Protesters blocking the entrance to the Brady Road landfill agreed to end their blockade after the city issued an order for them to vacate on Monday.
Winnipeg City Managing Director Michael Jack sent an email to Mayor Scott Gillingham and city council members Friday saying he had issued an order to evict those blocking the highway.
They were told they had to leave at 12:00 on Monday.
“The blockade is a violation of both city charter and provisions of provincial law, and puts the city at risk of violating environmental license requirements,” the email said.
“We have determined that these actions constitute an emergency to the health and safety of the citizens of Winnipeg and users of the facilities.”
Protesters blocked the entrance to the Brady Road landfill Thursday afternoon after the Manitoba government announced it would not support a search of the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg for the remains of two indigenous women.
The city announced that the Brady Road landfill was closed Friday morning due to lockdown.
Joseph Munro, who participated in the protest on a service road near the dump, told the CBC in a statement that the blockage will be removed before the city’s deadline.
“It was agreed to close Ethan Boyer Way for a couple of days to send a message to the prime minister that his response was unacceptable,” Munro said.
“We didn’t want to close the Brady landfill. There is a back entrance that people can use. They decided to close the landfill,” he added.
A lockout also closed the Brady Road landfill from December 11 to January 6, which ended up costing the city just over $1.5 million.
He added that he and his group, nicknamed Camp Morgan, who have been at the dump since December to raise awareness about the issue of murdered and missing indigenous women, do not believe the prime minister has read the feasibility study for Prairie Green. landfill in completion.
In a statement on Thursday, a government spokesman wrote that Prime Minister Stefanson had been briefed on, had reviewed and was “familiar with” the entirety of the report, in response to a CBC query whether she had read it.
Camp Morgan has been at the Brady landfill for more than seven months in protest of the way the Winnipeg Police Service investigated cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls after police found partial remains of Rebecca Contois at the city-run landfill in June. .
Jeremy Skibicki faces first-degree murder charges in the deaths of Contois and three other women, including Morgan Harries and Marcedes Myran, whose remains police say ended up at the Prairie Green landfill. The location of the fourth victim, known as the Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe or Buffalo Woman, is unknown.
