As the deadline to dismantle a blockade erected at a Winnipeg landfill came and went on Monday, protesters held their ground and said they would stay put until officials searched for the remains of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
The clock struck noon, the deadline imposed by the city to have barricades into the main entrance of the Brady Road Landfill removed, and protesters showed no signs of slowing down.
“We’re fighting to get these women home, and why are you so against that? Why will you not even acknowledge the families and their cries and their pleas,” Cambria Harris, daughter of Morgan Harris, one of the murdered women, said.
“This is just the beginning,” Melissa Robinson, Morgan Harris’s cousin, said.
Instead of answering an ask to tear down to barrier, protesters reinforced the roadblock at Brady Road with tires and wooden stakes, while drum circles and prayer continued through the morning and afternoon. Protesters used spray paint to write the names of the women whose remains are believed to be buried under piles of trash at a different landfill across the city.
The Brady blockade began on Thursday after Premier Heather Stefanson said the province would not support a search of Prairie Green Landfill where the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran are believed to be.
Jeremy Skibicki faces first-degree murder charges in their deaths as well as for the death of Rebecca Contois, whose partial remains were found last year at the Brady Road landfill, and an unidentified woman Indigenous leaders are calling Buffalo Woman whose remains have not been found.
The city issued an order to evacuate Friday afternoon, citing the blockade is in violation of city and provincial rules, and the barrier presents environmental risks.
A federally-funded study on the feasibility of a landfill search found it could take up to three years and cost $184 million, with no guarantee the search would yield any remains or partial remains. The search would also expose workers to toxic chemicals and asbestos.
However, the report said forgoing a search could be more distressing to the victims’ families.
“As a mother, my heart goes out to those individuals who have lost a loved one … but I’m also the premier and we have to make what is very, very difficult decisions and this is a very difficult decision,” Stefanson said at an unrelated press conference Monday afternoon.
“We cannot ignore the complexity of the issue and the objective viability of other considerations.”
Winnipeg CAO Michael Jack said the point the protesters were trying to make has been received loud and clear.
“However, we need to return this municipal landfill to its intended use, taking in the waste for approximately three quarters of a million Winnipeggers,” he told reporters Monday as the evacuation deadline loomed.
Jack said if there’s a continued presence, the city may apply for a court-ordered injunction.
The blockade has resulted in some backlash from the public. On Monday a man drove up to the blockade with a truck and trailer and dumped a pile of garbage on the road in front of protesters before driving away, the second of such an incident in recent days.
In a video posted to social media Sunday a man is seen shoveling dirt and mulch onto a red dress mural painted on the road while swearing at protesters to “take care of your own women.”
Member of parliament Leah Gazan decried the stunt on social media, calling it a “grotesque act of hatred.”
“It’s a reflection of how the lives of Indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people are constantly devalued. We are a target. We deserve justice,” the representative for Winnipeg Centre tweeted Monday morning.
On Monday afternoon protesters made their way to The Leaf at Assiniboine Park where Canada’s premiers met for the country’s annual meeting of provincial leaders.
Protesters and supporters lined the first floor of the conservatory, playing drums, singing and demanding action.
“Search the landfills. We are not trash,” one protester yelled through a bullhorn while the premiers met above them.
– with files from The Canadian Press
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