A grieving family’s call for silver alerts to be distributed on television, radio and wireless devices when vulnerable seniors go missing is gaining the support of the provincial government.
“I’m just hoping it’s going to happen,” said Britt Moberg, whose elderly father Earl Moberg has not been seen since last December, when he wandered into northeast Winnipeg alone and disoriented from his late-stage dementia.
“My dad’s story is, unfortunately, a clear example of how fatal this can be. It’s such an emergency…. Something needs to be done or certainly more people will die.”
Britt Moberg believes her father would still be alive if a silver alert had notified the public
sooner that he had wandered away last December.
Moberg has been campaigning to have silver alerts added to the Alert Ready National Public Alerting System since her father’s disappearance.
She believes the 81-year-old man is now dead.
Manitoba amended its Missing Persons Act in 2017 to allow police to release information about vulnerable adults if they go missing, paving the way for silver alerts.
However, those alerts are currently only advisories, meaning they are not distributed to cellphones, a provincial spokesperson told the Free Press in an email.
Instead, law enforcement agencies disseminate silver alerts through the media and online — in Earl Moberg’s case, the Winnipeg Police Service issued an alert the day after he was last seen.
Moberg believes silver alerts should be activated quickly and be more widely broadcast, including through mobile phones, similar to the amber alerts distributed by the national system when children go missing in suspected abductions.
“I think that could have saved his life,” she said. “A lot of the time (missing seniors) are found, but my dad wasn’t… Why not do more if we can?”
Manitoba’s Emergency Management Organization seemingly agrees, having pledged to raise the recommendation at the federal level.
“Silver alerts are important in bringing awareness to the public, to bring people home safely, and we will continue to explore options to improve the current approach,” Barbara Crumb, the provincial director of preparedness and response, wrote in a letter to Moberg last month.
Crumb said her department will raise the recommendation next time it meets with the Alert Ready working group.
The province was unable to say when the working group is slated to meet next, deferring comment to the federal government, which did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
“My heart goes out to the Moberg family,” said provincial cabinet minister Lisa Naylor, whose portfolio includes the Emergency Management Organization.
“Certainly, as a city, we were devastated with the disappearance of Earl Moberg. Like any senior who goes missing in this province, we want to know there’s more people, more eyes, more attention being paid — and that’s where a national system would come into effect.”
The government became aware of concerns with the silver alert system last year, Naylor told the Free Press.
“We do want to advocate for the implementation of a national public alerting system to help families who are in despair due to a missing loved one, and to be able to get help as soon as possible.”
While the province has committed to backing the recommendation on the federal level, it’s unclear what the next steps are or whether there is anything Manitoba can do in the interim to introduce mobile alerts of its own.
JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS
In May, Britt Moberg (red shirt), friends, family and the Bear Clan searched near the Red River and Chief Peguis Trail for the remains of her father Earl Morberg who disappeared in December when he wandered away from his home in Winnipeg.
Just over 1,000 Canadians petitioned the House of Commons to develop a national silver alert strategy.
Ralph Goodale, the former minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, later responded to the petition, saying the government would instead develop a national dementia strategy.
Moberg is in the process of drafting another petition to re-introduce the prospect of silver alerts at the federal level, she said.
Lili Liu, dean of the faculty of health at the University of Waterloo, was tapped by Public Safety Canada to study the feasibility of silver alerts.
She agreed mobile notifications would help inform the public about missing and vulnerable seniors, but said the national alert system would not be well-suited.
One of the primary concerns with mobile alerts is that people will become tired of receiving them due to the large number of missing seniors.
Manitoba RCMP received more than 105 missing persons reports for people older than 60 in 2023, according to data provided to the Canadian Press the Mounties.
The Winnipeg Police Service said there were more than 104 seniors reported missing in the city in 2023.
Manitoba’s approach could be improved if authorities — including police and other emergency responders — could introduce a system in which cellphone owners could opt in to accepting missing person alerts, Liu said.
Moberg said she would prefer a system in which people opt out of receiving alerts. She believes alert fatigue could be mitigated by limiting the geographic area in which an alert is released.
In the case of her father, an alert covering the area near Chief Peguis Trail may have helped if it was sent out immediately, she said.
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority launched a critical incident review into Earl Moberg’s disappearance. The investigation is ongoing and the results will be shared with his family pending its completion, a spokesperson said.
tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca
Tyler Searle
Reporter
Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press‘s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.
Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.