The Municipality of Chatham…

The Municipality of Chatham-Kent is listed as a co-proponent of the companion waste disposal
application (ERO 026-0437) for this same facility at 175 Bloomfield Road. On April 27, 2026,
before any of the three companion provincial approvals were filed, the same Municipality voted
11 to 4 against consulting Walpole Island First Nation.

A co-proponent of the facility voted to remove the consultation requirement that stood between itself and its own approval. This appears as a conflict of interest.

The air and noise approval cannot be considered in isolation from this conflict. The three
applications — air, sewage, and waste — were filed together as a single integrated facility. The
consultation failure embedded in the municipal process infects all three. An air approval issued
on this record is an approval issued by a Province that proceeded with a co-proponent's
application after that co-proponent voted to silence the downstream Indigenous nation whose
airshed, watershed, and territories bear the consequences.

Municipalities have no independent constitutional status. They are creatures of provincial
statute, existing only by virtue of provincial authority delegated under section 92(8) of the
Constitution Act, 1867. Municipalities carry no independent treaty obligations and no independent authority to satisfy — or eliminate — the Crown's duty to consult. When the Municipality of Chatham-Kent voted to remove Indigenous consultation as a condition of this approval, it was exercising delegated provincial power.

The Province cannot use municipal delegation to escape a federal constitutional obligation. The duty
to consult belongs to the Crown. It flows from section 35, the honour of the Crown, and
Canada's obligations under UNDRIP.

No municipal vote, no provincial approval process, and no omnibus economic legislation can transfer, diminish, or extinguish it. The lines of authority are clear. The obligation runs from the federal Crown to Bkejwanong Territory rights holders directly — and it has not been met.

Section 35 — Aboriginal and Treaty Rights
Aboriginal and Treaty Rights are guaranteed under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 at
the federal constitutional level. The duty to consult and accommodate flows from section 35 and
the honour of the Crown. It is a federal obligation that cannot be satisfied or evaded through
provincial approval processes that proceed without Indigenous consent and without substantive
engagement with rights-holders through their own legitimate governance institutions.

Section 91(24) and the Limits of Section 92 Authority
The Province derives authority to issue Environmental Compliance Approvals from section 92 of
the Constitution Act, 1867. Provincial powers under section 92 cannot be exercised in ways that
infringe on rights under federal jurisdiction — including Indians and Lands reserved for Indians
under section 91(24), and Aboriginal and Treaty Rights protected under section 35. When the
Province issues an air approval authorizing continuous industrial emissions into the airshed of
unceded Indigenous territory — without satisfying the duty to consult, without a cumulative
airshed assessment, and without consent through legitimate hereditary governance — it is
exercising section 92 powers to infringe on federally protected rights. That infringement is
constitutionally impermissible.

Treaty Rights — Air, Land, and the Right to Continue
Our treaty relationships with the Crown include the right to continue using our lands, territories,
and resources — including the right to hunt, gather plant medicine, conduct ceremony, and
sustain land-based food systems within our territory. These rights depend on the environmental
integrity of our airshed. Hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and nitrogen oxides are not merely
regulatory contaminants. In sufficient concentrations and cumulative loading, they compromise
the land-based practices our treaty rights protect. An air approval that authorizes continuous
emission of these compounds into our airshed — without assessing cumulative impacts on
those practices — is an infringement of treaty rights that the Province cannot authorize through
a section 92 approval process. What is released into the air eventually makes its way back into our water table.

The Oneida Precedent — Air, Wind, and the Health Record That
Doesn't Exist Community Testimony as Evidence

Community members of Oneida Nation of the Thames have testified that on windy days, the
odour from the Green Lane Landfill — an anaerobic waste processing facility using the same
RNG technology proposed at 175 Bloomfield Road — makes it unbearable to be outside or to
keep windows open in their homes. Community members are now reporting rising cancer rates.
These are not published statistics. They are public testimony of people living with the
consequences of an approval that was granted without their consent.

Community testimony about lived environmental harm is a recognized form of evidence in
Indigenous rights contexts. The Supreme Court of Canada has affirmed that oral histories and
community knowledge are valid forms of evidence that must be given serious weight. The
Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks is bound to consider this testimony. The
fact that no published health study documents the connection between the Green Lane Landfill
and Oneida Nation's rising cancer rates does not weaken the testimony. It deepens the
indictment.

