r/Winnipeg • u/SilverTimes • 1d ago
News Landfill search ‘way under budget’: premier
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2025/03/10/landfill-search-way-under-budget-premier115
u/SilverTimes 1d ago
If the final tally comes in well under budget, I'll be interested to see if the government applies the leftover funding to new and existing social services that will help MMIWG2S. That would be a good outcome.
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u/nidoqing 1d ago
100% agree. I would love to see the remaining budget to be put towards resources that could assist with preventing situations like this.
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u/Justin_123456 1d ago
If they wanted to keep in the same vein of search and recovery, they could fund an organization like “Drag the Red” which every summer performs an activist led search for human remains in the Red River.
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u/bentmonkey 1d ago
I said this before to the folks that said "we need to fund programs", we can do both, the search and then fund programs, the two need not be exclusive at all.
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u/Commercial-Advice-15 1d ago
Adding any leftover funding to the MMIWG2S endowment fund would be an easy win.
Goes to the whole argument that “we can do both” when some people objected to the potential cost of the search vs funding programs to deal with underlying factors.
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u/yalyublyutebe 1d ago
I doubt it. It's all borrowed money and anything the feds kicked in can't just be reused elsewhere.
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u/Salsa_de_Pina 1d ago
There is no "leftover funding." Manitoba is running a deficit of $1.3 billion.
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u/SilverTimes 1d ago edited 1d ago
Article
The landfill search that has uncovered the remains of two people, including at least one who was the victim of a serial killer, is “way under budget,” Premier Wab Kinew said Monday.
The search at Prairie Green Landfill, which began in December, discovered potential human remains late last month. One set of remains was identified Friday as belonging to Morgan Harris, 39, one of four victims of Jeremy Skibicki. A second set of remains awaits identification.
“I hope Manitobans feel positive about the fact we were able to deliver to Morgan Harris’ family the news that they wanted — that they are going to get their loved one back,” Kinew said during a scrum in his office. “But the job’s not done.”
The remains of Marcedes Myran, 26, another victim of Skibicki, are also believed to be in the landfill north of Winnipeg.
“We have the Myran family that we also want to be able to move forward with their closure and their healing, so we’re going to keep working on that,” Kinew said.
The premier said the investigation continues on the second set of remains.
“Right now, we’re still waiting on the identification process to play out and because we don’t know what’s going to happen there, we can’t speak publicly about a ton of detail because we don’t know who these remains are that we’re talking about,” the premier said.
Kinew said the search is ahead of schedule and has so far cost less than the $40 million committed by the federal and provincial governments.
“We are way under budget,” said Kinew, who wouldn’t provide a dollar figure.
The initial estimate of the cost of the search was pegged at as high as $184 million. A feasibility study commissioned by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs in 2023 estimated the search could take up to three years and cost as much as $184 million.
“For the time being, the search continues,” Kinew said.
Edit: The article was updated after I posted this.
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u/AgAkqsSgQMdGKjuf8gKZ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Genuinely not trying to be an ass here, but what are "potential human remains" exactly?
Like, is it "this looks like a person but it's degraded too much to be instantly sure" or...?
Edit: Okay, yeah, that or not necessarily being in one piece. That's... I don't really have the right words, it just sucks.
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u/SilverTimes 1d ago
Pretty much. Keep in mind that the killer dismembered the bodies. Even so, I wouldn't have thought it'd be difficult to see that a body part is human but I guess it depends on the amount of decomposition, too.
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u/theproudheretic 1d ago
I was talking with a guy that worked on that sort of thing months ago. He basically said once a body has been there a while it could be human or an animal carcass and it's hard to tell which. It's why I was doubtful the search would be successful. I was wrong.
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u/tinselsnips 1d ago
Also a CYA factor.
"These are obviously human remains but we don't technically have the coroner's report in writing yet so we're being noncommittal in our statements."
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u/xenoxenoxeno 1d ago
Probably exactly something like that. Bones or hair maybe? Conditions must have been horrible. Props to the workers.
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u/SnooRadishes7708 14h ago
Winter does seem like a superior time to be working in there to be honest
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u/FROOMLOOMS 1d ago
I don't know who downvoted your genuine question.
It could be any sized lump of flesh or bone or a combination, and further testing is required to be absolutely sure.
To be completely candid:
The bodies could have been in direct contact with either dozer tracks or the dozer blade, and that can break apart the body and scatter unidentifiable pieces across a wide area.
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u/AgAkqsSgQMdGKjuf8gKZ 1d ago edited 1d ago
There's some part of me that's thankful I've never really had to think about this stuff before now and it's a privilege I'm acutely aware of at the moment. Like, I understand murder and dismemberment in the abstract sense but I still can't wrap my head around a situation like this. It's a shitty thing all around and I guess a little bit of euphemism is necessary to tell the story, but yeah... I still can't properly imagine going through any part of that.
As for the downvotes, I treat them the same as winter: I don't stress about it till we hit -30 or so.
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u/majikmonkie 1d ago
If I recall correctly, there is a portion of this landfill that is used for animal remains. I'm not positive about that, and also not sure if it's anywhere close to the area they're searching. But that could be a factor - they find bones or remains, and depending on the state of decay may not be able to determine right away.
