NWAC Demands Search of Winnipeg Landfill for Bodies of First Nations Women

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 16, 2022

“It is time to ease the suffering & give victims the respect they deserve.”

OTTAWA – The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) demands that the Winnipeg Police Service resume its search of a city landfill for the bodies of two First Nations women who were murdered last spring.

If the Winnipeg Police do not have the capacity to conduct the search, NWAC demands that the province of Manitoba and the federal government of Canada step in to provide the resources and the expertise to ensure that the women, both of whom who are from the Long Plain First Nation, are located.

“We cannot imagine the suffering that the families of Marcedes Myran and Morgan Harris have had to endure,” said NWAC President Carol McBride. “We would ask every Canadian to consider how they would feel if it was their mother, or daughter, or sister, or best friend, whose body was lying at the bottom of a landfill. Would they not demand that she be found?”

These crimes are part of the genocide that was declared in 2019 by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls – crimes that for too long have been discounted or given inadequate attention by police services across Canada.

“As Indigenous women, we cannot help but wonder whether the search would have been halted had the victims not been First Nations,” said President McBride. “We can’t help but wonder if the Winnipeg police would have continued to look for Morgan and Marcedes had they been white.”

The treatment of these women after their murders is part of these horrific crimes. Unless their bodies are found, the criminal actions of the person responsible for their deaths will never end and the families will receive no justice.

“We must never forget that each one of these women was a human being with hopes and dreams and a life that she should have been permitted to live,” said President McBride. “The families have asked the police not to give up looking for their loved ones. Their pleas must not be ignored.”

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communications@nwac.ca
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communications@nwac.ca
343-996-4565