The case of a Winnipeg serial killer who disposed of his victims' remains in dumpsters prompted the Manitoba government to decide to equip garbage trucks with GPS technology.
The province has allocated a $200,000 budget to a vendor to develop a plan to improve waste management systems and monitoring of landfills in Manitoba, which will help police solve crimes and have a “deterrent” effect, said Municipal and Northern Relations Minister Ian Bushie.
“We definitely want to see this as a deterrent so that no other families end up in the same situation as the families with the Prairie Green landfill,” Bushie said Wednesday.
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A GFL Environmental truck drives to the Brady Road landfill in May.
Jeremy Skibicki was sentenced to life in prison last week after being found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in the 2022 murders of Rebecca Contois, Marcedes Myran, Morgan Harris and an unidentified woman known as Buffalo Woman. Skibicki targeted the vulnerable Indigenous women after searching for potential victims in urban shelters.
The remains of Contois, Skibicki's last victim, were found in a garbage can in North Kildonan and later at the Brady Road landfill. Winnipeg police later learned that Harris and Myran's remains were likely dumped at the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg. Excavations and hand searches are scheduled to begin there in the fall. Police have no clear suspicions about the whereabouts of the Buffalo Woman's remains.
The province issued a request for proposals on Wednesday that addresses some of the recommendations made in the Assembly of Chiefs of Manitoba's final report on the Prairie Green search feasibility study.
It called for the mandatory installation of GPS tracking systems in garbage trucks of all waste management companies in Manitoba, the mandatory installation of rear-facing cameras in all garbage trucks so drivers can watch the material being loaded into the truck, and video surveillance of the entrances and exits of landfills. It called for the provincial government's support for smaller communities and municipalities in implementing such changes.
A Manitoba government request for proposals, set to go online Wednesday, is seeking a qualified vendor with “extensive knowledge” of waste management facilities and information technology to review and recommend practices to improve monitoring of material sent to landfills and develop a roadmap for achieving that goal.
It is also looking into how to set up “a cost-sharing program to support landfill operators in implementing the recommended solutions.”
The review must be carried out in collaboration with the Assembly and the Association of Municipalities of Manitoba and must be completed by the end of 2025.
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AMC CEO Cathy Merrick.
“We are pleased that the government is taking the recommendations of this First Nations-led feasibility study seriously and making concrete efforts to implement them,” Grand Chief Cathy Merrick said on Wednesday.
“This step represents a significant commitment to the safety and dignity of our nations and demonstrates a shared commitment to finding solutions that will help our loved ones recover,” Merrick said in a press release.
The Manitoba Association of Municipalities declined to comment on Wednesday, saying it only learned of the news through the government's press release.
“We look forward to hearing further details from the provincial government,” a spokesman said.
The City of Winnipeg currently requires all garbage trucks that pick up its trash to be equipped with GPS. The trucks are equipped with rear-facing cameras so drivers can watch the material being dumped, and the Brady Road landfill has video surveillance, a city spokesperson said in an email Wednesday.
The city of Thompson also has GPS monitoring of its garbage and recycling vehicles as well as the garbage truck that empties commercial trash cans, said spokesman Ian Graham.
GPS monitoring has been in place for more than two years. The scale near the entrance to Thompson's landfill, where commercial loads are weighed and where landfill users pay their tipping fees, is under video surveillance, Graham said. The landfills, however, are not under video surveillance.
The City of Brandon did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The province is looking for best practices and ways to improve monitoring systems “to make things more comprehensive if they aren’t already,” says Bushie, who points out that there are more than 200 waste facilities in Manitoba.
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The minister could not estimate the cost of such measures and said the province did not want to increase the “financial burden” on municipalities.
An Ontario investigator with experience searching landfills said he did not believe such measures would stop anyone from dumping a body in a garbage can, but said they would make police investigations “significantly” easier.
Sean Sparling said perpetrators of such crimes are unaware of measures such as GPS-equipped garbage trucks.
“If they're committing these crimes, the likelihood that they know about it is zero,” said the director of Investigative Solutions Network Inc., a former deputy police chief in Sault Ste. Marie.
In his investigations, he has seen how effective GPS technology can be in locating garbage dumpsters. In one case, the remains of a 2011 murder victim, dumped in a dumpster in Sault Ste. Marie, were tracked to a landfill in Michigan.
“We knew exactly where it had to be within 300 feet,” said Sparling. “That was because of the tracking of the trucks.”
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislative Reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter in the Free Press' legislative bureau. A former general assignment reporter and editor, she joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
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