The Reeve for Emerson-Franklin Municipality is wondering, what was the desperation that drove a group of people to try and cross the Canada/U.S. border on foot in such dangerous weather conditions? Dave Carlson says this week's news of four people, including an infant, found dead near the international border, is sad and heartbreaking.

time in the community, and said residents shared his shock and sadness of the situation.

"Probably, over the years, everyone's been in a situation where you're in a blizzard and you're wondering how you're going to get out of it. You can just imagine what a terrible time they must have gone through at the end there with extreme windchills and probably zero-visibility."

"Maybe it was the promises made," wondered Carlson. "It's looking like human smugglers. Maybe they made certain promises and made it out to be like an easy run across the border, and it definitely isn't at the best of times. They're obviously victims of these smugglers that made some promises that weren't being kept and it went really sideways."

een in the past.

"Possibly, with the political climate changing down in the United States we may see more people going south as opposed to north," he said.

During 2017/2018, the Reeve noted border officials and first responders were overwhelmed with distress calls from people lost in the cold as they tried to cross from the United States into Canada.

During a news conference on Thursday, RCMP Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy agreed it is uncommon for people to make irregular border crossings from Canada to the U.S. MacLatchy also confirmed there have been very few instances of such border crossings made on foot in Manitoba over the past couple of years.

Carlson agreed.

"It has gotten less. I think the prevalence of crossings are more in eastern Canada now. It does still happen, we know that there is still the odd crossing but not nearly what it was."

"I just hope no one else tries it," added Carlson. "You can see what can happen. This outcome was a really tragic thing and definitely don't want to see this happen again."