusted virtual community with the ability to seamlessly exchange emergency management information. MASAS offers an information exchange architecture that is based around a highly resilient system of data aggregation hubs that are easily accessible directly or through third party commercial tools by emergency management officials at all levels, from the smallest community in the most remote areas of Canada's north to key federal stakeholders such as the federal Government Operations Centre or the Canadian military. This paper highlights the key design principles, experimental activities, and technology implementation strategies that are positioning MASAS as a Canadian success story in the making – from coast to coast to coast. © 2012 ISCRAM.