Anniversary of man’s disappearance renews call for silver alerts

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This article was published 12/12/2024 (625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One year after Earl Moberg vanished into a Winnipeg winter night, his family continues to demand improved protection for vulnerable seniors.

“It just feels unreal, the whole situation with my dad. That it even happened and we are here a year later and he hasn’t been found,” said daughter Britt Moberg.

“I just feel my dad’s disappearance, and presumed death, was preventable.”

Since the disappearance, Moberg has campaigned for Canada to introduce a national silver alert system, which would broadcast information to cellphones, radio and television in the event a vulnerable adult goes missing.

She said such broadcasts could be targeted to a limited geographic area, and quickly provide critical information — similar to how amber alerts are issued when children disappear.

Her plea for government intervention has taken form in an online petition, which has garnered 2,300 signatures since Oct. 22. More than half of those signatures came from Manitobans, while around one-third are from British Columbia, where Moberg lives.

Her father, who was 81 at the time, wandered away from his home on Gilmore Avenue on the evening of Dec. 12, 2023. His family last spoke to him around 6:30 p.m. that night. His son was able to reach him by phone and — based on what Earl said — they think he may have been walking near the underpass on Chief Peguis Trail, Britt said.

City police, the Bear Clan Patrol, Drag the Red, friends and family have conducted numerous searches.

Kildonan—St. Paul MP Raquel Dancho endorsed the family’s petition; she will likely table it in Parliament after the signing period closes on Jan. 20.

Federal guidelines dictate that an online petition must receive a minimum of 500 signatures before a member of Parliament can present it to the House of Commons. The government has 45 days to respond.

A similar petition, presented to Parliament in 2019, earned 1,034 signatures.

In response, the government acknowledged the challenges faced by people with dementia and their families, but determined silver alerts would not be appropriate for the national public alerting system and should instead be handled by individual provinces.

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. Those alerts are currently only advisories, meaning they are not distributed to cellphones, a provincial spokesperson has told the Free Press.

The Winnipeg Police Service issued a news release Thursday acknowledging the somber anniversary of Earl’s disappearance.

“We would like to acknowledge the hardship that the family of Earl Moberg has endured over the past year,” WPS said. “Earl is a loving husband, father and grandfather.”

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City police continue to investigate, the release said.

Health authorities are reviewing the case after deeming the disappearance a critical incident even though he lived at home and wasn’t in a hospital or care home.

It’s believed to be the first such case that’s being been probed as a critical incident, which is defined as an “unintended event that occurs when health services are provided to an individual and results in a consequence to him or her that is serious and undesired.”

His family had tried unsuccessfully many times to persuade the system to give him support services after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in November 2019.

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.