Susan Johnson, national bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, is part of a group of church leaders who have come together to urge Manitoba's political leaders to search Prairie Green landfill for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran. (Prabhjot Singh Lotey/CBC)
A growing number of organizations such as Amnesty International and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights along with the editorial board of the Globe and Mail newspaper are calling for a search of a landfill in Manitoba for the remains of two murdered Indigenous women. Indigenous leaders and communities have been advocating for this search for months now, and the United Church of Canada issued a statement asking the same.
The Manitoba government refuses to conduct the search citing the cost and the danger as reasons not to undertake it. I have expressed my own ambivalence but it's important to listen and express solidarity with those most affected and to recognize that this goes beyond certain standards of feasibility into our societal sense of justice for murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.
Next Tuesday several leaders of Christian denominations which were complicit in the genocidal Residential School system will travel to Manitoba as an act of solidarity and support for those insisting on the search. Here is a portion of a CBC article on this initiative:
Manitoba's refusal to search landfill for remains is racist, church leader says
The leaders of four major church denominations are standing together to urge Manitoba's political leaders to search Prairie Green landfill for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, with one calling the province's stance racist.
"I think sometimes we have a preference for people who are white in this country and we tend to ignore people who are Indigenous," said Susan Johnson, national bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
"I can't imagine that if there were white people in the landfill that we wouldn't be searching for them. So I think in many ways, this is racist and it certainly does not work in terms of our commitment to reconciliation."
Johnson will join leaders from the United, Presbyterian and Anglican churches of Canada on Sept. 5 at Camp Morgan at the Brady Road landfill in Winnipeg.
"Mostly we'll be listening. I think we want, first of all, to hear the concerns of the people," Johnson said. "And then we will consider how best we can advocate for them and with them after we've started at the grassroots."
Here is the link to the July United Church press release:
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