Bear Clan partnership with Aboriginal Alerts, Crime Stoppers expands reach, chances of finding missing persons

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This article was published 04/03/2025 (393 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When a family from Thunder Bay reached out to the Bear Clan Patrol Monday, they were desperate to find a missing loved one they believed was in Winnipeg.

The problem for the Manitoba-based neighbourhood patrol was that it didn’t have a presence in northern Ontario.

To fill the gap, Bear Clan members reached out to Aboriginal Alert, an Indigenous-led organization that compiles a database and shares information about missing people, and an alert was sent out.

“Within two hours of that posting, we were able to help locate that missing person here in Winnipeg,” said Angela Klassen, the Bear Clan’s West Broadway co-ordinator.

On Tuesday, the Bear Clan formally announced a partnership with Aboriginal Alert and Winnipeg Crime Stoppers to help broaden its ability to search for thousands of people who go missing in Canada every year.

“It’s already working,” Klassen said. “It’s already showing success. The partnership we started to form was just for Manitoba, but now we’re reaching from B.C. to Thunder Bay, and further.”

Winnipeg and Manitoba were the city and province with the highest numbers of notifications issued by Aboriginal Alert, according to 2023 data.

Winnipeg accounted for nearly a quarter (283) of the 1,208 alerts the organization issued; 337 of them were in Manitoba.

Aboriginal Alert helped locate 1,013 people alive, including 445 children and youth, an 84 per cent success rate.

Overall, Winnipeg had 4,430 missing persons cases, according to the Bear Clan, which worked with the families of 321 of those people and helped locate 228 — a 71 per cent success rate.

“We hope to build on that success rate with the help of Crime Stoppers and partnership with Aboriginal Alerts,” Klassen said. “We hope to take this initiative across Canada.”

Aboriginal Alert was created in 2017, and eventually, the organization used its database to create an email alert system to disseminate information quickly.

The organization finds emails best for reaching people reliably. Alerts for missing persons are sent to subscribers within a 100-kilometre radius. Once a person is located, their information and photos are removed for privacy.

“We’ve really had to adapt because there aren’t a lot of databases for missing people,” said Aboriginal Alert’s Nicole Martel.

Martel said the program is “all-inclusive,” and will issue alerts for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous women and men who go missing.

Bear Clan executive director Kevin Walker said the partnership will expand the organization’s ability to reunite family members.

Crime Stoppers’ role will add another layer in which people will be able to provide information anonymously.

“We’re hoping that opportunity for people to remain anonymous and that no one will ever know it was them will entice people to come forward with that information,” said Crime Stoppers chair Rob MacKenzie.

Information that results in resolving a missing persons case will generate a cash reward.

MacKenzie said when tips come in, they’re sanitized, meaning any identifying information is removed, before they’re forwarded to the Winnipeg Police Service missing persons unit.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca