Calls to 'search the landfill' grow in Calgary during MMIW vigil

CTV National News: Calls to search Alta. landfill There are calls to search a Calgary landfill for the remains of a 25-year-old woman who was killed in 2016. Timm Bruch reports.

A group gathered at the East Calgary Landfill on Saturday to pray, to heal and to call for a 2016 criminal investigation to be re-opened.

Parts of the body of 25-year-old Joey English were found in a Crescent Heights park in June of 2016. Shortly after, a man she knew admit to cutting up English's body and scattering her remains. Police conducted a brief search for the young Calgarian's undiscovered limbs, but parts of her have still not been discovered.

On Saturday, her mother said the unanswered questions mean she hasn't completely received closure.

"My daughter still lays in the landfill," Natowawakii English said. "It angers me, because what am I supposed to tell her daughter? How am I supposed to tell her, 'Oh, your mom is in the landfill?'"

English gathered together Indigenous elders this weekend to bless each landfill within city limits.

She hopes the process will bring healing and answers for the community, which has been reeling from similar cases in recent years.

"This must stop," she told CTV News. "Stop with our people, in all walks of life, being thrown away like garbage."

NATIONAL MOVEMENT

The vigil is part of a nation-wide movement to search for remains in Canadian landfills.

It originates just north of Winnipeg, where a summer-long protest has shut down areas of the city and became a political hot potato ahead of a provincial election.

Thousands in that city have been calling for a landfill search after two female Indigenous women went missing.

Many across the country believe now is the time to use Manitoban momentum to re-open other, similar cases.

"Sometimes our voices get lost in the shuffle," activist Chantal Chagnon said. "They get marginalized and pushed to the side. But I think it's important to bring those voices forward."

The group Saturday says political action is needed. They don't want to place blame, they just want help to move on.

"People are afraid to take accountability, when we have to realize it's not about whose fault it is," Chagnon said. "It's all about how we fix this problem."