Walpole Island First Nation holds protest against Dresden landfill expansion

Heather Kitching · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 15, 2025 8:12 PM EDT | Last Updated: 8 hours ago

Fire keepers from Walpole Island First Nation watched implicit a ineffable occurrence adjacent the slope of the Sydenham River implicit the play arsenic portion of a bid of events successful effect to a planned landfill enlargement successful Dresden — and Ontario authorities that look designed to expedite it.

Knowledge keepers from the assemblage stood connected the enactment and sang a h2o opus successful Anishinaabemowin arsenic much than a twelve canoes and kayaks glided down the stream from Dresden to Wallaceburg, praying arsenic they paddled.

"The ineligible protections. They were determination for a reason. I'm confused connected wherefore we're going backwards and wherefore we're not protecting our homes similar we utilized to," said Chloe White-Deleary, 1 of the paddlers.

"It counts connected humans, each of us, to beryllium stewards of the land. And successful my culture, we deliberation astir not conscionable us, but similar what are we doing to support the adjacent 7 generations?"

Waste absorption institution York1, is proposing to grow the landfill site, located conscionable implicit a kilometre from the borderline of Dresden, to screen 25 hectares and person 6,000 tonnes of operation and demolition discarded each day. 

A spokesperson told CBC successful a connection successful aboriginal June that it plans to usage the tract to crook cleanable wood into mulch, compost, and earthy materials for particleboard and insubstantial manufacturing; to crook mixed wood discarded into alternate low-carbon fuels; and to hole stone and rubble for usage successful cement and factual production, aggregate replacement successful construction, basal for sports fields oregon moving tracks and decorative usage successful landscaping.

But the connection has faced important assemblage absorption from section residents and biology groups acrophobic astir the interaction connected adjacent bodies of water.

And that absorption has grown since the Ford authorities introduced Bill 5, which became instrumentality connected June 5 and which exempts "specified activities relating to the Chatham-Kent discarded disposal site" from Part II.3 of the Environmental Assessment Act, which requires applications for projects nether the conception to beryllium accompanied by biology assessments.

Walpole Island First Nation Chief Leela Thomas told CBC Windsor Morning Tuesday she thinks the government's actions interruption Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, which includes a work to consult First Nations earlier making decisions that could interaction their rights.

It besides violates the Treaty of Niagara and the United Nations Declaration connected the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, she said, which requires governments to question free, anterior and informed consent for developments connected their lands.  

"Our household members usage those waterways for hiking, fishing, harvesting and our ceremony," Thomas said.

"And we person those pact rights to support our rights to fish, to hunt and harvest and signifier our civilization connected our ain ancestral lands and waterways." 

Nine First Nations are seeking an injunction to forestall authorities from utilizing Bill 5 and national Bill C-5 to fast-track infrastructure projects, arguing that both pieces of authorities authorize "the Crown to unilaterally ram done projects without meaningful oregon immoderate engagement with First Nations" and "violate the law work of the Crown to beforehand ... reconciliation."

In effect to a petition for remark astir the ineligible challenge, the bureau of Ontario Premier Doug Ford said it had begun "productive conversations with First Nations who stock our imaginativeness of unlocking economical accidental and captious infrastructure successful their community, and volition proceed these consultations passim the summer."

"These consultations volition signifier the regulations and criteria for caller peculiar economical zones and Indigenous-led economical zones."

Thomas said she is honoured to person truthful galore assemblage members, particularly young ones, who are vocal astir the interaction of Bill 5. 

She is besides grateful for generations of assemblage members who have been dedicated to protecting the onshore and h2o and passing those teachings connected to younger generations. 

The extremity of the occurrence was to make a peaceful gathering wherever decisions affecting aboriginal generations could beryllium made collectively with afloat knowing of the consequences, said Amy White, a councillor with the First Nation.

White had a almighty acquisition astatine the occurrence erstwhile she saw 3 immature eagles circling overhead in a clockwise direction, she said.

"I shared that with the elder who I get [advice] from," White said.

"And what she had shared was that shows the transportation betwixt the adjacent generation, and truthful however important … of a relation they are going to play successful this movement."