‘We need to push for more inclusion’

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This article was published 10/07/2023 (840 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government’s refusal to support a local landfill search for human remains will be challenged when provincial and territorial first ministers and Indigenous leaders meet today in Winnipeg.

“I’ll call on the government of Manitoba to assist in recovering the remains of First Nations women that have been dumped and left in Manitoba landfills,” Assembly of First Nations regional chief Cindy Woodhouse said.

On July 5, Premier Heather Stefanson told the families of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran that, owing to safety concerns, the province wouldn’t support a proposed search of Prairie Green Landfill, north of the city.

Winnipeg police believe the two missing Indigenous women were killed in the city and their remains transported by waste trucks to the site, where they were eventually buried under tonnes of deposits.

Jeremy Anthony Michael Skibicki has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder in connection to the deaths of Myran, Harris, Rebecca Contois and an unidentified Indigenous woman.

“It’s frustrating,” said Woodhouse, who is attending today’s afternoon event with Indigenous leaders that’s part of the three-day Council of the Federation (COF) gathering hosted by Stefanson, its current chairperson.

Representation from the AFN, Native Women’s Association of Canada, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, Métis National Council, Treaty 1 First Nations and Manitoba Métis Federation is expected to be on hand for the meeting at The Leaf attraction in Assiniboine Park.

On Tuesday, the premiers are scheduled to discuss “top priorities,” including affordability and health care. The final day is set aside for a range of economic issues concerning Canada’s competitiveness and economic growth.

All of those concerns are First Nations concerns, too, and out of respect, they should have been invited to participate, said Woodhouse. “We need to push for more inclusion.”

Woodhouse said she’ll call today for more intergovernmental co-operation on everything from addressing the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls’ calls to action to policing, child welfare and identifying potential unmarked graves at former residential schools sites.

“Just as urgent, we need much greater intergovernmental co-operation and action on the existential threat posed by human-induced global warming,” she said.

“We as humans are burning up the Earth. The climate crisis is a human security issue of the first order, that all people should be acting on.”

When asked at an unrelated event July 6 about the first ministers meeting priorities, Stefanson listed community safety, a long-term vision for infrastructure, trade corridors and Canada’s supply chain, as well as health care.

“I’m looking forward to hosting all my colleagues across the country in Winnipeg,” the premier said.

The event will put Stefanson — the premier polls have shown is the least popular in Canada — in the national spotlight for three days, with a provincial election in less than three months.

“It can do nothing but burnish her image,” said University of Manitoba political studies Prof. Christopher Adams.

“It’ll show her in a very statesman-like position, so I think it’s to the benefit of the PCs to see their leader in this situation,” he said. “It’s not unlike when prime ministers attend international meetings like the G7. As long as they don’t act like buffoons, it adds to their prestige.”

However, even though she’s playing host, there’s a good chance Manitoba’s mild-mannered premier will be upstaged, said national political analyst and commentator Eric Grenier. “I do think it’s gonna be a challenge to grab much attention because a lot of those other premiers have a lot of stuff going on.”

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Alberta’s freshly elected, right-wing populist Premier Danielle Smith, Ontario’s big-dealing Doug Ford and New Brunswick’s Blaine Higgs, whose caucus recently ruptured, draw a lot of national news attention, he said.

“It’ll be hard, I think, (for Stefanson) to really demarcate herself from the other ones,” said Grenier, who hosts the Writ podcast.

“But it is still an opportunity to show herself to be ‘premier material,’ which is something that the opposition doesn’t have.”

NDP Leader Wab Kinew isn’t getting a chance to present himself to Manitobans on such a high-level platform, said Grenier. “It still is an opportunity.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.