Madam Speaker, a husband wakes up in the night to find that his wife of 50 years has left the house. A daughter goes to visit her father in his apartment but sees that he is gone. Immediately, police, volunteers and neighbours begin searching woodlots and side roads and checking behind buildings. Every minute counts.
Canadians know that when a child goes missing, every minute counts. The lives of vulnerable people matter. This is true for children, and it is true for vulnerable seniors. Bill C-263, the silver alert national framework act, would create the opportunity for us to help protect vulnerable seniors. Right now there are growing numbers of seniors across our country. By 2030, just four years from now, there are expected to be more than a million Canadians living with dementia. When people with dementia go missing, the risks to them of bodily injury and death are great.
A silver alert is a notification system that people would be familiar with for its similarity to an Amber alert, but in this case, instead of an alert for a missing child, an alert is issued when an adult, typically a senior living with dementia or another cognitive impairment, goes missing or is at risk. The establishment of a national framework would be done in partnership with all the provinces and territories. This collaboration is so important, as we are part of a larger community.
The lives of seniors at risk in all provinces need to be protected. While there are individual programs and different alert mechanisms in different parts of the country, there is not a national standard. For example, a really great program in my community is Project Lifesaver. The Brockville Police Service, along with the Alzheimer Society of Lanark Leeds Grenville, has deployed Project Lifesaver to address this very situation: Someone with a cognitive impairment goes missing.
The project participants wear a wristband, and the tracking signal it emits becomes life-saving technology in that instant. They go missing; their caregiver calls 911, reporting that their loved one is at risk; and specialized tools are then deployed by highly trained teams to mobilize and find them. The average time of a rescue with the technology in Project Lifesaver is 30 minutes. That is incredible. We are going to have a tough time getting a wristband on all one million Canadians whom I referenced who will be living with dementia four years from now.
What can we do as a community when we see an alert on a highway sign, our mobile phones or the news ticker on TV that a vulnerable senior is missing in our community? How are we left to feel when we could have been in the same place, running our daily errands, living our lives, taking our child to dance practice, going to get groceries or on our way to work, had we known that the individual in the red jacket, wearing slippers, moving down the sidewalk on the other side of the street was actually a senior who had wandered off when seconds turn into minutes, minutes turn into hours, and the risk went up?
On our way to live our lives, we are not on the lookout for just anyone wearing a red jacket and maybe wearing slides on their feet, but that national alert, that standard, would let us know that their loved ones are looking for them, that this individual suffers from a cognitive impairment and that they are in grave danger if they do not receive assistance or are not returned to the safety of their home. It really exemplifies who we are as Canadians.
I know we have all had the experience of receiving an Amber alert and immediately memorizing the description of the car or the first four digits of the licence plate. It does not matter that it was first reported four hours before. My community is along North America's busiest highway, the 401. People can get there pretty quick from some of the most-populated areas in Montreal or Toronto.
My attention to a push notification on my phone could save a child's life. It is incredible. To be able to do that for seniors as well speaks to our compassion. That speaks to who we are, and it would not be at a great cost. The technology exists. It does not require the physical deployment of those very effective and innovative tools like they are using with Project Lifesaver. I encourage folks living in Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes to contact the Alzheimer Society if a loved one in their family could benefit from participation in that program.
What can we do as Canada's Parliament, as federal legislators? When we look at those minutes that count, we can make our time here count. During the progression of, for example, Alzheimer's, which is a disease that affects a great number of Canadians, 60% of individuals will wander away from home at least once. Those are staggering numbers. By those statistics, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of people wandering away across this vast, complicated country we have. What can we do?
Bill C-263 is inspired by a very moving story from my colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul, and we should reflect on the opportunity that we have to honour seniors. The month of June is Seniors Month, so let us do right by them. They have done right by us by building our country up and raising all of us, and now we need to look out for them. That is why I think this is the least we can do, and I very much look forward to supporting this important legislation.