It’s the final stretch for the family of a man, who disappeared more than a year ago, to gather the final signatures for a petition supporting the use of emergency alerts on mobile phones to find vulnerable adults after they go missing.
Earl Moberg disappeared in the River East area of Winnipeg on December 12, 2023. He was 81 years old at the time and suffered from dementia.
The night Earl disappeared, Winnipeg police activated a silver alert — issued to inform the public about a missing adult who is considered vulnerable.
But her family is pushing the federal government to create a national strategy in which those alerts appear on cell phones similar to the Amber Alerts that are broadcast for missing children.
“We don’t want other seniors to go missing and a family to suffer like we did,” said Brenda Moberg, Earl’s wife.
The family has submitted a petition to the federal government with more than 4,400 signatures from across the country since October in support of changes to the existing silver alert system.
On Saturday, Brenda set up a table at McIvor Mall located in North Kildonan with photos of her husband and a QR code for people to sign the petition.
“This is the last big push in person,” she said in the hallway she and her husband had walked down countless times before he disappeared.
manitoba modified its Missing Persons Law allowing police to share information about vulnerable adults in the hope of locating them safely. Silver Alerts are shared with media outlets who may broadcast or publish content about them, while Winnipeg Police disseminate the information on their social media channels.
Britt Moberg, Earl’s daughter, said that after the Silver Alert was issued, news outlets posted stories online, but they couldn’t be shared on Facebook or Instagram because of the ban on news content on Meta platforms.
The silver alert was posted on the Winnipeg Police Facebook page. the next dayhe said, leaving the family with limited content to share online the night he disappeared.
“We were panicking… it was very distressing for us,” Britt Moberg said. “[With] “The current system as it is… not enough people could be informed quickly enough to find my father alive.”
Days after the silver alert was activated, a person contacted police saying they had seen someone matching Earl at a clinic near where he was last seen, Britt Moberg said.
But the person didn’t know she had been reported missing until days later, when they found Earl’s photo on social media.
If the alert was sent by phone, Britt Moberg said her father “certainly could have been found alive…and that’s just one example” of many people who came across him but didn’t think he was missing.
Short search time window
To this day, Earl has not been found and his disappearance has been considered a critical incident by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, defined by the province as a case in which someone using health care services suffers “serious harm.” and unintentional.”
The health authority issued a series of recommendations after identifying missed opportunities for proactive care and safety planning to meet Earl’s care needs.
But even with these proposed improvements and other prevention efforts to keep vulnerable adults safe, Britt Moberg said a change is needed in the system to inform the public more quickly when adults like her father go missing.
According to Public Safety Canada, most people with dementia wander at some point during the progression of their cognitive condition, and there is a 50 per cent chance that those with Alzheimer’s will be found injured or dead 12 hours after they go missing.
“It’s a very short window and it’s a very high-risk situation… as far as the progression of the dementia, it was very comparable to that of a child,” Britt said.
Britt Moberg’s petition calls for Silver Alerts to be targeted and sent to cell phones in the immediate area where the missing person was last seen.
Data from the University of Waterloo study published in the Globe and Mail suggests that vulnerable adults who go missing are typically between four and 12 kilometers from their last known location.
The alert “is not necessarily for the entire province, it would be more for the communities… we can’t have too many alerts because then people don’t pay attention,” he said.
Winnipeg Conservative Member of Parliament Raquel Dancho is sponsoring the petition which closes for signatures Monday morning.
The intention was to present the proposal this week, but with Parliament prorogued until March, the schedule is now up in the air.
“I don’t know what kind of priority the petition will have, maybe there will be other things on their agenda,” Brenda Morberg said.
But for her and her daughter, it’s an issue that needs to be addressed soon.
The Alzheimer’s Society estimates that more than 414 people in Canada develop dementia each day and that, by 2030, nearly one million people in the country could be living with dementia.
“Nobody wants to see their loved one… wandering around and dying because that could be prevented,” Britt Moberg said.
“It’s something no one should have to go through.”
