Manitoba premier pledges support to study feasibility of landfill search for women's remains

Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson has pledged her government's support fora feasibility study on a potential search of a landfill near Winnipeg that's believed to contain the remains of two First Nations women police allege were killed by the same man.

Stefanson also offered to contribute financially to the study that will determine whether to excavate the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg, a day after the federal government pledged to cover that study's cost.

The announcement came following a meeting between the premier, Grand Chief Cathy Merrick of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and Chief Kyra Wilson of Long Plain First Nation, where the slain women were members.

"We will provide any technical resources and expertise that are needed and contribute to the effort financially," Stefanson said at a news conference alongside Merrick, adding the effort will be Indigenous-led.

"We must be mindful of the justice process, but we must also ensure a respectful and appropriate examination of the feasibility of whether these bodies can be recovered."

Merrick said she was grateful for the premier's commitment but also noted government support for the feasibility study only came after one of the slain women's daughterstravelled to Ottawa to demand a search of the landfill.

"It's so heartbreaking to hear young women speak of their mom, that they had to do it nationally to bring attention to this issue of our missing and murdered women in this province, in other provinces," Merrick said.

"We need to step up as politicians to ensure that this does not happen.We are here today to start that journey to be able to work together."

After Merrick spoke, the leaders embraced before taking questions from reporters.

Stefanson said she also spoke to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday morning and thanked him for his commitment to the issue.

She added the province is waiting to see what the Indigenous communities involved in the feasibility study process want to see happen before deciding the specifics of its own support.

Stefanson said the province will also assign staff to represent it on a committee established to guide the study, which Merrick said met for the first time on Thursday and will meet again Monday.

The grand chief previously said a local anthropologist would conduct the study along with members of the Winnipeg Police Service, members of Long Plain First Nation and a member of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.

Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham said Thursday the city will also be represented.

Remains believed to be in landfill

Police say they believe the landfill holds the remains of Marcedes Myran and Morgan Harris, two of the four victims of alleged serial killer Jeremy Skibicki.

Skibicki is charged with first-degree murder in those women's deaths and in the deaths of Rebecca Contois and an unidentified woman who leaders in the Indigenous community have named Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman. Contois was a member ofO-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, also known as Crane River, while police say they believe Buffalo Woman was also Indigenous.

Contois's partial remains were located earlier this year at the Brady Road landfill in south Winnipeg and near a North Kildonan apartment where police searched through garbage bins.

Police have said they don't know where Buffalo Woman's remains are.

And while they believe Myran and Harris's remains are at Prairie Green, police said it wasn'tfeasible to search for them by the time they became aware of the remains possibly being there in June.

They noted 10,000 loads of debris had been dumped at the landfill after the load they were interested in, and that garbage was later compacted with 9,000 tonnes of wet, heavy construction clay.

Skibicki's lawyer has said his client intends to plead not guilty to all four charges.

Stefanson said the scope of the feasibility study right now only includes the Prairie Green landfill and not the one on Brady Road, where demonstrators have been calling for a similar search, but did not rule out the possibility of expanding it.

Only part of Prairie Green landfill closed

Stefanson and Gillingham announced last week that operations at the privately runPrairie Green landfill had been paused, meaning nothing new would come into the site as next steps were determined.

She clarified on Friday that while that pause will continue indefinitely until clear direction is established through the feasibility study, only one cell in the landfill operated byWaste Connections of Canada is being affected. Stefanson did not know how much of the landfill that included.

Stefanson and Families Minister Rochelle Squires also could not say whether the province is taking any steps to improve security at shelters, after numerous sources told CBC News Skibicki frequented soup kitchens and homeless shelters in Winnipeg's inner city, meeting women whom he would take home to his apartment.

Both pointed to a funding boost for shelters the province announced recently, which some agencies getting that money said would improve services but wouldn't create more capacity.