Chants to go looking a landfill for the stays of two First Nations girls rang out throughout downtown Winnipeg on Thursday, as tons of of individuals flooded town’s most well-known intersection for a spherical dance.
Simply earlier than 3 p.m. CT, the group marched from Portage and Fundamental to the provincial legislative constructing, the place individuals known as out for motion — some with purple handprints painted over their mouths — and kids put purple handprints on the constructing’s entrance steps.
The push to go looking the privately run Prairie Inexperienced landfill for the stays of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran has grown since police introduced in December 2022 they imagine the murder victims’ stays have been taken there, however that by the point they realized that it will not have been possible to seek for them.
These calls intensified final month when Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson stated the provincial authorities wouldn’t assist pay to go looking the landfill north of Winnipeg, citing security issues and an absence of assure of discovering something. A feasibility research accomplished in Might decided a profitable search might take as much as three years and value as much as $184 million.
Kyra Wilson — chief of Lengthy Plain First Nation, the place Harris and Myran have been members — known as for individuals to make their opinions recognized on the province’s determination to not help a search forward of the Manitoba election scheduled for October.
“We have to vote out Heather Stefanson,” Wilson stated. “We have to make our voices loud and heard.”
Chants of “heartless Heather” additionally broke out among the many crowd, who later positioned orange flags throughout the garden in entrance of the legislative constructing.
Harris and Myran have been amongst 4 girls who police allege have been killed by the identical man.
Jeremy Skibicki is charged with first-degree homicide of their deaths, in addition to within the killings of Rebecca Contois and an unidentified girl whom neighborhood members have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Girl. His trial is scheduled for 2024.