The Brady Road Landfill will reopen Friday after the city says a compromise has been reached with protesters who have been blocking the entrance for weeks.
The landfill has been closed to the public since a group calling for searches for two Indigenous women police allege were murdered by an accused serial killer set up a blockade in mid-December.
On Thursday the city said the encampment will remain near the landfill’s entrance but residential and commercial customers will be granted access to the landfill starting Friday morning.
“The City of Winnipeg is grateful for the positive discussions with family members, the First Nation Indigenous Warriors, as well as other community stakeholders, and is committed to maintaining ongoing, open dialogue,” the city said in a media release.
“It’s through these discussions and through their cooperation that we were able to reach a compromise, one which supports the right to peacefully protest while allowing the Brady Road Resource Management Facility to reopen to members of the public.”
The demonstrators are calling for police to search the site, as well as Prairie Green Landfill just north of the city, where police believe the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran ended up in the spring.
Jeremy Skibicki has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Harris, 39, Myran, 26, Rebecca Contois, 24, and a fourth woman who has not been identified but has been given the name Buffalo Woman or Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe by police and community leaders.
Police found Contois’s partial remains at the Brady Road landfill following a search in June and have said investigators believe the remains of Harris and Myran are likely at Prairie Green Landfill.
Police initially said a search at Prairie Green would not be feasible, given that several months had passed and countless truckloads of additional waste had been deposited since.
But after pressure from Indigenous leaders and some of the victims’ relatives, police have since agreed to be part of an Indigenous-led committee that would determine the feasibility of a search and put together a budget to present to various levels of government.
The federal government has committed to paying for the committee’s work.
The city has previously said it has sealed off the area of the Brady Road Landfill where Contois’s remains were found and the site is not in use.
The city says it is committed to maintaining an open dialogue with demonstrators and have been able to reach a compromise that supports the right to peacefully protest while allowing operations to continue at the landfill.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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