Case Study: From Stakeholder Engagement to Policy Change—Lessons from Alberta’s Bill 210, the Missing Persons Amendment Act (Silver Alert)

Three out of five persons with dementia wander and get lost (Alzheimer’s Association, 2016). The search for missing persons is costly (Sharples, 2009), and the incidence of missing older adults with dementia continues to rise with population aging. Whereas 5% of previous search and rescue cases for missing persons involved older adults, this is now nearly 50% of cases (Neubauer, Laquian, Conway, & Liu, 2018). If not found within 24 h, up to half of those lost will sustain serious injury or death (Alzheimer’s Association, 2016), a major concern for first responders and caregivers alike (Neubauer, Hillier, Conway, Beleno, & Liu, 2018). Currently, there is a petition for a Canadian National Silver Alert strategy that cites Alberta and Manitoba as the only provinces that “established a Silver Alert, through an amendment to their Missing Persons Amendment Act” (House of Commons, 2018). This case study describes our experience in amending Alberta legislation and presents cautions about the national petition.