Supporters hold their ground at landfill blockade as noon deadline to leave passes | CBC News

Dozens of people outside Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill have built barricades and are signalling their unwillingness to leave, despite a noon deadline from the city to vacate the area and the possibility of legal action.

Cambria Harris, whose mother’s remains are believed to be in the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg, is one of the people who called for the blockade to be erected and for others to join the demonstration at the Winnipeg site.

It’s important that there be a presence at Brady Road after Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson indicated her government wouldn’t financially support a search of Prairie Green because of the hazards to people involved, Harris said.

“When you say you won’t move forward with the search, you’re telling my community that it’s OK and that you condone the continuous dumping of Indigenous women,” Harris said in an interview on Monday.

The City of Winnipeg last week delivered an order to demonstrators to vacate the area by noon Monday, but chief administrative officer Michael Jack said in a news conference at the deadline time that the city wouldn’t move to forcibly remove people.

“We’re going to evaluate what further discussions might be had today … and if we can’t reach a resolution, then we’ll need to escalate our own efforts. That very likely means applying to court,” Jack said.

The city hasn’t applied for an injunction yet, but that’s something the municipality is “strongly considering,” he said.

That’s upsetting for Harris.

“We’re fighting for a cause. We’re fighting to get these women home. Why are you so against that? Why will you not even acknowledge the families and their cries and their pleas?” Harris said. “It’s quite frankly disrespectful.”

Harris’s aunt, Melissa Robinson, said what’s happening is not acceptable.

“We’re talking about our women laying in landfills. You don’t put a dollar on that — absolutely not. I don’t care if it costs $200 million, $300 million, they need to go and get them. I’m not going to have my nieces go sit at a landfill to visit their mom for the rest of eternity. It’s wrong.”

Jack said the landfill needs its main entrance back up and running because the back entrance isn’t reliable and is impassable when there is a severe weather event, like the one that prompted the Friday closure of the landfill.

Although a city spokesperson said at the time that the closure was due to the blockade, Jack clarified Monday that heavy rains on Thursday night washed out the only remaining road to the dump, and it took a few days to repair.