If you’re going to have a Performance in the Park, who better to invite than musician and environmentalist Sarah Harmer, who contributed “The Park Song” in 2011 for the National Parks Project, as part of Parks Canada’s centennial celebrations.
The Juno-nominated, platinum-selling artist puts just as much energy into environmental causes she holds near and dear as she does into making music. Harmer turned heads in 2005 when she launched her I Love the Escarpment tour to promote Protecting Escarpment Rural Land (PERL), which led to the Juno-winning concert and documentary film Escarpment Blues, protesting a proposed quarry development in the Niagara Escarpment.
Performance in the Park takes place June 20-21 and will also feature Canadian artists Corb Lund, Elliott Brood, Whitehorse and Jeremy Fisher.
Harmer still stays busy with PERL (Harmer is a co-founder), but has spent much of the last year being involved in Enbridge’s planned Line 9 oil pipeline, located in southern Ontario.
“PERL is keeping its eye on things that are going on in north Burlington in the Niagara Escarpment,” Harmer said. “I don’t live there, so I’m not at all the meetings, but I’m keeping up through my mom and the other members of the team. There’s threats, there’s some really positive things and the city of Burlington is studying the whole area and determining whether to put a cultural and natural designation on it to further protect it because we were able to protect the area that was at risk from the quarry.
“It’s close to millions of people and it’s precious and there’s always concerns that more industrial development will apply to either mines, or there’s an airport close by, so there’s concern about expansion on that.”
Enbridge’s Line 9 is one of the proposed Alberta oilsands export routes that runs through southern Ontario through Mt. Nemo, which heavily concerns Harmer. “It’s probably the highest elevation of the whole Line 9. It threatens all of the same stuff the quarry threatened – I don’t know if it’s ironic, but there’s a risk of rupturing this 40-year old pipeline that goes right next to a salamander habitat, right through provincially significant wetlands, so there’s always stuff to be vigilant on, but there have been some good developments too. A lot of people are coming together with PERL and the rural coalition, there’s a lot of engaged citizens which is great.”
A section of Line 9 runs through the back of her parent’s property in Burlington. “I applied to be an intervener and took part in probably a six- to eight-month long hearing process as an intervener and did a lot of studying and met with other interveners and learned a whole bunch and realized the grave risks that the old pipe proposes.
“Experts have come to the consensus that it’s extremely dangerous and a terrible proposal and yet it was approved with conditions,” Harmer said. “There’s a dig proposed right on my parent’s property, one of the hundreds of digs they’re doing on this line and they’re finding thousands of dents, cracks and corrosion in areas.
“Enbridge is supposed to give us two weeks notice and we haven’t heard from them yet, so we know there is a dig happening down the road. Soon there will be another one right next to the wetlands, right over top of them, so it’s ongoing.
“A whole bunch of the information they’re finding out with these digs isn’t going to be part of the decision making and final approval, so it’s a really botched process and a lot of big, glaring issues were not addressed and not properly accounted for. It’s definitely alarming but it ain’t over yet.”
Harmer says the website www.EnvironmentalDefence.ca is a good site to visit to learn more on the Line 9 proposal. She’s been spending the last month gardening and tree planting at her home, located north of Kingston, Ont. “I live in the country and I don’t have a landscaper, we have to deal with the wildness of it all and it’s been really fun planting fruit trees and fencing them off from the deer – just doing some fun domestic stuff – but also playing a few shows and benefits and trying to keep up on things I’m interested in to be a part of,” Harmer said.
She says she’s playing a handful of concerts this summer, but has relished in the time practicing with friends for the upcoming performances. “It’s been great to get old friends back together to get ready for the shows. I’m playing with Cam Giroux on the drums who I played with in Weeping Tile, our old band,” Harmer said.
“We haven’t played together in years, and Gord Tough, who’s basically my brother-in-law although he and my sister aren’t married but old family, he’s played on my early records and it’s been great just getting together and jamming. And Jason Euringer, who I made Songs for Clem with over 15 years ago, he and I sang together for years, so it’s great to have a few gigs and we said, ‘Hey lets become a professional band’ and it’s sounding great – we had a good jam last night.”
Harmer says most of her concerts will be in Ontario this summer, other than the Banff show, and she is making plans to do some recording at the end of June and July.
“I’m really looking forward to coming out – I haven’t been to the mountains in quite a few years,” Harmer said. “There’s going to be some new stuff, but mostly songs people know. I think I’m going to play ‘The Park Song,’ĺ I wrote for Parks Canada and it’s been fun playing around with it. You figure we’re in the first national park, so we’ll have to bat that one out into the mountains.”
