(OTTAWA) The former RCMP boss said in December that police were not equipped to handle the complexities of searching for the remains of Indigenous women at a Winnipeg-area burial site — an effort the Manitoba government also calls it too dangerous.
Brenda Lucki, who resigned as commissioner in March, took part in discussions regarding searches at the private Prairie Green landfill site north of Winnipeg late last year.
In documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, Ms.me Lucki warns federal officials that the landfill contains asbestos and other toxic gases, including ammonia.
“As you can see, this is a complex matter that the police are not equipped to handle,” she wrote in a Dec. 14 email to the deputy ministers of Public Safety Canada and Public Relations. Crown-Indigenous and Northern Affairs.
The federal government was considering how it could respond to calls for help from relatives of the women who were dismayed after Winnipeg police decided not to conduct a search, citing a low likelihood of success.
Police believe the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran are in the burial site.
Jeremy Skibicki faces first-degree murder charges in their deaths as well as in the death of Rebecca Contois, whose remains were partially found last year at the city-owned Brady Road Landill, south of Winnipeg.
The City of Winnipeg posted a notice on its website this week saying the Brady Landfill was closed until further notice, but did not say why.
An unidentified woman whom Native leaders named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, is also believed to be Skibicki’s victim. Police said they did not know where his body was.
Feasibility study
Last fall, Ottawa funded a feasibility study on a possible search for the Prairie Green landfill. This study was carried out by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs following the shock wave created by the police’s decision not to search the dump.
The conclusions of this study published last month indicated that a search was possible, but that it would not guarantee that the remains of the women would be found.
The study also claims that failure to search for the remains of these women would cause “considerable distress” to their families and would send the wrong message to people in the First Nations community, who, according to the document, “do not deserve (tell them) (they are) garbage”.
The study says search teams would have to work through piles of hazardous materials and the overall effort could take up to three years, with a potential cost of $184 million.
Two days after sending the email from Mr.me Lucki on the complexities of such an operation, she followed with another document listing the various ways the RCMP might be able to assist Winnipeg police. This included providing advice based on expertise that the RCMP has gleaned from previous searches, including in the case of Robert Pickton.
The search for the Pickton Pig Farm in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, for the remains of women who disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has become the largest crime scene in Canada.
In the document, which The Canadian Press first reported in March, the RCMP said the search of Pickton’s property required relying on “non-law enforcement personnel” such as heavy equipment operators, engineers and trained anthropologists to identify human remains.
Mme Lucki states in the document that “chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives, and health and safety issues” will be far greater at the Prairie Green Landfill than during the search at the Pickton Farm.
Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson recently met with relatives of the slain women and later said the Progressive Conservative government could not support searches at the burial site due to security risks.
She told reporters that cost was not the issue and that the province would not stand in the way if the federal government decided to pave the way for research, stressing that it should ensure worker safety.
Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller’s office said it was still reviewing the feasibility study. He did not react to M’s decision.me Stefanson not to support research on the site.
Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Cathy Merrick called on the premier to reconsider, noting that the study looked at all the safety precautions that would need to be taken to conduct the search.
The feasibility report states that for the research to take place, “the safety of all members involved in such a process is of the highest priority” and that a conveyor, operated by trained personnel, would be used to transport the material. .