Describing themselves as a very loud and proud advocacy group, founder of Indigo Alert Canada, Jennifer Ball, says the more signatures the better.

This after the recently incorporated non-profit group surpassed 10,000 signatures in a House of Commons petition aimed at reforming Canada’s missing persons alert system.

The group came together after an 11-year-old autistic non-verbal boy in Calgary went missing and was eventually found dead. She says they want an alert that could be used like an Amber Alert and allow it to go to people’s phones, in the event someone who can’t advocate for themselves, has gone missing.

She says the separate emergency-alert mechanism would be designed around the vulnerability of the missing person, rather than requiring evidence of abduction which is the case for an Amber Alert that also has to check specific criteria before it can be issued.

Ball started the public campaign after 11-year-old Parker Wells wandered away from a Calgary, Alberta day home in July. He was non-verbal and autistic and was found deceased almost two weeks later. Ball, who also has a non-verbal autistic child, says that is one of two recent cases where neurodivergent children have gone missing. It has been a year since 6-year-old Darius Macdougall went missing while camping with his family in Crowsnest Past and he is yet to be found.