After the disappearance of three seniors in the last two weeks, including one with a tragic conclusion, calls for a “silver alert” to be implemented across the province have been renewed.
A search is currently ongoing for a missing 73-year-old, Desmond who was last seen October 6 near his home. Desmond lives with dementia and Parkinson’s disease and police have described the search as “urgent.”null
Earlier this week, 68-year-old Norman, who has dementia. was found alive after going missing for three days and sadly, 76-year-old Tulip was found dead in a wooded area of Midtown following a week-long search.
NDP MPP Monique Taylor said these recent disappearances have made the bill she introduced earlier this year all the more important. Bill 74 would address what she calls a gap in our current emergency alert system called the Vulnerable Persons Alert. A petition on her website currently has over 2,100 signatures.
“These [vulnerable people] have dementia, they have Alzheimer’s, they have autism, they have Down Syndrome, they’re vulnerable to the elements, they’re vulnerable to being out without supervision,” explained Taylor on who might be covered in this alert.
She added this alert would be geo-targeted to a local area.
“We know that when someone goes missing on, say, an Amber Alert, we’ve heard frustration. [If] it’s somebody way up in the North and we’re down in Southern Ontario … Well, the alert that I’m calling for would be geographic,” said Taylor. “So if it’s in my neighbourhood, in my community, and it makes sense for people in … the area to know that a senior or someone has gone missing, that would alert their phones.”
Taylor said several municipal councils including in Mississauga have passed resolutions calling for the new emergency alert to protect loved ones.
“When we have a growing senior population, when we have a growing autism population, when we have a growing vulnerable population, the police service needs to make sure that community safety includes missing people,” said Taylor.
Toronto police said their missing person alerts are created for cases where further investigation is required to locate the missing person and the level of vulnerability increases the urgency.
Sam Noh, co-founder of Silver Alert in B.C. knows firsthand what it feels like to lose someone. In 2011, his 64-year-old father who lived with dementia went for a walk and has not been found since.
“There were sightings that were confirmed however, they were a couple days late, and at that time I had no idea that time is of the essence to alert the public as soon as possible, and most of the research indicates that most of the time they’re not found by a family member, they’re found by member of the public because there’s more eyes.”
Silver Alert is a public notification system to inform the public of a missing senior with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.
In the U.S., 38 states have successfully implemented the Silver Alert or similar alerts that provide information to media outlets and/or activate an emergency alert system through law enforcement agencies.
In 2011, Ontario’s then-Liberal Government proposed the idea of the Silver Advisory, but it was later shelved.
Taylor said Bill 78 was taken off the floor by the provincial government in March and put to the Justice Policy Committee to work on the bill.
“There has definitely been no sound and no response from the government of when they’re planning on bringing this forward. I think they’re hoping to shelve it and not let it pass through, which is really unfortunate. So we need the government, we need the Solicitor General, the ministry, to call that bill in committee so that we can work on it,” explained Taylor.
CityNews asked the Solicitor General’s office if they were considering implementing a Silver Alert or a vulnerable persons alert, they said local police services have processes in place to notify the public about missing people and work with local media to disseminate information.
“Any decisions about a province-wide alert to a particular case would be made by the investigating police service, in consultation with the Ontario Provincial Police,” continued their statement.
The Alzheimer’s Society reports more than half a million people currently live with dementia, a number that’s expected to nearly double by 2030. And an estimated 60 per cent of people with Alzheimer’s will wander at least once during their disease.
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