Judge adjourns hearing for landfill blockade injunction

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This article was published 12/07/2023 (836 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A court hearing for an injunction to remove protesters blocking access to a Winnipeg landfill has been adjourned until noon Thursday.

The City of Winnipeg filed a notice of application for a court injunction Tuesday to halt the group’s nearly week-long blockade of the main road leading to the Brady Road landfill.

The court adjourned the hearing Wednesday morning to give protesters time to get a lawyer and for notice to be provided to all interested parties.

“There is some urgency to this and the parties need to retain a lawyer,” King’s Bench Justice Sheldon Lanchberry said. “There are a lot of people in this city who do Indigenous work as their primary source of occupation and I assume they will have some interest in accepting this arrangement.”

Advocates for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people are blocking the road while demanding governments support searches of Winnipeg-area landfills for human remains.

The action was spurred by the province’s refusal to support such a search of the privately owned Prairie Green Landfill, north of Winnipeg, for the remains of Indigenous women Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran.

Winnipeg police believe the two women were killed in 2022, and their remains inadvertently transported to Prairie Green by waste trucks.

Robyn Johnston, who appeared in court on behalf of the victims’ families, sought an adjournment, suggesting there were instances of “untruthfulness” in supporting affidavits provided by the city.

“I am concerned, that if the city is suggesting an interim injunction, the affidavit has to be absolutely correct in full in its material,” Lanchberry said. “If I were to grant an injunction today, and it turns out any of that material is incorrect, it may result in the injunction being struck.”

Lanchberry told Johnston the protesters had plenty of warning of a possible injunction application by the city and should not have been blindsided by it.

“There’s lots of stuff that flies around social media,”Johnston said outside court.

“I don’t believe anyone read the letter that was given, so we weren’t totally aware what was necessarily going to happen until recently. An official affidavit tells you what you are doing and that is what we received (Tuesday).”

Johnston said protesters should be allowed to remain where they are, given there are alternate entry points into the landfill.

“We are peaceful people,” she said. “They can leave us and still get in.”

However, an emergency access road into the facility is “not suitable for customer traffic or large vehicles,” the city said in an affidavit. Another alternate route via Waverley Street and Rue des Trappistes was rendered unusable following heavy rains July 6, the city said.

Operations at the landfill include “extensive environmental health and safety activities,” including capturing and disposing of toxic waste, Michael Gordichuk, Winnipeg manager of solid waste services, said in an affidavit.

If the city is unable to access and operate the landfill, there would be a risk of combustion of waste material and a build-up of toxic gases and liquids, he said.

Waste would have to be diverted to smaller landfills that will be unable to sustain the increased volume over an extended period of time, Gordichuk said.

News of a possible injunction was met with apprehension and uncertainty behind blockade lines, with protesters not knowing when or how it might be enforced, said Trey Delaronde, a member of First Nations Indigenous Warriors.

“We’re still holding our position in the most peaceful way. We are determined to be here to the very last man,” he said, adding protesters have observed what they believe to be police cruisers, drones and a helicopter patrolling the area in recent days.

“We’re just having (conversations) about what could happen tomorrow or what could happen in the middle of the night… We’re not here to provoke or engage in any conflict, we’re here to just remain our peaceful selves and make sure that the family has their voices heard.”

Roughly a dozen people are currently on site, and they do not intend to leave, Delaronde said.

He urged the various levels of government to reconsider the injunction and move forward with searches of Brady Road and Prairie Green.

“We just want our women back. We just want them out of that landfill because they deserve a proper burial… If it was any of the politician’s children, they would want that landfill searched by any means,” Delaronde said.

City staff have been liaising with protesters at Brady Road for several months, including providing tours of the facility, said Mayor Scott Gillingham.

The city has also implemented security changes, including additional training for staff and installing tracking devices on trucks at the landfill.

“My focus right now is to get Brady Road open,” Gillingham said. “The goal is to continue to have a dialogue with those that are protesting to reach a conclusion where the road is open.”

Coun. Russ Wyatt visited Brady Road to meet Wednesday morning with protesters and media.

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He voiced displeasure with the injunction action, saying most of council was not involved in the decision.

“Council has been kept in the dark on this,” he said by phone. “I believe an injunction should not be pursued. We should be imploring the premier to reverse her position and reconsider this matter… There’s no need for a confrontation here.”

— with files from Joyanne Pursaga

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019.

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Tyler Searle
Reporter

Since joining the paper in 2022, Tyler has found himself driving through blizzards, documenting protests and scouring the undersides of bridges for potential stories.

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