On September 6, 2026, authorities in Greene County, Tennessee, issued an AMBER Alert for two-year-old Atreus Johann Bird after he was reported missing from the Midway area. Authorities said Atreus had a known medical condition that could impair his ability to return to safety without assistance. 

While this case was not a confirmed child abduction, the emergency alert was used because authorities believed the circumstances and Atreus's medical needs created an urgent threat to his safety. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation asked the public to immediately report sightings or information about his whereabouts.

Atreus was subsequently found safe and returned home.

Why this matters in Canada

The criteria for Canada's AMBER Alert system to be activated is much narrower. In general, police must have reasonable grounds to believe that an abduction has occurred, along with evidence that the child is in serious danger and information that could help the public locate the child or an alleged abductor.

In two recent cases where neurodivergent children have gone missing, the gap in Canada’s alert system has failed.  Six-year-old Darius Macdougall went missing while camping with his family in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta in September 2025. An AMBER alert was never issued, and he is yet to be found.  More recently, 11-year-old Parker Wells wandered away from a Calgary, Alberta day home in July 2026. There was initially no AMBER Alert because authorities did not have evidence of an abduction. An AMBER Alert was eventually issued approximately two days after Parker disappeared. He was ultimately found dead on July 30.

In other words, under current criteria:

Missing child + no evidence of abduction ≠ AMBER alert

Sometimes the emergency isn’t who took the child. Sometimes the emergency is simply that the child is missing.

A kidnapped two-year-old isn't inherently more deserving of an emergency public alert than a two-year-old with a serious medical condition who wandered away from home.

Both children need to be found.

The cause for change

Indigo Alert Canada (IAC) founder Jennifer Ball started a public campaign on change.org to expand Canada’s missing person alert system to include the “Indigo Alert” - a separate emergency-alert mechanism designed around the vulnerability of the missing person, rather than requiring evidence of abduction. Ball says she chose the colour indigo because deep purple/indigo is associated with autism awareness. The change.org petition has so far gathered over 42,000 signatures.

Subsequently, an official House of Commons petition (e-7703) went live on August 24, 2026. It was sponsored by Leduc-Wetaskiwin Conservative MP Mike Lake. The petition garnered more than 9,000 signatures within its first two weeks.

“When a vulnerable person goes missing, every minute matters. Families should not have to wait for a situation to meet the criteria of an abduction before the public can be called on to help. Indigo Alert Canada is about closing that gap—creating a clear, responsible alert system that recognizes vulnerability and gives our most vulnerable Canadians the same urgency, visibility and chance of coming home safely.”

— Jennifer Ball, Founder & National Director, Indigo Alert Canada

About Indigo Alert Canada

Indigo Alert Canada (IAC) is an independent community campaign advocating for a new emergency alert category for vulnerable missing people of any age. It is not affiliated with any provincial or federal government, with the AMBER Alert program or Alert Ready, or with the Missing Children Society of Canada.

The campaign began in Calgary, Alberta, with Jennifer Ball, a mother of a non-verbal autistic child. It gained urgency after an 11-year-old non-verbal autistic boy, Parker Wells, went missing from a Calgary day home in July 2026. An AMBER alert was not initially issued, but following an exemption granted by the Alberta government one was issued approximately two days following his disappearance.

IAC’s ask is to create a new "Indigo Alert" or similar "At Risk" alert category, triggered by a missing person's vulnerability rather than suspected abduction. Like the AMBER Alert, it should use clear, narrow activation criteria to avoid alert fatigue — the goal is a small number of alerts the public takes seriously, not a blanket trigger. This does not replace the Amber Alert; it closes a gap the Amber Alert was never designed to cover.

In Canada, alert broadcasting infrastructure is coordinated nationally, but the authority to define alert categories and issue an alert sits with each province and territory individually. There is no single federal law that can create this alert everywhere at once — it must be won legislature by legislature.