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Stephanie English said the refusal to search a Winnipeg landfill for the remains of two First Nations women strikes a personal nerve.
Seven years ago, the body of her 25-year-old daughter Joey English was dismembered, with parts of it ending up in Calgary landfills, never to be recovered.
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Only the mother-of-three’s head and torso were found, she said.
On Saturday, English took part in a prayer ceremony attended by First Nations elders and drummers at the Calgary East Landfill where the woman believes parts of her daughter’s body lie.
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“I never got to have a proper burial site … I would have dug through (the landfill) myself,” said English, who hails from the Piikani Nation in southern Alberta.
Her daughter had died of an overdose before her body was dismembered by Joshua Weise, who was convicted of offering an indignity to human remains and sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Her fate shows the callous neglect towards the remains of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls and two-spirited people goes beyond calls for the search of a Winnipeg landfill for the bodies of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran that are believed to buried there.
The Manitoba government has rejected the demand, citing the estimated $184 million cost and the physical and emotional hazard searches could face.
“This injustice is just becoming worse,” said English.
“My daughter is not garbage. Our people are not something to be thrown away and forgotten.”
Vigil organizer Chantal Chagnon agrees, saying probes of landfill across Canada would likely yield evidence of crimes against First Nations women.
“The answers are hidden in these landfills … if we searched every single one we’d find an answer or lead toward justice,” said Chagnon, who’s Metis.
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“It’s a sad reality but unfortunately it’s part of our dark history and what’s been happening since colonization.”
She said authorities should overlook the costs of landfill searches “and start thinking in terms of ethics.”
Later on Saturday, a closure ceremony was held at Crescent Heights Park, at 1101 2 Street N.W. where parts of Joey English’s body were found.
The gatherings aren’t protests but instead acts of healing amid efforts at truth and reconciliation, said Chagnon, who acknowledged the pushback from those who deny the gravity of the wrongs done to First Nations people exemplified in residential schools.
“They have fears — they don’t want to be held liable for the sins of their ancestors,” she said.
According to Statistics Canada, the homicide rate among Indigenous people between 2015 and 2020 was six times higher than that of non-indigenous Canadians.
In 2020, the homicide rate for Indigenous women was more than five times that of non-Indigenous women, and in 2014, the RCMP released a national overview pegging the number of cases at nearly 1,200 between 1980 and 2012. Other unverified estimates are far higher.
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released a report in 2019 that included 231 “calls to justice” to end what it called a genocide — a term that’s proven controversial.
BKaufmann@postmedia.com
Twitter: @Billkaufmanjrn
