Western Standard - May 21, 2026


Bringing Vulnerable Seniors Homeļ¼š Raquel Dancho On The Need For A National Silver Alert


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

187.79

Word count

1,758

Sentence count

60


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I'm joined by Raquel D'Ancho, MP for Kildan and St. Paul, Manitoba, who introduces a bill on establishing a National Silver Alert framework. A Silver Alert is similar to an Amber Alert, but it would be focused on seniors living with cognitive impairments like dementia.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 So I'm joined with Raquel D'Ancho, MP for Kildan and St. Paul, Manitoba, who introduced a private
00:00:10.280 member's bill on establishing a national silver alert framework. Raquel, can you tell me more
00:00:15.580 about what that means? Right. So if you'll allow me, I'll just talk a little bit about the story
00:00:21.760 that generated this. It really paints the picture of why this bill is needed in Canada. So a silver
00:00:26.020 alert is similar to an amber alert, but it would be focused on seniors living with cognitive
00:00:31.100 impairments like dementia. And so in my community, about two and a half years ago, an elderly
00:00:36.060 gentleman who was a grandfather, a father, a community member, wandered out of his home in
00:00:41.780 the middle of a Winnipeg winter and was never found. And again, this is sort of a suburb like
00:00:47.620 any other. It just was, despite an extensive search effort, he was never found and is presumed
00:00:53.300 deceased. And the family, as a result of this tragedy, really took up the mantle to champion
00:00:59.500 a silver alert. They firmly believe, and I agree with them, that if a silver alert had been in
00:01:04.280 place, similar to an amber alert, where perhaps you'd get a notification to your phone if you're
00:01:08.760 in that geographic area where he went missing, perhaps he could have been found and saved and
00:01:15.460 he'd still be with us today. So that's really the genesis of this and really wanting to optimize
00:01:22.380 the technology in the palm of our hand to save the lives of seniors who are incredibly vulnerable
00:01:27.780 when they're living with dementia. So thanks for sharing that story, actually. So that explains
00:01:34.240 more as to why you are introducing that bill and given your background and where you're based.
00:01:39.800 My question is, do we not in any jurisdiction in Canada have anything similar or anything
00:01:44.420 appropriate for that kind of case? So right now in some provinces, there are things that they
00:01:50.460 call silver alerts but they're very different than amber alerts so right now for example in
00:01:54.780 Quebec and Manitoba the silver alert structure is to send out alerts via police websites or police
00:02:01.200 social media and so if you're not paying very close attention to these methods of of public
00:02:09.380 notice then you wouldn't you wouldn't see this however of course an amber alert the way that
00:02:14.260 they're set up right now we receive a text if a child is abducted and so it alerts you right away
00:02:20.000 that this has happened so that's sort of the difference between what's in place right now
00:02:24.160 that's being called a silver alert versus the current framework for amber alert so this bill
00:02:29.200 is looking to close that gap with a federal leadership role while working within provincial
00:02:34.960 with the provinces who have jurisdiction for the most part in this area to establish really a
00:02:40.320 guideline and a framework across the country to support provinces in initiating something that
00:02:46.080 more resembles uh the amber alert uh notification structure so since you're comparing it often let's
00:02:53.040 talk about the amber alert how do you view do you view it as an effective system do you believe that
00:02:57.360 there's any overreach uh i know a lot of people complain all the time about the sound and the
00:03:02.080 fact that it comes without warning um other times people you know argue that sometimes the area and
00:03:08.640 range of people that are devices that are being tapped into an alert can sometimes be you know
00:03:13.920 a little bit too broad too relevant sometimes so how how do you and how do the consumers view the
00:03:19.440 amber alert current currently as it stands i'm glad you brought that up it's a great question
00:03:24.240 so the amber alert structure is set up often a child is abducted uh via vehicle and so there's
00:03:30.640 often a hundred kilometer radius or more i know i've received amber alerts uh from northwestern
00:03:36.400 ontario and we're in winnipeg hundreds of kilometers away from the location so the
00:03:40.960 the good thing about a silver alert is often seniors who wander away from home or their care
00:03:46.400 home are generally speaking on foot. And so you can geotarget it to just a several kilometer
00:03:52.320 radius, four kilometers up to maybe 12 kilometers. I think the data shows that they're generally
00:03:58.700 within that limited area. So you're really micro-targeting the cell phone area that you
00:04:04.640 would be reaching out to. So that would eliminate a lot of the, you know, why am I getting, if I'm
00:04:09.240 in Winnipeg, why am I getting an alert from Regina? That would not happen. If this is implemented how
00:04:15.600 we envision it, it would be much more geo-targeted. So that's great, actually, because the technology
00:04:21.160 today exists that we can really micro-target within a couple blocks radius, for example,
00:04:26.740 in an urban setting. And so that would, from our perspective, eliminate some of that concern with,
00:04:33.300 you know, you get amber alerts when you're very far away. That wouldn't be the case here,