The Absent Health Study Is the Argument
No independent baseline air quality assessment was completed for the Green Lane Landfill
before it was approved. No independent health risk assessment has been completed for Oneida
Nation of the Thames in the nearly two decades since. The community identified the need and
sought to conduct their own assessment — BCR #2459, November 21, 2023 — and that
assessment was deferred. The cancer rates are rising. The study that could connect cause and
effect has never been done.

The Ministry now proposes to approve an air and noise certificate for an identical technology at
a new location — also without an independent baseline air quality assessment, also without a
health risk assessment, also within a watershed and airshed whose downstream Indigenous
community has not consented. The Oneida precedent does not prove that this facility will
produce the same harm. It proves that the regulatory process being applied here has already
failed to prevent that harm once, on the same river, with the same technology. That is enough to
require a different approach.

Prevailing Wind Patterns and Bkejwanong Territory
The prevailing wind patterns of southwestern Ontario carry air mass from the Chatham-Kent
region toward Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River corridor — the waters of Bkejwanong
Territory. Hydrogen sulfide and ammonia in particular are wind-carried compounds with
documented acute and chronic health effects at community scale. No dispersion modelling has
been placed on the public record demonstrating that continuous emissions from this facility —
operating seven days a week, year round, including flare events and tail gas exhaust — will not
reach Bkejwanong Territory at concentrations that would affect human health, plant communities, or
the species our food sovereignty depends upon.

The absence of that modelling is not a gap to be filled after approval. It must be resolved before
any approval is granted.

Noise — The Approval Addresses Decibels, Not Rights
The Environmental Compliance Approval for air and noise addresses noise as a technical
regulatory matter — decibel levels, operating hours, distance attenuation. It does not address
noise as a rights matter.

The Anishinaabeg of Bkejwanong Territory conduct ceremony on the land. We harvest plant
medicines in the quiet of early morning and late season. We teach our children to listen to the
land — to the birds, the wind, the water — as part of understanding our responsibilities under
chi-naakenigewin. Continuous industrial noise from a facility operating seven days a week, year
round, from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., does not stop at a property line. It enters the soundscape of
a living territory, one that houses over 700 rare and endangered species some of which exist no where else on the planet.

No assessment has been conducted of the impact of continuous industrial noise on land-based
practices, cultural transmission, or the right of Bkejwanong Territory's people to experience our
land in the way our laws and our relationships with land require. Decibel compliance is not the
same as rights compliance and the approval as proposed addresses only the former.

Contaminants — No Baseline, No Cumulative Assessment
The proposed approval permits emission of the following contaminants to atmosphere: acetone,
ethanol, methanol, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and carbon
monoxide — released through a biofilter, flare, aeration tanks, and tail gas exhaust through
upgrading units. These emissions are proposed within the same airshed as the Riverside
Generating Station (Atura/OPG), the Hydro One St. Clair Transmission Line corridor, the
Boralex Tilbury Battery Storage project, and additional petrochemical and industrial
infrastructure operating within the Southwest Ontario Energy Hub.

No baseline air quality data adequate to assess incremental and cumulative risk has been
placed on the public record.

No cumulative airshed assessment has been conducted for the
combined emissions burden of the Energy Hub on the communities, territories, and ecosystems
within its airshed — including Bkejwanong Territory.

Hydrogen sulfide and ammonia carry known acute and chronic health impacts. Nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide contribute to acid deposition affecting freshwater ecosystems, plant medicine communities, and the species our food sovereignty and cultural practice depend upon.

There are predictable, documented outcomes of this class of facility operating within a
cumulative industrial context. Without a baseline and a cumulative assessment, the Ministry
cannot lawfully determine whether this approval is consistent with the protection of Bkejwanong Unceded Anishinaabeg Territory's Aboriginal and Treaty Rights, the honour of the Crown, or Canada's agreed to without condition, commitment and obligations to UNDRIP.

Bill 5 — Provincial Legislation Cannot Block Federal Constitutional Rights
This approval is being processed inside a regulatory environment shaped by Bill 5: Protect
Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025, which removes environmental assessment
requirements that would otherwise trigger mandatory consultation under section 35. The
Province cannot use section 92 authority to accomplish what it cannot do directly — eliminate
federally protected Aboriginal and Treaty Rights.

Bill 5's removal of assessment triggers is a provincial statute being applied to foreclose the consultation that constitutional law requires. The approval, if issued on this record, rests on a constitutionally defective foundation.

