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Pipe Dreams: The Fight for Canada's Energy Future
Winner of the 2018 Writers' Federation of New Brunswick Book Award for Non-Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2018 Writers' Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
Shortlisted for the 2019 JW Dafoe Book Prize
A timely chronicle of how Canada's oil pipelines have become hotbeds for debate about our energy future, Indigenous rights, environmental activism, and east-west political tensions.
Pipe Dreams is the dramatic story of the rise and fall of the Energy East pipeline and the broader battle over climate and energy in Canada. The project was to be a monumental undertaking, beginning near Edmonton, AB, and stretching over four thousand kilometres, through Montreal to the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, NB. Conceived as a back-up plan for the stalled Keystone XL pipeline, it became the crucible for a national debate over the future of oil.
In a cross-country journey, Poitras talked to industry executives, prairie ranchers, First Nations chiefs, mayors, premiers, cabinet ministers, and refinery workers. He also explored Canada's perplexing oil relationship with the United States: our industry is literally tied to its American counterpart with sinews of steel. The Energy East pipeline represented a new direction, designed to get Alberta oil sands crude to lucrative world markets. Yet it was promoted in explicitly nationalist terms: the country was said to be reorienting itself along its east-west axis, tying itself together, again, with a great feat of engineering.
By the time the journey ended, the story had become a kind of whodunit: Poitras witnessed the slow-motion killing of the fifteen billion dollar project. Unfolding in tandem with clashes over the Trans Mountain pipeline, Energy East's demise heralded a potential turning point not just for a single proposal, but for Canada's carbon economy.
Entertaining, informative, and insightful, Pipe Dreams offers a clear picture of the complicated political, environmental, and economic issues that Canadians face.
Shortlisted for the 2018 Writers' Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
Shortlisted for the 2019 JW Dafoe Book Prize
A timely chronicle of how Canada's oil pipelines have become hotbeds for debate about our energy future, Indigenous rights, environmental activism, and east-west political tensions.
Pipe Dreams is the dramatic story of the rise and fall of the Energy East pipeline and the broader battle over climate and energy in Canada. The project was to be a monumental undertaking, beginning near Edmonton, AB, and stretching over four thousand kilometres, through Montreal to the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, NB. Conceived as a back-up plan for the stalled Keystone XL pipeline, it became the crucible for a national debate over the future of oil.
In a cross-country journey, Poitras talked to industry executives, prairie ranchers, First Nations chiefs, mayors, premiers, cabinet ministers, and refinery workers. He also explored Canada's perplexing oil relationship with the United States: our industry is literally tied to its American counterpart with sinews of steel. The Energy East pipeline represented a new direction, designed to get Alberta oil sands crude to lucrative world markets. Yet it was promoted in explicitly nationalist terms: the country was said to be reorienting itself along its east-west axis, tying itself together, again, with a great feat of engineering.
By the time the journey ended, the story had become a kind of whodunit: Poitras witnessed the slow-motion killing of the fifteen billion dollar project. Unfolding in tandem with clashes over the Trans Mountain pipeline, Energy East's demise heralded a potential turning point not just for a single proposal, but for Canada's carbon economy.
Entertaining, informative, and insightful, Pipe Dreams offers a clear picture of the complicated political, environmental, and economic issues that Canadians face.
- GenresNonfictionCanadaPolitics
336 pages, Hardcover
First published September 25, 2018
3 people are currently reading
101 people want to read
About the author
Jacques Poitras
7 books32 followersJACQUES POITRAS is a journalist and author of five books of non-fiction, including Irving vs. Irving: Canada's Feuding Billionaires and the Stories They Won't Tell, a national best-seller shortlisted for the National Business Book Award; and Pipe Dreams: The Fight for Canada's Energy Future, shortlisted for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the John W. Dafoe Book Prize. He is also the author of The Right Fight: Bernard Lord and the Conservative Dilemma, Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy, and Imaginary Line: Life on an Unfinished Border. Poitras lives in Fredericton and has been the provincial affairs reporter for CBC News in New Brunswick since 2000.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 20, 2021
I think this is a 3.5 but rounding up because I did find it quite interesting. I was a bit tired of it by the end but I'm glad to have read it.
At least in my opinion this felt like a balanced perspective - the author does not take a position for or against pipelines in general or the Energy East pipeline, which is the main focus of this book. I don't think this is a book that will necessarily change anyone's mind but it does a really thorough job of explaining the complexities of pipeline regulations, economics, and politics. I don't personally believe that pipelines or really any kind of major infrastructure or energy project is ever "black and white" and this book definitely emphasized why.
I learned a lot about New Brunswick which from a prairie perspective, is a province we don't really know much about or understand. In fact NB is probably the province I know the least about! This book really highlighted the differences between regions and provinces of Canada and why attempting to build a cross-country oil pipeline was always going to be a ridiculously difficult undertaking.
