Manitobans deeply divided on searching landfill for Indigenous women, pre-election poll reveals By: Kevin Rollason Posted: 5:00 PM CDT Monday, Sep. 25, 2023

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This article was published 25/09/2023 (1112 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitobans are divided on whether to search a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of at least two Indigenous women — a controversial and heated issue that has found its way onto the campaign trail.

A Free Press-CTV poll conducted by Probe Research found that a slightly larger group of Manitobans — 47 per cent — support searching the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg than those who are opposed, at 45 per cent. Eight per cent said they were unsure.

The poll released eight days before the Oct. 3 election found also both sides have strong opinions on a possible search, which a study estimated could cost up to $184 million. Survey respondents strongly supporting or strongly opposing such an effort each counted 30 per cent.

Almost three-quarters of NDP supporters (72 per cent) say they want the landfill to be searched. Fewer than one in five (18 per cent) of Progressive Conservative supporters agree.

Half of Manitoba Liberal party’s supporters in the survey said they support searching the landfill.

Winnipeg police believe two missing Indigenous women — Marcedes Myran and Morgan Harris — are buried in the landfill. Suspected serial killer Jeremy Skibicki has been charged with first-degree murder in their slayings, as well as with the death of Rebecca Contois, whose partial remains were found in Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill, and another woman known only as Buffalo Woman or Mashkoda Bizhiki’ikwe.

Myran’s grandmother Donna Bartlett said she is upset Premier Heather Stefanson is using the divisive issue as campaign fodder.

The Progressive Conservatives ran a full-page advertisement in Saturday’s Free Press with the words “Stand Firm” beside a photograph of Stefanson, along with the quote — “For health and safety reasons, the answer on the landfill dig just has to be no” — she made several weeks ago when she rejected the province’s participation in a search.

“Where is the humanity? Where is the dignity?” Bartlett said Monday. “(The PCs) have no empathy or compassion.

“If it was Heather Stefanson’s daughter, would there be a search? There’s no question there would be… I’m happy three-quarters of NDP supporters want to search; we need a search. That’s why I’m supporting the NDP.

“And I will get whoever I can to vote for them with me.”

Stefanson said no in July despite a conclusion from forensic experts cited in a feasibility study conducted for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs that said safety measures could be taken to reduce the health risks to people conducting a search.

Before the election campaign officially began earlier this month, both NDP Leader Wab Kinew and Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont indicated their support for a search.

During a leaders debate last week, Kinew said that if elected, an NDP government would move forward with a search and “balance respect and dignity for the families while also being responsible with the public purse.”

Lamont, who pledged in August to contribute up to 50 per cent of the cost of searching the landfill if the Liberals were to prevail at the ballot box, blasted the Tories for placing the provocative ad in Saturday’s Free Press.

“When it comes to the landfill search, we are talking about people whose family members were murdered, which sends a message of contempt and uncaring to a community in suffering,” he said in a statement released Monday. “As a community, we must be better than this.

“No campaign can be justified by the lasting damage and divisions the PCs are fuelling.”

Southern Chiefs’ Organization Grand Chief Jerry Daniels said he is thankful to the poll respondents who support an effort to return the women to their families.

“I really do commend those who understand the issue,” Daniels said. “It is much more than money and safety. Many of us were surprised the Conservatives are doubling down on this and taking out a full-page ad, but it is good to see their true colours.

“It is shocking and horrific, but at least we see their true colours.”

Sean Carleton, an assistant professor in the University of Manitoba’s departments of history and Indigenous Studies, said he takes an optimistic view of humanity, so “even the 45 per cent who do not support the search, I hope they don’t believe the families (don’t) deserve closure and justice.”

But Carleton said he doesn’t understand why, even though the poll shows a large portion of Tory supporters are in favour of not searching the landfill, that the party still included their opposition to search in a large campaign advertisement.

“They are doubling down on this. They are standing firm, as they say,” he said. “It seems like such a political boondoggle. Why would you go down that route? They are trying to politicize anti-Indigenous reasons as they try to motivate their base.

“I really think this is a losing strategy.”

The poll of 1,000 Manitoba adults, which was conducted Sept. 7-18, is said to be accurate within plus or minus 3.1 per centage points 95 per cent of the time.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Kevin Rollason
Reporter

Kevin Rollason was a general assignment reporter at the Free Press.