The Consultation Record Is Structurally Compromised
The consultation integrity failures documented across all three companion applications apply
equally to this air and noise approval. The 11-4 municipal vote by a co-proponent against
consulting Walpole Island First Nation. Corporate elder engagement without disclosure of
financial conflicts. Displacement of an elected councilor raising legitimate duty to consult
concerns — documented in the Sydenham Current and on Radio Elsewhere. Censorship of
formal communication to Miskokomon, advised and mentored by the traditional community water governance authority, documented in writing.

The taxation argument used to imply lesser standing is simply an excuse to try and sanitize and erase rights, and are not administrative procedure.

Legitimate concerns were not merely overlooked. They were brushed aside, misrepresented,
and where necessary, are being actively suppressed. The consultation record built on this foundation
cannot satisfy the constitutional standard. It cannot satisfy UNDRIP. And it cannot satisfy the
honour of the Crown.

Specific UNDRIP Articles Engaged by This Air Approval

Canada affirmed UNDRIP as binding interpretive law through Bill C-15 in 2021. The following
Articles are directly engaged:

• Article 18 — Right to participate through representatives chosen by the community.
Violated through documented displacement of elected governance and censorship of
communications to and from Miskokomon.
• Article 19 — States shall consult in good faith through Indigenous peoples' own
representative institutions before adopting administrative measures that may affect
them. No such consultation has occurred.
• Article 24 — Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to
maintain their health practices. Plant medicine harvest, ceremony, and land-based
health practices within Bkejwanong Territory are directly affected by industrial air
emissions and noise from a continuous year-round operation.
• Article 25 — Right to maintain and strengthen spiritual relationship with traditionally used
lands, territories, waters, and the environment. The soundscape, air quality, and
ecological integrity of Bkejwanong Territory are part of that living relationship.
• Article 29(2) — States shall take effective measures to ensure no disposal of hazardous
materials takes place on Indigenous lands without free, prior, and informed consent.
Hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, and nitrogen oxides at cumulative industrial
concentrations constitute hazardous materials under any reasonable interpretation.
• Article 32(2) — States shall consult through Indigenous peoples' own representative
institutions before approving projects affecting their lands or territories. The 11-4 vote by
a municipal co-proponent constitutes documented refusal.

No UNDRIP consistency analysis appears in the public record. That analysis must be placed on
the record before any approval is granted.

Demands
As a Sovereign citizen of Bkejwanong Anishinaabeg Unceded Territory, and daughter of a matriarchal Grandmother of the Hereditary Line, I formally object to ERO 026-0434 and
demand that the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks:

• Refuse to issue the Environmental Compliance Approval (Air & Noise) for Greenfield
Global Inc. at 175 Bloomfield Road until free, prior, and informed consent has been
obtained through legitimate hereditary governance of Bkejwanong Territory;
• Require an independent baseline air quality assessment for the Southwest Ontario
Energy Hub airshed before any air approval within it is granted or renewed — including
prevailing wind dispersion modelling to Bkejwanong Territory;
• Require a comprehensive cumulative airshed assessment integrating emissions from
this facility with all existing and approved industrial activity within the Energy Hub;
• Require an independent health risk assessment for communities within the airshed —
including Bkejwanong Territory — before approving continuous emission of hydrogen
sulphide, ammonia, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, and carbon monoxide;
• Require an assessment of the impact of continuous industrial noise on land-based
practices, cultural transmission, ceremony, and the exercise of Aboriginal and Treaty
Rights within Bkejwanong Territory — not merely decibel compliance;
• Recognize that the Oneida Nation of the Thames precedent — community-reported
health impacts, rising cancer rates, and a deferred health risk assessment after nearly
two decades of the same technology on the same river — constitutes documented
foreseeable harm that the Ministry cannot claim was unknown; and
• Place on the public record a UNDRIP consistency analysis addressing Articles 18, 19,
24, 25, 29(2), and 32(2);
• Recognize the co-proponent conflict of interest created by the Municipality of Chatham-
Kent's dual role as approval co-proponent and the body that voted 11-4 against
consulting Walpole Island First Nation;
• Require an integrated review of all three companion applications — ERO 026-0434 (air),
ERO 026-0436 (sewage), and ERO 026-0437 (waste) — as a single facility before any
of the three approvals is granted;
• Engage the Sovereign Grandmothers of the Hereditary Line as the legitimate hereditary
governance authority for matters affecting Bkejwanong Territory before any decision on
this application is made.

This comment is made in support of Walpole Island Unceded Anishinaabeg First Nation