Red dresses on crosses are displayed at the entrance of a makeshift camp near the Prairie Green landfill in Winnipeg, in April, 2024.SEBASTIEN ST-JEAN/Getty Images
Manitoba has officially ended its operations at a Winnipeg-area landfill where the province recovered the remains of two of four First Nations women, disposed of by a serial killer, after a months-long search at the site last year.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail ahead of a public announcement this week, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said the final cost of the search at Prairie Green landfill for Marcedes Myran and Morgan Harris, victims of convicted murderer Jeremy Skibicki, was $18.4-million.
The final tally is one-tenth of the $184-million estimated by the previous provincial government. And it is less than half of the $40-million that Ottawa and Mr. Kinew’s government had committed to spend at Prairie Green, as they began the search in 2024.
The province will now use the remaining funds, $21.6-million, for its separate search at Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill, Mr. Kinew said. There, since this past December, officials have been sifting through refuse to find the body of Ashlee Shingoose, the only victim among the First Nations women killed by Mr. Skibicki whose remains authorities have not yet located.
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The search for the women’s remains became the leading issue of Manitoba’s 2023 provincial election, as the Progressive Conservative government at the time paid for local billboards, radio ads and newspaper spots to tell voters that the endeavour would be too costly and dangerous. But Mr. Kinew’s New Democrats, who eventually won the election, argued that it was the humane thing to do.
The Manitoba PC Party has since repeatedly apologized for its position.
“There were a number of reasons put forward about how this search could not be done. And over the past couple of years, we’ve systematically proven each of them wrong,” Mr. Kinew said Wednesday.
“We’ve shown that not only could we do it with the highest safety standards, but we can also do it with fiscal responsibility. In the end, it was never about safety or costs, it was about racism on the part of the PCs.”
After a lengthy and high-profile trial in 2024, Mr. Skibicki, now 39, was sentenced to life in prison for the 2022 first-degree murders of Ms. Harris, then 39; Ms. Myran, 26; Rebecca Contois, 24; and Ms. Shingoose, 30, then only known as Buffalo Woman in lieu of a name.
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In 2022, shortly after Mr. Skibicki’s arrest, Winnipeg police conducted a search of Brady Road landfill and located some of the remains of Ms. Contois, a member of Crane River First Nation.
But while police had obtained GPS data confirming that the bodies of Ms. Myran and Ms. Harris, both from Long Plain First Nation, were located at Prairie Green, they declined to search the site – igniting a national outcry. At dozens of rallies between 2022 and 2024, communities across the country protested to support the landfill searches.
Last year, in March, Manitoba officials located the remains of Ms. Myran and Ms. Harris, wrapping up most operations by July. Since then, their families have told The Globe that they held funerals over the summer.
Also in March, 2025, Winnipeg police finally identified Ms. Shingoose of St. Theresa Point First Nation as Buffalo Woman, prompting the province to begin a search for her remains.
Mr. Kinew said the search team and their equipment at Prairie Green – operated by Waste Connections of Canada in the rural municipality of Rosser, just north of the provincial capital – will now be moved to the Brady Road landfill, which is run by the City of Winnipeg.
The province has decommissioned its large purpose-built warehouse, a ceremonial healing lodge for families, parking lots, access roads, hydro lines and all other search-related structures at Prairie Green.
Going forward, the Premier said this case has set a precedent. But he cautioned that the continuing search for Ms. Shingoose at Brady Road “is different and in some ways harder” than Prairie Green, adding that it is expected to last longer.
“Heaven forbid that we have to be in this position again – what we’re saying with these searches is that when someone goes missing, we’re a government that will put in the effort to look for them. That they are not a lost cause.”