Halifax Regional Police have released surveillance video related to the disappearance of James Cuthbert.

Cuthbert, 71, left his home in Head of Jeddore on the Eastern Shore around 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

His family says he was going to run some errands and meet his 102-year-old mother, whom he has visited religiously every second day for nine years. They knew something was wrong when he failed to show up.

“We’re not looking for someone who’s frail,” says his son-in-law, Tom Martin. “We’re not looking for someone who is dependent on a cane.”

Investigators have used surveillance video to begin a timeline of Cuthbert’s activities.

They know he stopped at the Esso service station on Cole Harbour Road shortly after noon and then stopped at the Canadian Tire store in Dartmouth Crossing around 12:30 p.m. Sunday.

A tip from a witness also placed Cuthbert outside his car in the parking lot of the Home Depot in Dartmouth Crossing sometime between 1 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

Now, police have released surveillance video that shows Cuthbert inside Canadian Tire.

“Now you see exactly what he had on,” says Martin. “Brown bomber jacket, well, that could be anything. But when you look at the video you know exactly what it is.”

Police say the video is an important piece of evidence, but there is another possible piece of evidence investigators haven’t seen.

Martin, a former homicide investigator with the Halifax Regional Police, has been pushing Bell Mobility to provide Cuthbert’s phone records.

Police say they need a production order to compel the phone company to provide the records, but they can’t get the order because they can’t prove a crime has been committed.

“I’m enraged by it. It’s inexcusable,” says Martin. “We don’t know where he’s at. We don’t know where he went or why and the answer to that may lay in that phone.”

Nearly two years ago, the former NDP government introduced a bill that would allow police to access that kind of information. The bill passed, but it wasn’t proclaimed because some stakeholders expressed concerns about privacy issues.

Nova Scotia Justice Minister Lena Metlege-Diab said Thursday that the current Liberal government supports the Missing Persons Act and is working to get it proclaimed as quickly as possible.

“We believe that the legislation, if proclaimed, would greatly assist us in this type of investigation,” says police spokeswoman Theresa Rath.

Early Thursday evening, Bell Mobility contacted CTV to say it is nowin the process of handing over the phone records to investigators, as per Mr. Cuthbert’s wife’s request.

Meanwhile, Cuthbert’s family is asking people to watch the surveillance video and contact police if they have any information on his whereabouts.

“This is a life-threatening situation,” says Martin. “I’m not real good at begging and pleading, but I am begging and pleading.”

Cuthbert is described as a white man with slightly balding hair, a grey beard and hazel eyes. He is about six-feet tall and weighs 170 pounds. He was last seen wearing rimless glasses, a brown leather bomber-style jacket and brown loafer shoes.

Police say he drives a white 2012 four-door Toyota Prius with Nova Scotia licence plate DTV 905.

Anyone with information on Cuthbert’s appearance is asked to contact police.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Kayla Hounsell