Hundreds got here out on Monday to a rally on the Manitoba legislature in assist of a search of Prairie Green Landfill for two murdered Indigenous ladies. The rally was a part of a national day of motion with parallel protests in main cities throughout the nation.
“If your granddaughter or your daughter was sitting in a landfill and nobody wanted to look for her, what would you do? You’d be crying and fighting, and that’s what we’re doing,” stated Donna Bartlett, grandmother of Marcedes Myran.
“Close your eyes and think if your granddaughter or your daughter was sitting in a landfill, and nobody wanted to look for her.”
Bartlett made a passionate plea asking the province to carry her granddaughter house. This is simply the most recent in a collection of protests after Manitoba’s PC authorities refused to assist a search for Myran and Morgan Harris in July.
“She’s out in a landfill, and (Heather) Stefanson doesn’t want to go look for her. If it was her granddaughter, her daughter, she would look right away,” Bartlett added.
Meanwhile, protester Robyn Johnston accused the province of not following its personal insurance policies on reconciliation.
“Why does the provincial government get to say they are only going to apply this act when it suits them? Nowhere in this legislation does it say they can refuse if it costs too much money,” Johnston stated.
“How many posters need to be drawn? How many sleepless nights will people have to endure? How many tears need to be shed? How many more lives will be ruined? How many more women, girls and two-spirited people must die before she actually starts to act like the leader she is supposed to and lead with dignity for herself, dignity as a parent and dignity for others?”
Stefanson, the PC chief, reiterated her occasion’s strategy to the calls for a landfill search when requested by 680 CJOB’s Richard Cloutier at a reside radio debate on Monday. Speaking on issues associated to security and whether or not or not a search would even achieve success, she acknowledged that her authorities wouldn’t go forward with a search.
Much of that, she famous, was primarily based on worries over poisonous chemical compounds she stated had been within the landfill.
“This has been a very difficult decision,” Stefanson stated. “I would love to be able to say yes to everything but because of safety reasons the answer just has to be no.”
But as the federal government continued with a solution it’s been giving since July, when a landfill search feasibility report was first launched, a number of labour leaders have additionally thrown their assist behind calls for the landfill search. Gina Smoke, an Indigenous liaison with Canada’s largest non-public-sector union, Unifor, stated she doesn’t purchase Stefanson’s purpose for not looking out.
“There shouldn’t be a problem to get out there and start searching. The minute they knew there were women in this landfill, they should have stopped dumping garbage in there,” Smoke stated.
“We have members that do hazardous work across the country. We all know how to be safe when it comes to working with hazardous materials.”
Following the rally, a smaller group laid a crimson gown on the legislature’s statue of Queen Elizabeth.
Red gown on the legislature’s statue of Queen Elizabeth throughout Monday’s protest.
Katherine Dornian / Global News
They then briefly disrupted site visitors at Portage and Main earlier than heading to The Forks to pay their respects on the monument for lacking and murdered Indigenous ladies and ladies, hoping their message shall be heard loudly — proper throughout the nation.
Ahead of the Oct. 3 election, each NDP Leader Wab Kinew and Liberal Party Leader Dougald Lamont stated they’d assist a search of the landfill.
“We’ve talked to the experts. They know it can be done safely. If there is a problem of toxic chemicals in the landfill, it means that our landfill shouldn’t be that way either. This is about fundamental justice,” Lamont stated when requested how the Liberal Party would strategy calls for a search on the debate on Monday. “They’re also Manitobans.”
— with information from Global’s Katherine Dornian
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Manitoba legislature rally calls for landfill search amid national protests
