Manitoba pausing operations at landfill where alleged serial killer's victims are believed to be
Manitoba pausing operations at landfill where alleged serial killer's victims are believed to be
WARNING: The details in this article may be disturbing to some viewers. Discretion is advised.
A landfill north of Winnipeg where the remains of two victims of an alleged serial killer are believed to be located will pause operations.
Premier Heather Stefanson and Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham announced Thursday that the Prairie Green Landfill will pause operations at the request of the province, in response to the deaths of four Indigenous women.
Winnipeg police previously said investigators believe the remains of Morgan Beatrice Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, are in this landfill, but said a search for them would not be feasible.
Stefanson said the landfill will not be accepting anything else, in the meantime, while officials work to figure out next steps in the investigation.
“We don’t want to presuppose what that may be and what comes out of that,” Stefanson said. “I think it’s very important that for right now, we take this pause, and we get this right.”
“Today is about the province and the city coming together to try and recognize the need the families have, and to work with Indigenous communities, as well as Indigenous leaders, and assist them in the next steps of this horrific tragedy,” Gillingham said.
Stefanson said the RM of Rosser and the owners of Prairie Green Landfill are cooperating with the pause.
Jeremy Anthony Michael Skibicki is accused of killing four Indigenous women –Harris, Myran, Rebecca Contois and an unidentified woman that Indigenous leaders have called Buffalo Woman - between March and May of this year.
He is facing four counts of first-degree murder. The charges have not been proven in court.
Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth said there were several reasons for why the search wouldn’t be feasible, citing the passage of time, the fact that 10,000 truckloads of refuse were dumped in the area in the following months, and that trash at the landfill is compacted with heavy mud about 12 metres deep.
The decision has been criticized, with First Nations advocates, communities and family members of Harris calling on Smyth to resign.
"The message you are sending to the greater community is that Indigenous don't matter," Chief Kyra Wilson of Long Plain First Nation said during a press conference Thursday in Ottawa. "That if somebody wants to hurt our women that they can dump them in the landfill and no one will look for them."
"We are all trying to reach a reasonable compromise, but we have yet to receive words of acknowledgment, response nor agreements," Kera Harris, the daughter of Morgan Harris, said Thursday. "Not only have you refused to search these landfills, you have presented no alternative routes for how we can give these women peace."
Winnipeg city councillor Markus Chambers, who chairs the Winnipeg Police Board, said the investigation is an emotional one.
“The (Indigenous) community has just come through the residential school system and the unmarked graves. We have to be sensitive to that, and that’s exactly where we are right now in requesting this pause,” he said.
Chambers said he was meeting with Smyth later in the afternoon about the investigation.
With files from The Canadian Press.
-----------
There is a support line available for those impacted by missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and LGBTQ2S+ people: 1-844-413-6649.
Additional mental-health and community-based emotional support and cultural services are also available through the federal government.
President Joe Biden said on Saturday that he ordered U.S. officials to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this week and that national security leaders decided the best time for the operation was when it got over water.
Canadians will continue to bundle up in the country's east this weekend as a recent bout of extreme cold persists in much of Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. CTVNews.ca looks at the signs and symptoms for frostbite and hypothermia to watch for if exposed to extreme cold.
A cold snap that triggered Environment Canada alerts involving eight provinces and territories extended into a second day on Saturday, shattering several past temperature records and leaving thousands of customers in Atlantic Canada without power.
The massive white orb drifting across U.S. airspace has triggered a diplomatic maelstrom and is blowing up on social media. A look at what's known about the balloon crossing the U.S. and what isn't.
Eyes were locked on the skies Saturday as a suspected Chinese spy balloon passed over the U.S. Eastern Seaboard -- where local authorities warned civilians against taking potshots with rifles -- before it was shot down when it drifted over the Atlantic Ocean.
The oldest preserved vertebrate brain has been found in a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish skull that was removed from an English coal mine over a century ago.
Regina will soon have two additional ambulances on the road with a full complement of staff. Now other communities in Saskatchewan are calling for more support.
An investigation that lasted almost two years has resulted in moose hunting violation convictions for six people and a lodge in Red Lake in northwestern Ontario.
Convicted murderer Daniel Jolivet, in prison for the past 30 years, has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested. W5 reviews the evidence he painstakingly assembled while behind bars. W5's documentary 'Buried Evidence' airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on CTV.
The owner of Radical Gardens, a restaurant in Timmins said she's experienced nineteen robberies over the last eight years; with the most recent one taking place in the early morning hours Friday.
A spokesperson for the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) says Metrolinx began cutting down historic trees at Osgoode Hall in Toronto on Saturday before the Ontario Superior Court could hear an injunction to prevent their clearing.
Alberta's high court is being asked to overturn a review board decision relating to the stabbing deaths of five young people at a Calgary house party on the grounds the former provincial justice minister interfered.
Residents from Quebec to Newfoundland and Labrador are waking up this morning to more extreme cold weather. Emergency officials warned people to seek shelter and monitor for frostbite if they had to be outside overnight, as the temperature across much of Eastern Canada was expected to feel like -40 C to -50 C with the wind chill.
Another property reportedly belonging to a family member of Tony Accurso was the target of an arson attack in Laval early Saturday morning. The Laval fire department responded to a call at 3:22 a.m. about a fire at the building located at 1410 Jaffa Street in the Saint Rose district in the northern part of Laval.
A Quebec university study found that nearly three years of the pandemic have had an effect on the travel habits of Quebecers: even with the partial or complete lifting of restrictions, they increasingly prefer to travel at home. The most recent Cahier des tendances published by the Transat Chair in Tourism at the École des sciences de la gestion de l'UQAM revealed that inflation and health measures hurt many Quebecers.
The first North Atlantic right whale to be entangled in connection to Canada’s lobster fishery in over five years has been successfully rescued by marine mammal rescue responders in the United States.
Vancouver police say the man recorded hurling profanity and homophobic slurs at a young couple outside a downtown SkyTrain station last weekend has turned himself in.
President Joe Biden said on Saturday that he ordered U.S. officials to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this week and that national security leaders decided the best time for the operation was when it got over water.
President Joe Biden said on Saturday that he ordered U.S. officials to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this week and that national security leaders decided the best time for the operation was when it got over water.
