Manitoba Liberals make campaign pledge to fund landfill search

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This article was published 03/08/2023 (767 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Liberal Party has released the first of its justice and crime promises ahead of the fall provincial election.

At a news conference Thursday outside the Law Courts building in downtown Winnipeg, Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont made a three-pronged policy announcement: promising to provide 50 per cent of necessary funding for a search of Prairie Green Landfill for human remains; fund halfway houses for recently released provincial offenders; and boost spending on women’s shelters.

“If people want change, we are the only party offering something different,” said Lamont, who criticized the Progressive Conservative government’s (and prior NDP government’s) justice policies.

The province has refused to fund a search of the privately owned landfill north of Winnipeg, where city police believe the remains of Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, were buried in May 2022.

Jeremy Anthony Michael Skibicki has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder in their deaths and those of two other Indigenous women. Skibicki is slated to go to trial in April.

“It is the PCs, the provincial government, who are deciding not to search the landfill,” Lamont said.

The Tory government has cited worker safety concerns (some additional 60,000 tonnes of material were deposited in the area where the victims’ bodies are believed to be) as its reasoning for not supporting a search. The federal Liberal government has not yet made a decision on a request for funding.

The families of the victims, Indigenous leaders and supporters have made repeated calls for political bodies to fund the search, saying it could be done safely if precautions are taken.

A study has pegged the cost of such a search at between $84 million and $184 million.

On Thursday, Lamont said a Manitoba Liberal government would begin with a $42-million commitment, with Ottawa providing the other half, and increase the spend as needed.

Lamont also said his party would work with the Manitoba Association of Women’s Shelters to boost existing capacities about 20 per cent, and to build emergency women’s shelters in Winnipeg, Brandon and Thompson.

The plan would start with a $5-million spend.

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If elected, the Liberals would also partner with two non-profits to build halfway houses for people released from provincial jails to help them transition back into regular life, Lamont said.

Such a move would reduce the number of people who commit more serious crimes after release, he said, pegging the initiative at a total of $10 million, including ongoing operating costs.

The Liberals, who currently have three elected MLAs, including Lamont, were a distant third behind the Opposition NDP and governing Progressive Conservatives in Probe Research poll in June.

The election is set for Oct. 3, but the writ has not yet dropped.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Erik Pindera
Reporter

Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020.  Read more about Erik.

Every piece of reporting Erik 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.