In photos: Dozens rally at B.C. Legislature to demand ‘Winnipeg’ landfill search

Content warning: This story contains details about “Canada’s” genocidal epidemic of MMIWG2S+. Please look after your spirit and read with care.

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Dozens of people gathered at the B.C. Legislature on Monday as part of a country-wide day of action calling for a search of a “Winnipeg” landfill and other facilities across the country where MMIWG2S+ could be located.

The event in “Victoria” was one of numerous rallies held across “Canada” on Sept. 18 as part of a newly-declared Day of Action to Search the Landfills.

Though the current push is to have the “Manitoba” government support a search of the Prairie Green landfill — where the bodies of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran are believed to be located — there are also calls to search the Brady Road landfill and any others that may contain the remains of missing Indigenous people given the extent of the MMIWG2S+ crisis.

At the events, people gathered in support of the families of Harris and Myran, who are believed to have been slain by a serial killer and left at the Prairie Green landfill north of “Winnipeg.”

“Indigenous women make up an alarming amount of homicides that are committed across Turtle Island,” said Wuskwi Sipihk woman Brandy Quill at the rally at the B.C. Legislature. “This lack of response from the government is continuing the cycle.”

Last month, Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson said her government would not search the Prairie Green landfill, citing safety reasons because of toxic chemicals that could harm workers.

“They said it is unsafe [to search the landfill] due to toxic waste,” said Tsartlip woman Priscilla Omulo, who organized the rally at the B.C. Legislature. “Well, I would like to say that the harmful and fatal toxic waste is anti-Indigenous racism, and that’s the foundation of the injustice of the MMIWG2S and their families.”

Jeremy Skibicki was charged with first-degree murders of Harris, 39, and Myran, 26, and two other Indigenous women — Rebecca Contois, a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, and an unidentified woman who Indigenous leaders are calling Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe “Buffalo Woman.” Skibicki’s trial is scheduled for next year.

MMIWG2S+ advocate Monique May, who is an organizer with the annual Stolen Sisters Memorial March, said landfills have been searched for bodies in the past.

“I can list the landfills in Canada that have been searched,” she said. “The only difference between those searches and what’s happening in Winnipeg is the colour of skin.”

Dealing with political leaders and the bureaucratic process of recovering the Indigenous women has been tiring for the families who are mourning their relatives. “Give us those hazmat suits, and we will train ourselves if you will not retrieve our women, because I am sick of words,” said Morgan Harris’s daughter, Cambria Harris, last month.

Harris met with federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree yesterday but walked out of the meeting, saying she felt disrespected and retraumatized when officials questioned the feasibility of the search. She expressed her view that political leaders aren’t taking the crisis seriously.

Dakota, a Cree, Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en Youth, and their stepfather Alex Taylor-McCallum, a Kwakwa̲ka̲’wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth artist, performer, and cook, joined the rally at the B.C. Legislature on Sept. 18.

“It is time for action,” said May. “We need to come together. Genocide is happening on our land. We are losing people every day. No family should have to go to a landfill to pay respects to their loved ones. That is cruel and inhumane. Let’s bring our sisters home.”