The next stage in the search for the remains of two slain Indigenous women in a Manitoba landfill has officially begun.

Premier Wab Kinew updated reporters on the search Monday alongside project management lead Amna Mackin.

He said a team has begun searching a targeted zone of landfill material where the remains are believed to be.

Kinew said he was on scene at the Prairie Green Landfill Monday morning as a truck drove the first load of material to the search facility.

From there, team members began searching the materials for the remains of Marcedes Myran and Morgan Harris.

“We found some items which indicate that we are in the right date range and time and of course, they are proceeding meticulously and preserving items that will help us to determine that we’re on a proper course here,” Kinew told reporters at the Manitoba legislature.

This is the fourth stage of a five-stage plan that is expected to continue until the spring.

Mackin said it involves searching about 20,000 cubic meters of waste in the hopes of finding the remains of Myran and Harris.

“As we reach the conclusion of stage four and we have not recovered remains of Morgan and Marcedes, we will make a determination as to what additional searching will be required as part of stage five, and that may include excavating deeper within the cells in the landfill or going back to some of the waste that was displaced as part of our stage three operations,” Mackin said.

About 45 people are a part of the search team, which includes family liaisons, a forensic anthropologist, a health and safety officer, and a director of operations.

The waste is being searched in a massive steel constructed facility amid a makeshift work camp of trailers where searchers take meals, meetings and suit up in protective gear.

Kinew added he is confident the health and safety of the workers on-site is being safeguarded.

He also said the search is on budget.

Jeremy Skibicki was convicted of killing Harris, Myran and two other Indigenous women: Rebecca Contois, 24, whose remains were found in a different landfill; and an unidentified woman an Indigenous grassroots community has named Mashkode Bizhikiikwe, or Buffalo Woman.

The remains of Buffalo Woman have not been located.

Kinew said he visited the site with the Myran and Harris families Sunday, which marked two years to the day the Harris family learned Morgan had been killed, putting in motion an outcry to search the landfill.

Kinew hopes the project will serve as a value statement on who Manitoba is as a province.

“We are a province where if someone goes missing, we go looking and today, as we move into stage four, we could say with the utmost of moral clarity that we are living up to that statement.”