Missing Canadians - Why don't we know about this?

Since 2010, the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (NCMPUR) has produced the NCMPUR Fast Fact Sheet. This fact sheet replaces the Missing Children's Annual Reference Report and provides a national breakdown of missing persons reports by province, age (child or adult), sex and probable cause. The NCMPUR Fast Fact Sheet has been prepared using numbers provided within the Canadian Police Information Centre's (CPIC) 2014 Missing Persons Statistical Report.

It is important to note that these numbers illustrate the number of missing person transactions in CPIC, rather than the number of missing individuals. Transactions include repeat runaways and situations where a single instance of a missing person may be entered and deleted multiple times by different agencies over a period of time (e.g., a child goes missing with the initial report being filed with one police service, however, further investigation indicates the file falls within another police service's jurisdiction).

The attached tables include data provided by CPIC that are more indicative of the number of actual missing persons reports. Although the CPIC program utilized attempts to remove duplications, it is not currently possible to know the variability caused by these additional factors listed above, given the available data. The number of CPIC transactions reflects a "point in time" and can change dynamically as records are added, modified, or removed. It is also important to note that there is some subjectivity in the CPIC data related to probable cause, as the person who enters the data is left to determine which "probable cause" category s/he believes the missing person falls into. As well, although both parental abduction (with custody order and with no custody order), runaway, and the other categories, are defined in CPIC as applying only to children, subjects under 18, and youth respectively, adults are sometimes entered into these categories.

While NCMPUR anticipates that future fast fact sheets will be in a similar format to the one produced this year, the categories may change in future years as CPIC adds more data fields to provide a more comprehensive picture of the missing person report. As the statistics become more descriptive, backward comparisons to previous years may not be possible.

Fast Fact Sheet - CPIC Missing Adult Reports by province, profile, and sex for 2014*

Provinces (Population in 2014)	Abduction by stranger		Accident		Wandered Off		Parental Abduction with Custody		Parental Abduction without Custody		Runaway		Unknown		Other		Total
	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male
Yukon Territory (36,758)	0	0	4	25	2	5	0	0	0	0	4	4	9	16	4	5	78
North West Territory (43,795)	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	0	0	0	1	1	9	7	2	2	25
Nunavut Territory (36,687)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
British Columbia (4,657,947)	8	1	10	57	171	297	1	2	0	1	414	440	2567	3116	255	361	7701
Alberta (4,145,992)	1	2	0	6	79	129	2	0	0	0	140	140	529	852	46	90	2016
Saskatchewan (1,129,899)	1	0	0	5	14	30	0	0	0	0	151	159	268	327	16	15	986
Manitoba (1,286,323)	0	0	0	5	20	48	0	0	0	0	642	242	279	247	31	27	1541
Ontario (13,730,187)	3	1	3	6	187	349	0	1	2	0	525	605	1441	1831	264	363	5581
Quebec (8,236,310)	2	4	0	10	37	101	0	2	2	1	179	431	349	673	154	342	2287
New Brunswick (754,643)	2	1	0	4	9	23	0	0	0	0	22	26	45	85	7	9	233
Prince Edward Island (146,524)	0	0	0	0	1	2	0	0	0	0	1	3	2	2	0	2	13
Nova Scotia (943,932)	0	1	0	1	4	16	0	0	0	0	10	17	48	78	36	71	282
Newfoundland and Labrador (526,837)	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	11	8	27	64	2	13	127
Total	17	10	17	119	525	1003	4	5	4	2	2100	2076	5573	7298	817	1301	20871

*Data subject to caveats outlined in the Introduction section.
Sixty-two (62) missing adult reports were not included in this table as there was an invalid/no profile for probable cause of going missing.
Fast Facts:

• 67% of missing adult reports were removed within 24 hours, while 85% were removed within a week

Fast Fact Sheet - CPIC Missing Children and Youth reports by province, profile, and sex for 2014**

Provinces (Population in 2014)	Abduction by stranger		Accident		Wandered Off		Parental Abduction with Custody		Parental Abduction without Custody		Runaway		Unknown		Other		Total
	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male
Yukon Territory (36,758)	0	0	1	1	0	2	0	0	0	0	34	44	2	6	1	5	96
North West Territory (43,795)	0	0	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	0	13	1	14	1	1	1	34
Nunavut Territory (36,687)	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
British Columbia (4,657,947)	2	2	4	3	103	55	6	5	5	2	2001	1152	2220	1296	302	203	7361
Alberta (4,145,992)	3	1	0	0	14	18	4	7	2	3	1643	1394	147	138	20	16	3410
Saskatchewan (1,129,899)	1	1	1	0	3	5	0	0	2	0	1726	918	397	295	9	8	3366
Manitoba (1,286,323)	1	0	1	1	5	10	0	1	1	1	3833	1709	621	235	25	14	6458
Ontario (13,730,187)	3	3	4	3	91	95	10	16	14	11	6074	4794	998	911	285	244	13556
Quebec (8,236,310)	3	1	3	2	8	14	3	6	9	10	1907	2362	537	539	177	175	5756
New Brunswick (754,643)	0	4	0	1	0	2	1	0	0	0	145	109	28	21	1	1	313
Prince Edward Island (146,524)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	9	5	0	0	1	1	16
Nova Scotia (943,932)	1	0	2	0	1	2	0	1	0	0	328	270	11	14	6	14	650
Newfoundland and Labrador (526,837)	1	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	187	31	67	17	16	3	325
Total	15	14	16	12	225	205	25	36	34	27	17900	12789	5042	3473	844	685	41342

*Data subject to caveats outlined in the Introduction section.
Twenty-two (22) missing children reports were not included in this table as there was an invalid/no profile for probable cause of going missing.
Fast Facts:

• 65% of missing children/youth reports were removed within 24 hours, while 87% were removed within a week
• Youth between the age of 14-15 make up 43% of missing children/youth reports

Source: http://www.canadasmissing.ca/pubs/2014/index-eng.htm