Chris Donovan

As a child, I looked up at the smokestacks in my hometown and asked my father if they made all of the world’s clouds. “No,” he replied. “They make money.” It's a common experience in Saint John, NB, a company town that is home to Canada’s largest oil refinery.

The Cloud Factory project reflects on environmental classism in a city that is home to the billionaire Irving family. It is also home to one of the country’s poorest neighbourhoods, with a child poverty rate of approximately 50 percent. Through photographing environmental injustice, and reflecting on my own upbringing, I examine how identity is formed in a community that relies on a harmful industry for survival.

The Irving family has monopolized the local economy and until 2022, owned every English-language newspaper in the province. This has created a culture of censorship that has allowed the oil industry to tighten its grip on the community for decades. This project highlights some of the stories that have been left out by this censorship.

One such story is that of Lisa Crandall and her family, who live in the Bayside neighbourhood adjacent to the refinery. In 2018, a butane leak from a pipeline about 200 meters from their home leaked at least 30,000L of the natural gas into their neighbourhood over a 17-hour period. Following the incident and public backlash, Irving Oil reportedly purchased some of the homes that were affected by the evacuations for prices ranging between $80,000 to $110,000. Lisa’s home was not purchased. As a result, her family has lived in fear of further disaster ever since, but cannot afford to move.

Saint John is a microcosm of what is happening on a global scale, as large corporations prey on the poor in search of perpetual profits. These power structures are meant to keep industrial communities sick and marginalized, unable to fight the corporations that are oppressing them.