Background - 2016 Fast Fact Sheet

Introduction

Since 2012, the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (NCMPUR) has produced the NCMPUR Fast Fact Sheet. This fact sheet provides a national breakdown of missing persons reports by province, age (child or adult), sex, and probable cause. The NCMPUR 2016 Fast Fact Sheet has been prepared using numbers generated by the national Missing Children/Persons and Unidentified Remains (MC/PUR) Database, which provides the necessary data and tools to coordinate a national approach to these investigations. MC/PUR includes occurrences which are currently open, and concluded occurrences^{Footnote 1} only if they were open after May 16, 2014. This is the second year for which a full set of data exists in MC/PUR for statistical purposes.

The data in MC/PUR is derived from missing person transactions in the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC). Thus it is limited by the quality and types of data that agencies enter into CPIC, and the techniques used by MC/PUR to compile that data. CPIC 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). MC/PUR uses algorithms in an attempt to identify and eliminate duplicate data and produce more accurate statistics. These algorithms are different from those used before 2015, so retroactive comparison to years before 2015 will not be completely correct^{Footnote 2}. An occurrence is considered as belonging to the year 2016 based on the reported Date Last Seen^{Footnote 3}. The number of missing person subjects reported herein reflects a "point in time" and can change if records for 2016 cases are added, modified, or flagged as duplicate^{Footnote 4}.

It is also important to note that in terms of probable cause, there is some subjectivity in the original CPIC data that populates MC/PUR, and it may not be consistently completed nor maintained by agencies.

While the 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 to provide a more comprehensive picture of the missing person reports. As the statistics become more descriptive, retroactive comparisons to previous years may not be possible.

Fast fact sheet – mc/pur missing adult subjects by province, sex and probable cause for 2016 ^{Footnote *}
Provinces (Population in 2016)	Abduction by Stranger		Accident		Wandered Off		Parental Abduction with Custody Order		Parental Abduction without Custody Order		Abducted by Relative		Runaway		Presumed Dead		Human Trafficking		Unknown		Other		Total
	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male
Alberta (4,268,929)	4	2	1	5	151	301	0	0	0	0	1	0	254	305	0	2	0	0	733	1019	83	119	2980
British Columbia (4,773,345)	7	12	9	31	276	494	0	2	1	0	0	1	561	650	1	11	0	0	3215	4248	506	759	10784
Manitoba (1,323,958)	0	0	1	0	27	40	0	0	0	0	1	0	779	391	0	2	0	0	339	314	40	45	1979
New Brunswick (757,997)	0	1	0	1	5	27	0	0	0	0	0	0	40	58	0	0	0	0	58	116	5	15	326
Newfoundland and Labrador (530,376)	1	0	0	2	1	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	8	9	0	2	0	0	35	54	3	9	128
Nova Scotia (952,333)	1	0	0	1	6	22	0	0	0	0	0	0	30	47	0	0	0	0	40	78	25	59	309
Ontario (14,063,256)	1	4	1	5	236	419	0	0	4	2	0	0	685	827	2	3	6	0	1705	2170	256	391	6717
Prince Edward Island (149,278)	0	0	0	1	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	0	0	6	10	2	2	27
Quebec (8,349,793)	7	2	2	2	50	108	0	0	5	4	0	0	329	823	1	1	0	0	368	706	196	394	2998
Saskatchewan (1,155,393)	6	2	0	0	45	69	0	0	0	0	0	0	236	261	0	1	0	0	348	436	9	17	1430
Yukon Territory (37,624)	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	6	0	0	0	0	19	16	5	2	54
Northwest Territory (44,204)	0	1	0	0	4	6	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	0	0	0	18	17	0	2	52
Nunavut Territory (37,146)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	4	0	0	5
Total (36,443,632)	27	24	14	48	801	1496	0	2	10	6	2	1	2929	3380	4	23	6	0	6884	9188	1130	1814	27,789

One (1) female MP Subject and two (2) male MP Subjects were not included in this table as the province was classified under 'Other'.
Two hundred forty-five (245) missing adult reports were not included in this table as there was no probable cause entered.

Fast facts:

58% of missing adult reports involve males.
62% of missing adult reports were removed within 24 hours, while 90% were removed within a week^{Footnote 5}.

Fast fact sheet – mc/pur missing child subjects by province, sex and probable cause for 2016 ^{Footnote **}
Provinces (Population in 2016)	Abduction by Stranger		Accident		Wandered Off		Parental Abduction with Custody Order		Parental Abduction without Custody Order		Abducted by Relative		Runaway		Presumed Dead		Human Trafficking		Unknown		Other		Total
	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male
Alberta (4,268,929)	1	1	0	0	13	17	3	4	7	6	1	1	1988	1498	1	0	0	0	155	100	15	28	3839
British Columbia (4,773,345)	7	3	5	3	52	45	3	7	8	9	1	0	2293	955	0	1	0	0	2210	1351	480	187	7620
Manitoba (1,323,958)	1	0	0	0	13	10	2	0	3	7	1	0	6273	2672	6	3	2	0	729	352	59	21	10154
New Brunswick (757,997)	0	2	0	0	1	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	168	191	0	0	0	0	44	22	0	0	433
Newfoundland and Labrador (530,376)	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	120	151	0	0	0	0	105	119	15	6	519
Nova Scotia (952,333)	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	580	233	0	0	0	0	10	14	15	13	866
Ontario (14,063,256)	4	2	2	2	64	92	6	4	16	16	3	4	4673	4209	0	0	3	0	1247	970	226	205	11748
Prince Edward Island (149,278)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	20	17	0	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	40
Quebec (8,349,793)	2	4	3	1	8	13	4	5	14	9	0	0	1959	3028	0	0	0	0	383	544	141	169	6287
Saskatchewan (1,155,393)	1	0	0	0	6	5	1	0	2	3	1	1	1772	1242	0	0	0	0	547	404	12	14	4011
Yukon Territory (37,624)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	26	1	0	0	0	0	33	10	1	0	71
Northwest Territory (44,204)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	10	3	0	0	0	0	3	3	0	0	19
Nunavut Territory (37,146)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	2
Total (36,443,632)	16	14	10	7	157	187	19	20	51	50	7	6	19882	14201	7	4	5	0	5468	3891	964	643	45609

No MP Subjects had the province classified under 'Other'.
Seventy-one (71) missing children reports were not included in this table as there was no probable cause entered.

Fast facts:

58% of all missing children/youth reports involve females.
75% of missing children/youth reports (male and female) are runaways.
59% of missing children/youth reports were removed within 24 hours, while 92% were removed within a week^{Footnote 5}.

Footnotes

Footnote 1

Open occurrences have not yet been resolved. The occurrence is concluded when the missing persons case is resolved (e.g. person has been located).

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Footnote 2

Although both the CPIC program and MC/PUR utilized algorithms to remove duplications, it is not currently possible to know the variability caused by additional factors, given the available data.

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Footnote 3