Controversy surrounding the Bodies exhibition doesn't appear to have harmed tickets sales, as the show's promoters are extending the exhibit's hours in its final week in Winnipeg.
The exhibit at the MTS Exhibition Hall will be open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. until Jan. 16.
The show has spent almost four months in Winnipeg and nearly 100,000 people have gone to see it, according to officials with the MTS Centre.
A group protesting the exhibit claimed that there is no indication that the people whose bodies are on display, or their families, ever gave to consent for the remains to be used and that there is no proof that the people were not political prisoners in China before they died.
Organizers of the exhibit said the bodies were unclaimed in China.
"The full body specimens are persons who lived in China and died from natural causes," according to the exhibit's website. "After the bodies were unclaimed at death, pursuant to Chinese law, they were ultimately delivered to a medical school for education and research. Where known, information about the identities, medical histories and causes of death is kept strictly confidential."
Opponents of the exhibit signed a petition asking it to be closed and supported the efforts of a Winnipeg lawyer who asked the Minister of Health to seize and bury the bodies under the authority of a law that governs the use of human remains for scientific purposes.
However, government lawyers found that the law did not apply in this case, the minister said.