00:04:36.240 because people are generally on foot when they go missing.
00:04:39.060 So we can target it more closely to where they went missing.
00:04:43.340 In terms of the technology of delivering the alert itself,
00:04:46.900 how do you view the Amber Alert's effectiveness
00:04:48.540 and what would you want for your silver alert bill to establish?
00:04:52.580 I mean, same kind of sound, same kind of delivery method,
00:04:55.880 text message warning, opt-out opportunity
00:04:58.300 or mandatory for every device that's capable.
00:05:01.800 What's your view?
00:05:03.000 So we've written the legislation in a way that's pretty,
00:05:05.260 that's designed as a framework so it's it's not as prescriptive as some of those things that you
00:05:10.900 mentioned what we would envision and how the bill is is drafted is that there would be
00:05:15.600 quite extensive consultation with the provinces with law enforcement but also other experts
00:05:21.780 experts in for example elderly care dementia care those kinds of things to establish what
00:05:27.400 sort of framework it would look like you mentioned like an opt-out framework or the sound of the
00:05:33.420 notification. Those would all be things I would imagine that would be discussed by the people who
00:05:38.280 have really been on the front lines of managing the safety and security of people with dementia,
00:05:44.100 which is particularly the elderly. And so that's where we would look to a lot of expert testimony.
00:05:48.560 So I was very keen to have the legislation written in a way that was very much focused on
00:05:54.460 expert feedback. I'm not an expert in dementia. I'm not a medical professional, nor am I in law
00:06:00.140 enforcement. But I do have an experience as a lawmaker and certainly with this family. And
00:06:05.800 my family as well has been touched by dementia. I think everybody knows someone who's been
00:06:09.540 touched by dementia. It's a terrible disease. So with that experience, I feel very, very strongly
00:06:15.680 that there must be a way that we can establish a framework that works, that is manageable,
00:06:22.420 that the public supports. I'm very convinced of that.
00:06:26.860 And lastly, do you expect there to be support from other opposition parties and the government
00:06:31.840 members on this, given, I mean, the government has a majority today? Do you expect cooperation
00:06:37.440 across the, it doesn't sound like a very partisan issue, so do you expect much broad cooperation?
00:06:43.040 We have received indications from the Liberal Party, the governing party, that they will be
00:06:47.840 supporting the bill to committee, so we hope that they maintain that commitment.
00:06:50.960 they again I believe what you've said is correct we've written this in a way and are pursuing this
00:06:57.020 in a way that is not political not partisan we don't believe that it is we know that dementia
00:07:01.700 is impacting many many people in Canada in fact by 2030 that's likely to be 1 million people in
00:07:07.480 Canada suffering with dementia there's over 400 people diagnosed per day and it really is a very
00:07:13.660 pressing issue if you if you look at some of the data for example from public safety Canada around
00:07:18.280 60% of people living with dementia may go missing at some point in their life. And if they're not
00:07:22.980 found within 12 hours, there's a 50% likelihood they'll be found deceased or severely injured.
00:07:28.740 And again, like I said, they go missing within a 4 to 12 kilometer radius. So with the technology
00:07:33.780 we have, there's no reason that we can't prevent terrible tragedies that have happened
00:07:39.880 across the country. If you look at some of the data just from news media, we've seen very tragic
00:07:46.000 of cases where a senior with dementia will just wander out of the care home. They somehow got
00:07:49.940 around the security systems they have, and they're found in a snowbank a block away, deceased, the
00:07:55.580 next morning. So there are things like this that can be prevented. Mr. Moberg, as a last point,
00:08:01.820 the gentleman who went missing and has not been found in my community, the search party that
00:08:07.640 happened, a woman came to that search party, and she says that, she said that, I think I may have
00:08:13.260 saw him the next day, but I wasn't sure if it was him. And I hadn't seen the notification. I just
00:08:19.240 saw a man at a local health lab that he happened to go to with his wife, who just seemed a little
00:08:26.680 bit confused. And I felt that maybe there was something wrong, but I didn't know to act on it.
00:08:31.720 If this lady had received a silver alert to her phone that morning with his description,
00:08:37.080 perhaps that would have been enough to underline her gut response that this man needed help.
00:08:41.400 and that's that critical gap
00:08:43.840 that we're looking to fill with this bill.
00:08:45.760 So we have received positive support
00:08:47.780 from the Liberal Party.
00:08:48.680 We hope that that continues
00:08:49.840 and when we can get this bill to committee
00:08:52.080 and really dig into some of the logistics
00:08:54.780 of how this could be implemented,
00:08:56.380 how can we work with provinces,
00:08:58.320 those things could be discussed
00:09:00.520 at a very in-depth level, we hope, at committee.
00:09:03.020 So we're hopeful.
00:09:04.700 We have positive signs so far,
00:09:06.220 so we'll see how it goes,
00:09:07.820 but we're working very hard to get everybody on board.
00:09:11.080 I look forward to speaking to you at that later date when committing and everything else starts to push through on your private member's bill.
00:09:17.300 Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
00:09:19.560 Yes, thank you, Maleed, for your interest. I really appreciate it.