In his 34 years volunteering in the search for missing people in Quebec, Guy Lapointe has only witnessed four cases where a child was found alive after 72 hours.
On Wednesday, a three-year-old Montreal girl defied the odds. She was found safe in Ontario after an intensive four-day search that included up to 200 officers and trained volunteers, a helicopter and ATVs.
“We had hope, but we were starting to think that she wouldn’t be alive anymore,” said Lapointe, the president of the Quebec Search and Rescue Volunteer Association. “We’re still on a cloud.”
He noted search and rescues that last this long are “rare.”
Over his three-decade-long career with the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), Capt. Benoît Richard said this was likely the first time he had seen a child found alive after the 72-hour mark.
“The more [time] goes and the more it gets difficult for us to find them,” he said.
One of the reasons those initial hours are so critical, he said, is the lack of food or water.
Bill Dickson, Ontario Provincial Police spokesperson, echoed that sentiment, highlighting that the longer the search goes on, the higher the chance of a tragic outcome.
“It had the best ending we could hope for,” he said.
No Amber Alert issued sparks debate over criteria
The little girl had last been seen at her residence in Montreal’s LaSalle borough Sunday morning and her mother reported her missing a few hours later at a store in Coteau-du-Lac, about 50 kilometres west of Montreal.
Her mother was arrested on Monday and charged with child abandonment. She’s scheduled to appear again in court on Friday.
Lapointe, a former RCMP officer, believes social media played a decisive role in this particular rescue.
“Without all the information from the public, it would have been very hard. We would still be there and her chance to be alive would be reduced,” he said.
Child psychiatrist Dr. Cécile Rousseau says the survival of a three-year-old Montreal girl found after an intensive four-day search is a testimony to the ‘profound resilience’ of children. Rousseau warns without a conversation on the distress of parents, this type of situation will continue to repeat itself.
An Amber Alert wasn’t issued in this case, and Lapointe believes that was the right call. He argues the population was advised “very fast” and says police “did exactly the right thing.”
But not everyone agrees.
The events of the past few days brought back painful memories for Amélie Lemieux, whose two daughters, Romy and Norah Carpentier, went missing and were killed by their father in the summer of 2020.
“The last few days felt like 2020,” Lemieux told Radio-Canada.
“It was the same emotions… anxiety, lack of understanding, difficulty eating, difficulty sleeping, difficulty functioning.”
Lemieux had hoped the three-year-old would be found quickly and believes an Amber Alert should’ve been issued. She says the “overly rigid” criteria need to be reviewed.
“A three-year-old child that is missing, for me, personally, I feel that her safety, her health is in jeopardy,” said Lemieux.
In Quebec, only two police forces — Montreal police and the SQ — are authorized to activate an Amber Alert, according to the Alerte Amber Québec website.
An alert will only be activated if the following three criteria are met simultaneously:
- Police have reasonable grounds to believe a person under 18 years old has been abducted.
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Police have reason to believe that the physical safety or the life of the child is in serious danger.
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Police have information that may help locate the child, the suspect and/or the suspect’s vehicle.
The SQ’s Richard explained that in this case, the criteria were not all met.
“We didn’t have an abduction,” he said. “We need to have something to follow…. Do we have a vehicle? Do we have an area to go through?”
Still, Lemieux says the criteria should be more flexible in these types of cases.
“I would’ve liked to know on Sunday instead of Monday that a little girl was missing,” she said.