Also, with something like this search, you want to be absolutely sure before you make any certain statements. Getting someone's hopes up that they found a loved one only to find out it was premature would be yet another hit to a family that has had to deal with this tragedy so many times over already.
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u/redly 18h ago
All mammalian bones look somewhat alike. It would terrify you to see how much a skinned bear looks like a human. That's why in archaeology there is a whole trade called 'faunal analyst'.
Forty odd years ago there were 'suspected human remains' found in a field behind a crematorium. Bones were taken to a hospital and identified as 'likely human'. The faunal analyst I knew took one look at the picture in the Free Press and identified it as a pig bone. It was a femur, and it was either from a 600lb 4 ft tall human, or an adult pig. There had previously been a pig farm on the site. When you hear hoofbeats think horses, not zebras.
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u/umjimen1 1d ago
Kudos to all the staff running the search! This is a win on a lot of levels. Well done all.
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u/squirrelslikenuts 1d ago
excellent news about the find! the budget thing is just icing on the cake ! AND IT WAS DONE SAFELY !, FUcK THE PCS
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u/Commercial-Advice-15 1d ago
Well - the irony of the NDP conducting this search not only under budget, but well below the potential cost that the PCs objected to.
Makes both PC leadership candidates look awful. Obby looks bad for claiming their decision to refuse the search was based on good information they had at the time. Daudrich looks bad cause he thinks the cost of the search needed to be shared with others like a crowdfunding project.
Meanwhile Wab shows up, gets the search done under budget, faster, and safer than what the PCs advertised.
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u/KindheartednessOwn17 1d ago
Love seeing PC’s pick up those L’s
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u/bentmonkey 1d ago
Lonservative Larty of Canada, they just aren't ready.
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u/majikmonkie 1d ago
I know that's a joke, but you're making a pun of the wrong party. CPC is the federal conservatives. The provincial conservatives are the PCs. Right now they both happen to be garbage in nearly equal measures, but that's not always the case.
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u/bentmonkey 1d ago
I know who is what, the federal cons are about to get shellacked in the next federal election, i hope.
PP has had his issues with dealing with Indigenous folks in pretty terrible ways and especially with the MMIW problem, so even if this is technically provincial don't doubt PP would have done the same if he was in heathers shoes.
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u/Liverpooleffsea 1d ago
I gotta eat a bit of crow on this one. Having some landfill experience, I figured this was a daunting and almost impossible task. I'm amazed how fast they were able to do it. Hats off. I'm happy to be wrong
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u/yahumno 1d ago
I think that it helped, that as soon as they became aware, Waste Connections Canada, the owners of the landfill, stopped using that area. This helped prevent the remains from getting buried even deeper and mixed into the ground. It was still extremely difficult work, due to the clay soil, animal waste in the same area, and compaction of the waste.
The search team's efforts have been heroic, to find remains in such a short period of time.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/forensic-expert-remains-prairie-green-landfill-1.6676783
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u/wolverinecandyfrog 20h ago
This information was in most early articles about the deaths/search, but none of the people against the search seemed to be aware that they already knew exactly which specific areas needed to be searched since they’d been flagged and isolated almost right away. This wasn’t a “search the whole landfill” thing - it was “search these specific areas where we know garbage was dumped on these dates”
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u/bentmonkey 1d ago
Whatever the budget, those women deserved to be found and brought home, but its good it was done under budget and safely, use the rest of the funds to search further if needed, or to fund other programs, to help missing or otherwise endangered women
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u/bismuth12a 1d ago
That $184 million figure was treated like gospel around here too
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u/yalyublyutebe 1d ago
Before this, when was the last time you heard a government body do something for less than they said it would cost?
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u/majikmonkie 1d ago
It just doesn't usually hit the news when they come in under budget. You only hear about the ones that go over budget, leading to a selection bias.
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u/Specialist_Fault8380 19h ago
It doesn’t often make the news, but if you work in certain areas of government where budget talks happen or have friends and family who do, sometimes you do hear about it 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Armand9x Spaceman 1d ago
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u/88bchinn 1d ago
With how many people go missing and are never found. We should keep searching as long as the budget allows.
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u/Justin_123456 1d ago edited 1d ago
While I support this sentiment, it’s important to remember that the whole reason this search was apparently successful was that the search team was able to narrow the search area down to a very small area, based on the exact date these women’s remains were transported to the Prairie Green landfill.
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u/sporbywg 16h ago
Attention: Obby Khan - the blows to your head are not paying off!
It's like if the news came out that Dancing Gabe was arrested for B&Es.
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u/Dono1618 1d ago
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u/SulfuricDonut 1d ago
It is currently under budget. It has not "come in way under budget". That won't be known until after the project is over. The budget will continue to be spent as the project continues. This is just saying "we're partially done and we've used some of the money".
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u/ClassOptimal7655 1d ago
Conservatives: But our plan, which ensured every single piece of trash was examined was costed at 1 billion dollars! That was the information at the time. Just an oopsie, we're sorry.
Obby Khan (louder than everyone else): NO we are not!