After 18-year-old with autism goes missing, mother says Ontario needs vulnerable alerts

TORONTO — When Jenny Tozer’s 18-year-old son with autism had been missing for more than two weeks, she began preparing for the worst.

Logan left their home in Havelock, Ont., in the middle of the night, traveled 22 miles north through wooded areas and got lost trying to get back home, his mother said.

He was eventually found in an abandoned building on the seventeenth day of his disappearance — “safe with only three tick bites and an adventure to tell,” Tozer said — but the outcome could easily have been tragic, she said.

“I was trying to figure out how to keep it together for all his siblings, because they also couldn’t understand why he wasn’t home and they weren’t sleeping,” Tozer told reporters on Wednesday. conference.

“I didn’t sleep. It was quite chaotic. It was something that no one should have to experience and I’m just very lucky that he came home alive.”

Tozer now adds her voice to others calling on the government to create a new kind of alert for vulnerable people.

A bill from New Democrat Monique Taylor would implement a system of alerts for vulnerable people such as children with autism or seniors with dementia, similar to Amber Alerts, but it is stalled in the committee stage of the Legislature.

She presented the bill in March 2023 and a day of public hearings was held a year later, but the next phase – in which the legislative committee reviews the bill clause by clause and considers amendments – has not yet taken place.

“We are here today to let the government know that we will do whatever it takes to ensure this passage, whether it is sharing the bill with a member of the government – ​​take the bill, make it your own , it doesn’t matter,” Taylor said Wednesday.

“This isn’t about me. It’s really about the legislation and making sure we get it passed.”

The bill was inspired by the stories of Draven Graham, a boy with autism who drowned in 2022 after going missing, and Shirley Love, a senior who died in December of that year after leaving her home without being dressed for winter weather .

Those families support the bill, as does the Ontario Autism Coalition.

“Try to imagine what it would feel like to lose a loved one who, because of their disability or cognitive impairment, is unable to ask for help, cannot understand the safety issues and often will not be able to find their way home find. ,” said Kate Dudley-Logue, vice president of the coalition.

“It’s terrifying, and it’s every caregiver’s worst nightmare. In the autism community, we all hold our breath and feel this enormous stress every time we hear stories like Logan’s, because so many of us have been through it and but know all too well what the real reality is.” possibility that their child will not come home.”

Several tools are already being used to find missing people and keep vulnerable people out of harm’s way, Taylor said, but this alert system would be a necessary extra layer.

Paul Calandra said last year, when he was head of government, that he believed the bill was flawed and wanted it to go to committee so it could be improved. Current House Leader Steve Clark’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the bill.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press