Missing Persons

Question

I have a researcher who is looking into the number of persons that go missing in Canada by year. I have been looking in the usual justice data locations but as this is neither a crime nor an offence I have not had much luck . Has anyone an idea where this data may be found?

Answer

I consulted our contacts in the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics and they provided the following information:

"Your contact is correct, being 'missing' is not a criminal offence - lots of people drop out of sight for a variety of reasons; we would only have data if a crime had been committed (ie kidnapping).

However, the RCMP owns the missing persons database ... they record all instances whereby someone declares someone as 'missing'. "