Thing promised, thing due: Quebec is launching three SILVER alert pilot projects aimed at finding people suffering from a major neurocognitive disorder who are missing and whose life is in imminent danger.
The Minister responsible for Seniors and Caregivers, Marguerite Blais, made the announcement on Tuesday in Joliette, one of the three MRCs where the pilot projects will take place, the other two being those of the Vallée-de-l’ Gold, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, and Drummond, in Centre-du-Québec.
“It takes a lot of audacity to set up such a process to save the lives of our seniors. After all that we have been through, it now seems to me that we have come to say: seniors are important in our society and we will take care of them. If we can save the life of an elder, it’s worth it, ”said Ms. Blais at a press conference.
These alerts will be issued only on cell phones – and not on radio or television – in a very localized geographical area, where the person is missing. These alerts are particularly aimed at seniors with Alzheimer’s who leave their homes and get lost.
“I can very well understand what the family, caregivers and caregivers go through when they learn that a person they love and care for loses their cognitive abilities,” said the minister.
At the same time, she wanted to be reassuring about the frequency of these intrusions into citizens’ cell phones. “The number of SILVER alerts will be low. To be launched, the alert must meet specific criteria, including that requiring that the disappearance is an imminent risk to the life of this person. They will be limited as much as possible to the area where the public can advantageously be involved. »
The three pilot projects will be implemented starting September 5 and will continue until September 5, 2023, after which they will be subject to analysis to assess whether the concept can be extended across the province.
“Is the SILVER alert really going to make gains? Are we going to save lives? We will see it in a year, ”explained Melissa Plamondon, director general of police affairs at the Ministry of Public Security. “We are going to assess these impacts and the other impacts that it could have, in particular on the population, and we will balance the advantages and disadvantages and it is from this moment that we will see if it is relevant to expand (the program province-wide), she said.
This is a first in Canada; two US states have implemented a similar system, California and Arizona. “I was told that the other Canadian provinces will be watching us very closely and evaluating the work we are doing,” said Ms. Blais.
The acronym SILVER was imagined to mean Information System to Locate Lost and Wanted Vulnerable People.
This is an election promise made by the Coalition avenir Québec during the 2018 campaign, and Minister Blais was quite proud to announce it at the dawn of the next campaign to the election on October 3.
According to the Sûreté du Québec, an average of 650 potential disappearances of people over the age of 70 are reported each year in Quebec. “Their chances of being found depend on how quickly the disappearance is noticed and reported to the police,” explained the minister.
It is the Sûreté du Québec that will assess the seriousness of the situation and the need to trigger such an alert if its initial investigation does not quickly find a missing person.
Alerts of this type, known as “intrusive alerts”, can be triggered for different reasons and be localized or large scale. Since 2015, eight localized regional alerts have been triggered, i.e. five AMBER alerts, a dangerous animal alert (on May 1, for a polar bear in Sainte-Madeleine-de-la-Rivière-Madeleine in Gaspésie), an alert dam overflow and a test alert in Montreal. Across Quebec, there have been 19 since 2015, i.e. 10 test alerts, three COVID-19 curfew alerts and seven AMBER alerts.