Thousands marched against the Energy East pipeline in Quebec yesterday.
That’s because a critical part of the Energy East pipeline project is to construct a marine terminal on the eastern shore of the St. Lawrence River to load supertankers with 700,000 to 1.1 million barrels of tar sands bitumen for export. The terminal would be located in a habitat critical for the endangered beluga whale.
People travelled from Montreal, Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Rimouski and Tadoussac to take part in the protest.
The Montreal Gazette reports, “A couple of thousand protesters marched through Cacouna and down to its waterfront on the St-Lawrence River on Saturday demanding Quebec halt planned oil projects in the region. …The marchers came from different corners of the province to speak out against TransCanada’s plans to build an international oil port in Cacouna, near Rivière-du-Loup, and a pipeline to carry crude from the Canadian West to Quebec. …Many protesters held up signs calling for the protection of threatened belugas that swim in the waters near Cacouna.”