Families gather on Parliament Hill to call on Canadian government to search Winnipeg landfill

Photo: Jorden Myran, Marcedes Myran’s sister, and Cambria Harris, Morgan Harris’ daughter,  at the national day of action event on Parliament Hill.

The families of two murdered Indigenous women were on Parliament Hill today to demand that the Canadian government fund the search of a Winnipeg landfill to recover the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran.

Prior to being on Parliament Hill, the families met with federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree. The families had been hopeful that the Minister would tell them that the government was prepared to support the search of the landfill.

Morgan’s cousin Melissa Robinson explains: “We last sat with him five weeks ago and he expressed the work needs to be done, we’re going to start doing it but in five weeks nothing has panned out yet. So, here we are, yet again sitting down and reliving our trauma just to be told that they have more questions.”

Cambria Harris, the daughter of Morgan Harris, said that the Minister’s failure to do this and instead ask for more information was “a retraumatizing experience”.

Cambria says: “It’s clear that reconciliation is dead, because we’re still sitting here 10 months later in these rooms with different politicians of all levels of government explaining my story over and over, begging them to find my mother.”

She adds: “I will no longer be treated like a tick on a politician’s agenda and something that’s less than a human being, because I was not respected in that room today.”

For more read: Daughter of slain First Nations woman Morgan Harris walks out of meeting with minister (Brett Forester, CBC News).

Some of the others who met with the Minister held a brief sit-in in the office given their profound disappointment with his failure to commit to a search of the landfill.

Marcedes Myran and Morgan Harris.

It is believed that the remains of Marcedes and Morgan, who were murdered in May 2022, are in the Prairie Green landfill in Winnipeg.

In December 2022, the Winnipeg Police Service announced it would not search the landfill for their remains. That same month, the RCMP also told federal officials that police are not equipped to conduct such a search. In July 2023, Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson said it was not “viable” to search the landfill.

A study led by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC) says a search is feasible at a cost of up to $184 million over three years.

Camp Morgan was set up at the Brady Road landfill in December 2022. A blockade they had set up was dismantled by Winnipeg Police on July 18. Camp Marcedes was set up shortly afterwards at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.

We continue to follow this.