I wish there had been some explanation of how pipelines actually work, both gas and oil, as part of Energy East was going to be a conversion of a gas pipeline to oil. I would have liked to understand what that would have entailed.
Overall quite interesting and enlightening regarding the values and views of other areas of the country but started to feel like a slog towards the end, glad to be done. This couldn't have been an easy undertaking for a book! Such a complex issue.
Would recommend if you're interested in taking a deep dive into one particular pipeline project, or generally interested in Canadian politics/energy policy, but it's not exactly a page-turner.
At least in my opinion this felt like a balanced perspective - the author does not take a position for or against pipelines in general or the Energy East pipeline, which is the main focus of this book. I don't think this is a book that will necessarily change anyone's mind but it does a really thorough job of explaining the complexities of pipeline regulations, economics, and politics. I don't personally believe that pipelines or really any kind of major infrastructure or energy project is ever "black and white" and this book definitely emphasized why.
I learned a lot about New Brunswick which from a prairie perspective, is a province we don't really know much about or understand. In fact NB is probably the province I know the least about! This book really highlighted the differences between regions and provinces of Canada and why attempting to build a cross-country oil pipeline was always going to be a ridiculously difficult undertaking.
I wish there had been some explanation of how pipelines actually work, both gas and oil, as part of Energy East was going to be a conversion of a gas pipeline to oil. I would have liked to understand what that would have entailed.
Overall quite interesting and enlightening regarding the values and views of other areas of the country but started to feel like a slog towards the end, glad to be done. This couldn't have been an easy undertaking for a book! Such a complex issue.
Would recommend if you're interested in taking a deep dive into one particular pipeline project, or generally interested in Canadian politics/energy policy, but it's not exactly a page-turner.
December 18, 2018
A good story about the ill-fated Energy East pipeline. The author travels the length of the proposed pipeline, reporting on reaction from communities along the way. Even if you’re familiar with the macro politics around this, you’ll learn a lot about the local issues and nuance that inform pipeline and energy politics across Canada.
November 13, 2018
I think oil is boring. But I loved this book. A great look at an industry that ties the country together.
November 13, 2018
Another interesting, well written and researched book from Poitras. On my Christmas list for the history and political buffs in my family.
February 16, 2023
A great book to learn about Energy East, but also the nature of politics in general. Politics in all its non-committal, cynical, horse trading glory is on display here. I love how the story is told through interviews with people of different perspectives and backgrounds. The human aspect of it makes the policy wonkery more palatable. Poitras is a great storyteller!
October 8, 2018
Disappointing. The author focuses too much on the local issues raised by the Energy East Pipeline project, but doesn’t assess the overall implications of the failure of this project. For example, one wonders if Canada is even a country, based on the regional lack of interest in a project that would have benefited the entire nation. No discussion of the billions in economic benefits that will never be realized.
May 21, 2019
A truly fantastic idea for a book;
Travel across Canada following the proposed route of a pipeline, interviewing people and telling the pipelines story along the way.
Unfortunately, this book falls short of what I expected. This is due to the combination of the writers style, no new information (outside of what I followed on the national news), un-inspirational interviews, and a ton of repetition.
Travel across Canada following the proposed route of a pipeline, interviewing people and telling the pipelines story along the way.
Unfortunately, this book falls short of what I expected. This is due to the combination of the writers style, no new information (outside of what I followed on the national news), un-inspirational interviews, and a ton of repetition.
February 7, 2020
Yikes. This one was a doozy. Firstly, perhaps a better title could have been chosen since every time I tried searching for this book, I was inundated by soft porn.
In any case, I started reading Pipe Dreams interested and genuinely curious to better understand the highly fraught politics concerning pipelines. Now that I’ve finished Pipe Dreams, I am exhausted and no longer interested in pipelines. Take from that what you will.
In any case, I started reading Pipe Dreams interested and genuinely curious to better understand the highly fraught politics concerning pipelines. Now that I’ve finished Pipe Dreams, I am exhausted and no longer interested in pipelines. Take from that what you will.
May 17, 2025
A well-crafted narrative charting the rise and fall of the Energy East pipeline, geographically and politically. Particularly interesting to see the impact of regional dynamics in the current world of US tariffs and revived discussions of an East-West electrical grid to reduce reliance on North-South energy trade.
February 1, 2019
A nice, easy-to-read chronology of Canada's proposed Energy East pipeline. Poitras presented a relatively objective, centrist view on one of Canada's most debated contemporary issues- a must read for those interested in Canadian politics.
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August 3, 2022I read this book because I usually read anything that’s about the Irvings; I’m surprised I didn’t read it when it came out in 2018. But maybe that was because the Irvings are only a small part of this story, something I didn’t totally realize until I read this book.
June 28, 2019
It was time to read about my newly adopted home (Canada) and lifelong profession (Oil & Gas). This is not about climate change exactly but on politics and how it shifted from building cross Canada pipeline to abandoning the project. Slightly dry at times but content wise it was fulfilling.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews