Police chief’s tenure just not ‘feasible’

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/05/2023 (843 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The word “feasible” is an adjective meaning “capable to be done or carried out” or “possible to do easily or conveniently.”

It also means “likely” or “probable,” as in, “the most feasible explanation for nothing happening is that this person doesn’t think it’s necessary.”

On Dec. 2, after Winnipeg police Chief Danny Smyth met with reporters, the public assumed the remains of three Indigenous women allegedly killed by Jeremy Skibicki were in the Brady landfill. Smyth said the remains were at a landfill but did not specify which one.

When asked if officials were going to search for the remains, Smyth said, “We have no starting point. It wouldn’t be a feasible search at this point.”

Stating that “too much time had passed,” Smyth added, “I would want the remains of my loved ones as well. The reality is we’re talking about a 50-plus-acre site that has layers and layers of refuse. We are not in a position to search the whole site.”

On Dec. 6, Smyth held a news conference alongside Insp. Cam MacKid, the head of the WPS forensics unit.

By then, the public had learned that police actually believe the remains of at least two of the victims — Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26 — are at the private Prairie Green Landfill north of the city. Partial remains of Rebecca Contois, 24, had been found at the Brady landfill in June. Police have not said where they think the remains of an unidentified victim known as Buffalo Woman, or Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, might be.

MacKid said Prairie Green landfill is a four-acre site filled with tens of thousands of tons of refuse and animal remains packed more than 3.5 metres deep.

“We made the very difficult decision as a service that this wasn’t operationally feasible to conduct a search of this site,” he said.

When pressed by reporters, MacKid conceded that “Nothing’s impossible.”

With that, Smyth’s use of the word “feasible” became debatable.

Indigenous leaders and the victim’s families — and eventually city and provincial politicians — demanded that Ottawa fund a “feasibility” study.

The results of that study were released by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs on Friday. A search of Prairie Green would take up to three years, cost up to $184 million and involve “considerable risk” because of chemicals and asbestos.

That price tag is likely conservative.

The police investigation into serial killer Robert Pickton — which included a meticulous, 21-month search of his farm that ended in 2003 and cost about $70 million — is a comparable study. Fellow Free Press columnist Dan Lett pointed that out when we discussed the report on our Niigaan and the Lone Ranger podcast. Inflation makes that amount nearly $107 million in today’s dollars.

When you consider all the costs, including compensation for lost revenue to the company that owns the site, the cost to search Prairie Green might be more than $200 million.

This isn’t what families and Indigenous leaders wanted to demonstrate by demanding a “feasibility” study. That’s not the point at all.

The point is that it is possible and feasible to search for these Indigenous victims of an accused serial killer and that doing anything less is inhumane.

The point is that it is possible and feasible to search for these Indigenous victims of an accused serial killer and that doing anything less is inhumane.

The reality laid bare in the “feasibility” study is that Smyth and his colleagues aren’t capable or willing to search for these Indigenous women.

Smyth could have set this terrible, tragic situation in a different direction when he spoke in front of the media in December.

He could have declared a “state of emergency” regarding murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls and said this was a tipping point, like the families of victims and Indigenous leaders did a few days ago in Ottawa.

But he didn’t do that.

With the “feasibility” report showing that a search boils down to a willingness to put in the time, effort and resources, all that city officials are left with determining is whether the cost of Indigenous lives is worth up to $200 million.

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It’s humanity, not accounting

It’s the cost of a poorly chosen word, when so many others could have replaced it.

In an unprecedented response to calls for his resignation last December, Smyth wrote a letter to all Indigenous political organizations in the province that ended with the final line, “I will not be resigning.”

That might, in fact, be the starting point.

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Niigaan Sinclair
Columnist

Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe and is a columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press.

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