Exposing Energy East: People at Risk by TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline Plan

Along the Pipeline

In this era of pipeline debates, we often hear from politicians, pundits and environmental groups, but not from the people most directly impacted – people who live or work along the route of a pipeline.This past summer photographer Robert van Waarden travelled the proposed EnergyEast pipeline route, conducting interviews and portrait sessions with Canadians and First Nations who live along the pipeline’s route. For more information visit, AlongthePipeline.com

Take action to reject Energy East.

Zoe Gould, Rancher, Student
Consort, Alberta
“ I guess I didn’t really notice the oil industry growing up. Now that I have been away for a bit I notice it more. It is really prevalent here it is big money and jobs. It is sort of a conflict of interest depending on where your focus is… the agriculture? Or getting as much oil out of the land as possible? I don’t have any solutions but I do see problems.”
Judie and Angee Acquin, Sisters, Singers, Protectors, Wolastoq Nation St Marys
“We are the people of the Wolastoq the beautiful bountiful river. A river that has supplied food and medicines not just to the two-legged but to the four-legged. Birds fish. She the river is already struggling to provide these things for us and many won’t even eat from Wolastoq anymore. We need to protect her at all costs. Not for today but for the many tomorrows that we will never see.”
Bob Smoker, Spiritualist, Medicine Man, Kahkewistahaw First Nation, Saskatchewan
“Perhaps we have to look at life inward for that answer. For a settlement of compromise compassion love kindness. That’s how you create your walk on the earth. Go in the gentlest way possible. Simple little words that our grandfathers our grandmothers taught us when we were children. But we broke ‘em all. For us to move ahead perhaps we have to move within.”
Keith Hobbs, Mayor, former chair of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, Thunder Bay, Ontario
“Just because a pipeline is going to be shipping crude across this country doesn’t mean that rail is going to stop. Now you have two forms of transportation where you had one before. The Energy East pipeline and other transportation modes for fossil fuels are high on our radar. Our biggest issue is where they are going to cross waterways especially when they impact the Great Lakes.”
Karine Audet, Mother, Landowner along Energy East’s proposed route, St. Raphael de Bellechasse Quebec
“TransCanada wants to leave the pipeline in place forever. So after this we the landowners become responsible for any spills or problems that follow. A pipeline on our land . . . What are we going to do with that? What are our kids going to say? What have you done mom and dad to let a project like that pass on our land?”
Robert Smith, Organic Farmer, Austin, Manitoba
“We have the main CN the main CPR line the Trans-Canada Highway and TransCanada pipelines coming through Austin Manitoba. I have seen train derailments major accidents pipelines blowing up. I know it is a matter of time until it happens again. The question I have to our emergency personnel is are you ready for it? And are you ready for it when it happens in a sensitive area like my water source?”
Henry Harris, Fisherman, Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick
“I quit school when I was 14 and started fishin’. I’ve pretty well been aboard a lobster boat ever since. There is good money it in and it is a good lifestyle. I knew I wasn’t smart enough to be in school ’cause I had problems in school so I figured fishin’ would be my lifestyle. Right now lobster fishin’ is the only thing that keeps this island goin’. I’d never want to see something bad like an oil spill here ’cause it would affect everyone.”
Elizabeth Frazer, retired United Church minister, North Bay, Ontario
“The greater concern for myself is the environmental one. We are connected not only locally but globally and the expansion of the tar sands by this project would worsen climate change. I’m very much opposed to that. I don’t see any benefit not only to our local Canadian population but as a citizen of the world this expansion is what I would call a madness.”
Cedar Woman, Bear Clan, Anishinaabe ikwe, Manitoba
“Imagine you can’t go swimming in that water. Imagine you can’t eat that fish . . . you can’t eat that moose no more. You will have no more green . . . how will that make you feel? We need to come together and unify because if we don’t stand up together this is going to continue.”
Serge Simon, Mohawk Chief, Kanesatake, Quebec
“TransCanada says Energy East will bring lots of money and money will pour into my community along with the oil. Bullshit. I don't believe that. And even if it were true I wouldn't want their dirty money because I couldn't live with myself thinking that I had something to do with the eventual frying of this planet.”