‘We’re in here for the long run’

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This article was published 15/07/2023 (785 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At the Brady Landfill blockade, Melissa Morrisseau and her fellow protesters want to keep the peace.

“We don’t want confrontation here. We don’t want aggression here,” Morrisseau said Saturday afternoon. “We are a peaceful group. We’re a peaceful camp.”

But in the event of a confrontation with the police, she’s come prepared. A small camera, capable of live-streaming video, is clipped to the neckline of her t-shirt.

Morrisseau has been here since the blockade started on July 6, after Premier Heather Stefanson announced the province would not be searching the Prairie Green Landfill for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, who were killed in 2022.

On Friday, King’s Bench Justice Sheldon Lanchbery authorized an injunction, giving police the authority to detain and arrest protesters who continue to blockade the site, effective Friday at 6 p.m. Protesters can remain at the Brady site, but the injunction says they can’t block access. That evening, city employees handed out paper copies of the injunction that were later set on fire by protesters at the blockade.

On Saturday in the early afternoon, just under a dozen protesters gathered around a small, makeshift fire.

An upside-down Canadian flag with the words “no pride in genocide” blew in the afternoon breeze. Red dresses representing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) were pinned to street signs.

Wigwams and warrior flags could be seen from a distance at Camp Morgan, which has been active since December.

Shortly before Premier Heather Stefanson publicly announced that the province would not be searching the landfill, she met with members of the Harris and Myrand families.

Melissa Robinson, a family member of Harris who has been at Camp Morgan since December, said the meeting was “horrible”, describing it as a “complete slap in the face”.

“She showed no empathy whatsoever, no emotion, overtalked us the whole time, wouldn’t let us get a full sentence in,” Robinson said.

When Robinson asked Stefanson if she had read the feasibility study, Stefanson said that she had just gotten a copy that morning, Robinson alleged. She offered to erect a monument honouring Harris and Myrand. Robinson immediately shot the idea down.

“I got up and left right after that,” Robinson said.

On Wednesday, Marc Miller, the federal Crown-Indigenous Relations minister, described the decision as “heartless”. The federal government previously offered to help fund a landfill search, on the condition that the province made a commitment as well.

Sitting around the blockade campfire on Saturday, Robinson had few fears about the injunction, stating that they had ample support.

“We have large support from the Indigenous community, our leaders, who are standing with us,” Robinson said.

While the police were present at the blockade yesterday evening, they had yet to show up.

“If they do arrive, as long as we’re not in the roadway, all they want to do is come and remove that barricade,” Robinson. “They were here last night, and they made no attempt to do so.”

By the late afternoon, the campfire circle had doubled in size. Donations of coffee, snacks and firewood were periodically dropped off by supporters.

A flower bouquet addressed to Cambria Harris, the daughter of Morgan Harris, was anonymously delivered.

Morrisseau reported that some folks who stopped by were simply curious about the camp and what it stood for. The protestors happily educated them.

As a ’60s scoop survivor and the child of residential school survivors, Morrisseau said fighting for Indigenous rights is an everyday reality. While she hopes peace can be maintained, she said she is prepared to be arrested if it comes to it.

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“The injunction has no weight in my world. If I have to stand there, to get arrested to make a change or to bring any kind of awareness for the benefit of our people, of our MMWIG, then I will,” Morrisseau said.

“I don’t get direction from the Winnipeg police (or) the courts. I don’t get direction from Heather Stefanson. I get direction from the families, from community, from our MMIWG.”

While uncertainty looms, the general sentiment among protesters stationed at the blockade remains the same: they don’t plan on going anywhere until a commitment to searching the landfill is made.

“We’re in here for the long run,” Morrisseau said.

cierra.bettens@freepress.mb.ca