Calgary vigil echoes national call for search of Winnipeg landfills for missing women

Calls to search a landfill north of Winnipeg for the remains of two Indigenous women echoed in Calgary on Saturday.

It's been seven years since Natawawikii English's daughter Joey English died.

Joey was reported missing in June 2016 by her family. Parts of her body were found in a grassy area of Calgary two days later. It was later discovered that she died of an overdose while at Joshua Weise's house. Weise was charged with indignity to a human body after he dismembered her body and discarded her remains in several locations near his house.

Police had searched a Calgary landfill, but did not find any more of Joey's remains. But Natawawikii believes they're still there.

"It's hard for me to see because it's a reminder that my daughter still lays in a landfill, and that's uncalled for."

Protests have spread across the country, with Calgary's the latest public call for a search of Winnipeg's privately run Prairie Green landfill.

• Joey Tiiah Patricia English

The push for a search began last December, when Winnipeg police said they believed the remains of both Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran had been taken to the landfill earlier in the year.

On Saturday at East Calgary Landfill, there was an intimate gathering where people spoke, prayed, drummed and sang.

Natawawikii said Saturday that hearing other voices calling for the search of landfills brings her "a little bit of hope."

"There's just more stories out there that need to come out. That silence really needs to be broken," she said.

Chantal Chagnon, event organizer, said the conversations originating out of Winnipeg will affect future generations.

"When a child sees their mother or auntie or sister or family member go missing and no effort is made to look for those people to get justice for those families, well a child sees that as well. I guess there's a divide. There's a have and have not."

The government of Manitoba has said it it will not support the search of the Prairie Green Landfill.

Last fall, Ottawa funded a feasibility study of a search of the landfill. That study was carried out by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs following a widespread backlash to a police decision not to search the dump.

The findings of that study, released last month, said a search was feasible but would not guarantee the women's remains would be found.