Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government needs to do more to end violence faced by Indigenous women and girls after police found the body of another Indigenous woman in a landfill this week Behavior.
Trudeau said it’s heartbreaking that discoveries like this keep happening.
Winnipeg’s homicide unit said it launched an investigation after crews at the Brady Road landfill in the city’s south discovered the body of 33-year-old Linda Mary Beardy on Monday.
Police said they did not believe the case was related to the killing of Rebecca Contois, whose remains were found at the same landfill last year, or the killings of three other women.
Police say they believe the remains of Morgan Harris and Marced Smylan are in another privately-run Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg, but they have not been located.
The Prime Minister says his Liberal government has made significant progress in tackling gender-based violence, but more can be done.
“My heart goes out to the community in Winnipeg and … the families of the women who have passed away in this way,” Trudeau told reporters Wednesday.
“Our thoughts will continue to be with the grieving community, but we will also continue to be there to end this unconscionable violence.”
Federal NDP leader Jagmet Singh said the discovery highlighted the need to implement the 231 Justice Appeal for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls.
“Women are dying, lives are being taken and we have to take it seriously,” Singh said.
The federal Minister of Crown and Indigenous Relations praised workers at the city-run Brady landfill for “rising vigilance” in their search for Birdi’s remains.
Mark Miller also said a feasibility study on the search for the remains of Harris and Mylan at the Prairie Green landfill will be completed in the coming weeks.
The federal government allocated $500,000 in February to study a potential search of landfills.
The study is expected to be completed within four to six weeks, the Aboriginal-led committee led by the Manitoba Chiefs Council said Tuesday. The group added that it believed the study would “consider these search and recovery efforts feasible.”
Jeremy Skibicki was charged with first-degree murder in the killings of Contois, Harris and Mylan — all Aboriginal women, as well as an unidentified woman. Indigenous leaders named it Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman. Police did not find her body either.
The Brady Landfill will remain closed indefinitely. The city said contingency plans for trash and recycling are in place and crews are working to keep those services uninterrupted during the closure.
Aboriginal Justin Trudeau