Vandals deface Stefanson’s constituency office

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This article was published 26/09/2023 (711 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg police are investigating after Progressive Conservative Leader Heather Stefanson’s constituency office was marked with red handprints and messages to “Search the landfill.”

Stefanson has recently been campaigning on a Tory pledge that the province will not fund a search of the Prairie Green Landfill north of Winnipeg, where city police believe the bodies of two victims of an accused serial killer are buried.

Winnipeg police believe the remains of two missing Indigenous women — Marcedes Myran and Morgan Harris — are located somewhere in the landfill.

Suspected serial killer Jeremy Skibicki has been charged with first-degree murder in their slayings, as well as in 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.

Stefanson and the PC party have cited health and safety concerns at the landfill as their rationale for not supporting the search, which has been called for by Indigenous leaders and the families of the victims. Police have said the bodies are presumed buried under many tonnes of waste, which is believed to include animal remains and asbestos.

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 a statement — “For health and safety reasons, the answer on the landfill dig just has to be no” — she made several weeks ago when she rejected calls for the province’s participation in a search.

Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen said officers are investigating the vandalism at Stefanson’s office, which he said appears to have been created prior to a protest outside the Grant Avenue building on Monday.

“We’re aware of it, we did attend to that location (Monday), there was a small protest outside,” Michalyshen said on Tuesday. “I believe, from officers’ observations, the vandalism was already there, and I think it had been there previously — I don’t know for how long, whether it was in the last day or so.”

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The major crimes unit is handling the investigation. Identification unit officers were investigating outside the office on Tuesday.

— Staff