Manitoba PCs apologize to families of murdered women believed to be in Winnipeg-area landfill
Apology made in question period to families of 4 victims, including Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran
Manitoba's Opposition Progressive Conservatives apologized to the families of four First Nations women murdered by a serial killer in 2022 for refusing to search a Winnipeg-area landfill where it's believed the remains of two of the women were taken.
"Honourable Speaker, our government erred. It's as simple as that," interim PC Leader Wayne Ewasko said during question period at the Manitoba Legislature on Wednesday.
"We went forward and followed advice to emphasize prosecution above all. We lost our way in regards to empathy and also lost our way in regards to closure being brought forward to the families of the victims," Ewasko said.
While in government, the Progressive Conservatives, under then premier Heather Stefanson, said the province would not help fund the search for two women believed to be in the Prairie Green landfill, citing health and safety concerns for workers and low prospects of success.
The decision not to search the landfill for Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, led to widespread anger among the families of the victims, First Nations leaders and community members.
An advertisement run by the PC Party before the October 2023 provincial election, in which the PCs were defeated by the NDP, said, "For health and safety reasons, the answer on the landfill dig just has to be no."
Ewasko said the party is offering an "unconditional apology" to the families and that they have his word the party will "be better."
When Ewasko was asked by reporters afterwards if he was apologizing for the ad campaign, the language used or the refusal to search the landfill, he said it was a "combination of everything."
Cambria Harris, a daughter of Morgan Harris, said she feels conflicted about the public apology, saying no one from the PCs has contacted the family privately to apologize or discuss a human rights complaint she filed against the party over a year ago.
"I acknowledge the apology that was made today, but you know, if it wasn't for those actions of the previous PC government, my family wouldn't have been standing at the landfill today waiting for our loved ones to be brought home," she told CBC.
"Apologizing is one thing, but actually taking accountability and changing your actions to ensure tragedy doesn't happen like that again will say otherwise."
Possible remains found
Morgan Harris and Myran, both originally from Long Plain First Nation, were two of the victims of Jeremy Skibicki, who was convicted last July of four counts of first-degree murder in their killings, and in the deaths of Rebecca Contois, 24, from O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, and a still-unidentified woman who has been given the name Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, by community leaders.
Contois's partial remains were found in a garbage bin near Skibicki's apartment in Winnipeg in mid-May 2022. More of her remains were found at the city-run Brady Road landfill in June 2022. The remains of Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe have never been found.
Police have said they believe she was Indigenous and in her 20s.
During the 2023 election campaign, the NDP committed to a search of the Prairie Green landfill for the remains of Harris and Myran.
Excavation work in that search began in December, and last week, possible human remains were found.
The families were notified of the discovery and spent the rest of the day at the landfill, Kinew previously said.
The following day, the families held a news conference urging the PC Party to do better.
PCs must prove they've learned: Kinew
Kinew said the work to search the landfill has been respectful of the families' wishes, and has shown that searching the landfill was "always feasible."
"It remains to be seen whether the Progressive Conservative Party … will learn the terrible mistakes of Heather Stefanson and take those going forward, but again, it's up to them to show that through their actions now," he said during question period Wednesday.
PC leadership candidate Obby Khan, who was a government cabinet minister while the Tories were campaigning against the landfill search, deflected questions on whether he agreed with the apology.
"I think that's a question for the current interim leader to answer. When I become leader, I will have my statement going
forward on that," Khan told reporters.
"Right now our interim leader has spoken and his comments are clear on [where] he stands."
The other leadership candidate, business owner Wally Daudrich, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cambria Harris questions whether the party's apology is genuine or an opportunity to "save face" after last week's discovery of possible remains.
"We're doing the work that they said couldn't initially be done from the very beginning and my family was used for a political campaign … where they blasted billboards in all the spots that my mom was last seen," she said.
"Their words, they're just mere words right now until I see actions and healing within us as a people, but also within a government."
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With files from Ian Froese, Graham Sceviour-Fraehlich and The Canadian Press