The Energy East pipeline project is described by its owners TransCanada as, “a 4,500-kilometre project that will carry approximately 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada”.

Safety wise, it boasts a centralized control centre, filled with highly trained staff who will use, “state-of-the-art surveillance systems to monitor Energy East, 24/7, 365 days a year”.

On top of that, regarding job building, “Energy East will create an estimated 10,000 direct full-time jobs during the first six years of development and construction and another 1,000 full-time jobs when it’s operating.”

Now on the surface, these figures might seem great. Promotional even.

If you’d like to find out more from TransCanada, please click on its website here.

That said, not everything is as it seems. Both environmental and Indigenous groups have been resisting the building of Energy East since its inception. The pipeline itself is forty years old. The plan is to convert a pipeline that used to carry natural gas to one that will transport 1.1 million of crude oil per day from Saskatchewan to Ontario, then connecting it with new pipeline through Quebec and to Saint John, New Brunswick. From there, tankers can help export the oil where ever the corporation wishes.

I know many articles have been written about the Energy East plan, but I’d like to introduce this video as well.

Titled: Energy East 101, this four minute video was produced by the Council of Canadians and Equiterre. 

Krystalline Kraus

krystalline kraus is an intrepid explorer and reporter from Toronto, Canada. A veteran activist and journalist for rabble.ca, she needs no aviator goggles, gas mask or red cape but proceeds fearlessly...