"Is human life not feasible?".This incomprehensible question was asked by a bereaved woman surrounded by indigenous leaders and activists at a Dec. 6, 2022 news conference in Ottawa. She was responding to the decision of the Winnipeg police not to excavate a rural garbage dump to search for the remains of her mother, because it was “not feasible” to do so..This decision stems from a December 1 police murder charge against Jeremy Skibicki, a 35-year-old white man. Skibicki is accused of the premeditated murder of four indigenous women. Skibicki was first arrested May 18 and charged with the first-degree murder of Rebecca Contois, 24. Her partial remains were found in a garbage bin near a downtown apartment. Other body parts were found at the Brady landfill in the south part of Winnipeg. The bodies of the other three women have not been recovered. .The murders of these women, whether by Skibicki or others, were heinous crimes regardless of their occupations or life circumstances. Surely these women did not deserve to die. But the search for the bodies of these four reputed victims of Skibicki seems like a hopeless effort. It also seems full of conflicting — even reprehensible — motives, with intense grief and anger thrown in for good measure..On December 6, police said the remains of Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, were thought to be in the same truckload of collected waste taken to Prairie Green Landfill on May 16. Homicide investigators learned human remains were likely dumped at the site 34 days later, on June 20, police said..After studying the feasibility of such a search, Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) chief Danny Smyth and forensics Inspector Cam MacKid said it was determined it would be nearly impossible to do so, given the passage of time, safety concerns and overwhelming amount of material recently deposited at the site to search for the victims’ remains. This is because finding the partial remains of Rebecca Contois at the Brady Road landfill in the southwestern part of Winnipeg, while challenging, still allowed police to pinpoint the general area where her remains could be safely and efficiently recovered because the search began shortly after they were placed there..Not so for the Prairie Green Landfill north of the city where the remains of the two other women are believed to have been deposited. As detailed by the Winnipeg police at a December 6 news conference, a search of the Prairie Green Landfill was “not feasible” because they became aware the remains were dumped there more than a month before about 10,000 loads of debris were dumped over them. In addition, 1,500 tonnes of animal remains were deposited in that 34-day time frame. Moreover, the garbage truck they believe was carrying the remains wasn't equipped with the GPS that could help investigators pinpoint the area of the landfill to search, and the garbage was later compacted with 9,000 tonnes of wet, heavy construction clay. Finally, the search could be dangerous, due to factors like potentially poisonous gases released at the landfill by decomposing waste and asbestos.. Prairie Green landfill WinnipegPrairie Green landfill, near Winnipeg. Relatives of missing indigenous women are asking that it be excavated to recover remains believed to be covered there. .One forensics expert had this to this to say about such sites. "Landfills are probably the most difficult search circumstance…. If the operations at the landfill involve a dump and fill, there's no way you're going to find what you're looking for," said Ross Gardner, an author, instructor and consultant in crime scene investigations..A “dump and fill” is exactly the situation at the Prairie Green..That is the factual, as opposed to emotional, backdrop to the statement by Cambria, one of Harris’ daughters, at her December 6 news conference in Ottawa.."They say that they can't search because it's not feasible. Is human life not feasible?".So much outrage was expressed that Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) Chief Danny Smyth Smyth was obliged to set science and practicality aside and bow to political pressure by qualifying his December 8 decision the very next day by saying he now supports exploring options to recover the remains of the two indigenous women in the Prairie Green landfill..On December 9, Winnipeg Police Board Chairman Markus Chambers said, “If they move forward with a search, it would be for ‘humanitarian’ purposes, rather than to contribute evidence for the case.”.Four days later, the grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC) said the federal government had agreed to fund a feasibility study for a potential search of the Prairie Green landfill..According to Marc Miller, the federal minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, “It’ll take a lot of time to stage things out and to work at all times with the families to make sure they are being respected and their wishes are being respected and a search that is culturally sensitive and appropriate is done to see what the next steps are in the process …. But again, it will be something the family decides, how to commemorate, how to honour and how to even get a small modicum of closure.”.Words like these from high-ranking government officials are never expressed about any other Canadian ethnic group..More particularly, a committee of indigenous groups will assemble experts in forensics and archaeology to devise a plan to search the Prairie Green landfill. The indigenous-led feasibility study will be conducted by a local anthropologist, members of the Winnipeg Police Service, residents of Long Plain reserve, the home of two of the murdered women, and a member of AMC..This announcement was soon followed by demands by activists the Brady landfill, where bodies have been looked for repeatedly in the past, mainly in vain, be fully excavated to search for missing individuals. One city hall protester claimed December 15 if the missing women were white instead of native, this would have immediately been done, an incongruous assertion given the facts below..All these observations provide sufficient grounds for challenging the established indigenous narrative this effort is meant only to give closure to the families and communities of these women..The particular details of Morgan Harris’ life, only now being told, dispute this view as well. According to her daughter Cambria, an activist in her own right, she was removed from her mother’s care at the age of six..“I probably didn’t see her for a few years after that,” she recently claimed..Cambria was herself part of the child welfare system until she was 17. She said she watched her mother struggle with addiction, mental health issues and homelessness after she lost custody of her children.."She was in and out of treatment centres and homeless centres repeatedly trying to get help, and she spent her life on the streets fighting to survive, and she lived in fear.".Yet her family or community members may never have attempted to bring her home..Yes, Morgan’s death at such a young age — she was only 39 — is a tragic event, but to remove her human agency by blaming society for her problems only serves to infantilize indigenous women. It also exempts Cambria and the children of the other victims from doing more to ensure their safety..The case of Marcedes Myran, one of Skibicki’s alleged victims, is particularly instructive of the troubled nature of many indigenous families. Her mother waited seven long months before finally reporting her as missing to the police in late September..Perhaps shame and guilt are also driving the grief, anguish, and zeal to find the remains of these women..Moreover, why is it that the longer indigenous people have been dead, the more their communities are frantically searching for them?.The alleged burials of 215 Indian Residential School students near the former Kamloops boarding school is a current example that points to the answer: money..In the unmarked graves’ case the federal government allocated $321 million to search for Indian Residential School graves and allied issues. If such an amount is being distributed to look for children never reported missing by their parents, how much will the Indian Industry extort from a compliant Trudeau government to direct all aspects of the search for the remains of women known to have been murdered?.After all, the relatively simple 2002 excavation of serial killer Robert Pickton’s pig farm cost nearly $70 million. Much more would surely be needed to excavate the Prairie Green and Brady Road landfills, the likely result being no evidence of the remains of the two murdered women. But given the precedent of similar searches, the Indian Industry will be heavily rewarded for its participation..The most politically incorrect question the mainstream media would never ask is whether there would be the same control given to family and community leaders over the burial search of these four women, as expressed in Marc Miller’s words above, if Skibicki were an indigenous man or if the four murdered women were white females?.To ask the question is to hint at the answer. And that tells you all you need to know.
