By Dave Baxter | Winnipeg Sun
A rural Manitoba health-care worker has lost their job, after making online comments critical of a landfill search for remains of Indigenous women, comments that the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority said were “racist.”
“Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority (IERHA) leadership was made aware of a social media post disparaging the search for the remains of murdered Indigenous women,” IERHA said in a release.
“Multiple staff members recognized the post as racist and brought it forward to leadership.”
The Facebook post, which was posted on Sunday, has since been deleted, but a screenshot of the comments has been viewed by The Winnipeg Sun.
It reads, in part, “Our health system in Manitoba sucks. Our premier needs to stop worrying about dead Indians in a landfill and put some money into our health care system.”
IERHA said once the post was brought to their attention, there was an immediate investigation called, which confirmed the post was linked to an IERHA employee, and the health authority says it then took “decisive action.”
“Direction was given to remove the post, and the employee is now no longer working with IERHA,” the health authority said.
“Posts of this nature are deeply hurtful. We remain committed to reconciliation, anti-racism and to mitigating further harms through swift and decisive action.”
A screenshot of the comments was shared online by Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine this week who said the comments underscore why she “shares so much about the beauty, strength, and resilience of Indigenous women, girls and 2Spirit relatives.”
“Even in death, Indigenous women’s humanity and worth are questioned, dismissed or erased,” Fontaine wrote. “The violence we face isn’t just physical, it’s systemic and it’s in the narratives devaluing us at every turn.
Fontaine added, “I genuinely feel sorry for this individual to be so divorced from reality and from the collective of who we are as Manitobans.”
The Manitoba General Employees Union (MGEU), the union that represents IERHA employees, hasn’t replied to The Sun’s request for comment.
A search for the remains of homicide victims Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran continues at the Prairie Green Landfill near the community of Stony Mountain, north of Winnipeg, after the provincial and the federal governments both committed $20 million each back in March to fund the search.
Both women were killed by convicted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki, who is now in prison serving four concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole for 25 years, after being convicted of four counts of first-degree murder in August of 2024.
Skibicki was also convicted of killing Rebecca Contois, whose remains were discovered at the Brady Road Landfill in 2022 and a still unidentified woman that community members have been referring to as Buffalo Women.
