Seven weeks later, two N.S. children are still missing. Why wasn't an Amber Alert issued?

Seven weeks after two children went missing from a rural Nova Scotia community, family members are still questioning why an Amber Alert wasn't issued for Lilly and Jack Sullivan.

The young siblings have been missing since the morning of May 2, when police received a 911 call reporting they had wandered away from their home in Lansdowne Station, about 140 kilometres northeast of Halifax.

RCMP have said all along that the case did not meet the criteria for the alert, and are now providing more details on the factors that are considered and the process that plays out in such situations.

Amber Alerts are a national public notification system used to help find abducted children believed to be in imminent danger.

Cpl. Guillaume Tremblay, who works in the RCMP's communications unit, was working the day of the disappearance and reviewed the policy on Amber Alerts.

He said the criteria state there must be something to point the public toward, such as a suspect, a person of interest or a vehicle.

"You want to direct the public to look for a specific vehicle, to look for that licence plate, to look for that suspicious person, to have a photo of someone or more information to suggest that there was an abduction," said Tremblay in a recent interview.

While Tremblay reviewed the policy, it's the risk manager — appointed for every major incident — that ultimately decides if an alert should be sent out.

In this case, the force issued two "vulnerable persons" alerts.

The first was sent at 12:43 p.m. on the day of the disappearance and was directed to cellphones across a swath of communities in northeastern parts of Nova Scotia's mainland, including Lansdowne Station and New Glasgow.

The second was issued at 5:26 p.m. the following day — May 3 — and included a larger area from Truro up to Tatamagouche and stretching across to Antigonish.

For Daniel Martell, the children's stepfather, those alerts did not go far enough.

He said he asked RCMP to issue an Amber Alert early on, and to position officers at the New Brunswick and P.E.I. borders and the airport, but was told the situation did not meet the criteria. 

"I think they should have just bent the criteria at that moment," said Martell. "It wasn't just one missing person, but two vulnerable children."