The body of a 33-year-old mother from a First Nation in Manitoba has been found in a Winnipeg landfill, and police say they consider the circumstances surrounding her death suspicious.
Staff at Winnipeg’s Brady Road Resource Management Facility discovered the remains of Linda Mary Beardy on Monday afternoon and reported their finding to police around 3 p.m., police said.
“I can confirm at this time we have no information to suggest that there are any other victims or that this investigation is related to any previous incidents,” Insp. Shawn Pike, with the Winnipeg Police Service’s major crimes division, said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
Workers discover body of Linda Mary Beardy at Brady landfill
The body of a 33-year-old mother from a First Nation in Manitoba has been found in a Winnipeg landfill, and police say they consider the circumstances surrounding her death suspicious.
“I wish to express our sincerest condolences.”
Pike would not talk about the cause of death, and it isn’t clear when Beardy died, he said.
A police car sits behind barricades blocking access to the Brady Road landfill in Winnipeg on Tuesday. (Megan Goddard/Radio-Canada)
Her death is considered suspicious but isn’t yet classified as a homicide, Pike said.
Beardy, who was from Lake St. Martin First Nation in Manitoba, was living in Winnipeg before her death, he said.
Investigators believe Beardy’s remains were left at the landfill by a garbage truck and found within a couple of hours of being deposited, he said.
The entire Brady Road landfill operation has been paused while investigators work there, he said.
Winnipeg police Insp. Shawn Pike said as far as investigators know at this time, there is no connection between the death of Linda Mary Beardy and past cases. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)
Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham credited Brady landfill staff for their vigilance.
“We as a society can never grow numb to this,” he said at city hall Tuesday afternoon.
“This is horrible. We can never get used to this. This always needs to spark within us outrage, concern, grief,” the mayor said. “We need to value Indigenous women.”
Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation Chief Trevor Prince, who knew Beardy, said he was devastated by the news.
He met Beardy 15 years ago, and she was also the ex-partner of a friend of his who has also since died, Prince said. That friend and Beardy had children together, the chief said.
“It’s very sad and it breaks my heart … to hear that we lost another First Nation woman to violence,” he said. “She was a caring, loving mother.”
Prince said crisis response teams would be on hand at a vigil planned for Tuesday evening at Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre’s Gathering Place for Truth and Reconciliation, located at 445 King St. in Winnipeg.
Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation Chief Trevor Prince knew Beardy. (Olivia Stefanovich/CBC)
He believes a broader search of the landfill should be conducted.
The location of the remains of a fourth, unidentified woman, whom community members have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, are unknown, but Skibicki has also been charged in connection with her death.
Pike said investigators have no reason to believe Beardy’s death is connected to any other cases.
Her next of kin have been notified and Winnipeg investigators remain in touch with Indigenous leadership, Pike said.
‘I’m heartbroken for my community’
Cambria Harris’s mother Morgan Harris was killed last year. Police believe her body was deposited at Prairie Green Landfill north of Winnipeg. On Tuesday, after news of Linda Mary Beardy’s body being discovered at Brady Road landfill, Harris reiterated her calls for a full search of the sites, citing disproportionate rates of Indigenous women going missing.
Cambria Harris, Morgan Harris’s daughter, said Winnipeg police notified her of the news before the announcement.
“I appreciated it, but I still felt a little bit saddened and disrespected that it has happened again only a few months after what happened to my mom,” she said. “It’s traumatizing.”
“May justice be brought to this woman and her family.”
Beardy, 33, is from Lake St. Martin First Nation. She was living in Winnipeg before her death, police say. (Submitted by Melissa Roulette)
Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said the federal government will be discussing the latest death with Mayor Gillingham and the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.
The “horrific and devastating” discovery of the 33-year-old woman’s body “represents a fear that Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people live with on a daily basis,” he said in a statement, promising to work “with partners in Winnipeg, and across Canada, to end this crisis.”
Anyone with information that could help investigators is asked to contact Winnipeg police at 204-986-6508.
Winnipeg police release details about body found at Brady Road landfill
WARNING: This story contains distressing details. The body of 33-year-old Linda Mary Beardy from a First Nation in Manitoba has been found in a Winnipeg landfill, and police say they consider the circumstances surrounding her death suspicious.
If you or someone you know needs immediate emotional assistance, call 1-844-413-6649. This is a national, toll-free 24/7 crisis call line providing support for anyone who requires emotional assistance related to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
