Singer-songwriter and activist Sarah Harmer talks politics,
Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer, 42, has lent her lilting voice to many environmental causes, including campaigns against a proposed quarry on the Niagara Escarpment and a bitumen pipeline from Alberta to Montreal. Harmer spoke to Citize
What is the biggest environmental concern facing Ontario right now?
That’s a big one. It’s not overstating it to say it’s all inter-connected — I think of Lake Ontario, I think of endangered species, and I think of tarsands, you know, having a route through Ontario, and basically the connectedness that we have to Alberta and our fellow countrymen and women who we’re all supposedly under one banner together. Ontario has a lot of issues facing it, and looking at the cumulative effects are most important.
Have concerns about the environment changed the way that you tour or the types of festivals that you’re willing to sign on to?
I haven’t been touring very much in the last year really. But as far as me personally, I’m really trying to refine the amount the energy I use and cut it down. It’s a pressing concern on my mind and, as a performer and someone who typically travels around a lot, I’m less interested in moving around too far and wide right now and so that has kept me at home ... I’m more into local touring — to be honest, that excites me the most right now.
Are you on the vanguard of the locavore musician who doesn’t travel outside of their watershed?
(Laughs) Well, you know, Lewis Melville from Guelph, Ont., a veteran musician, has talked about that over the years as far as people entertaining for their communities.
You’ve publicly endorsed Green party leader Elizabeth May, who has held a seat in the House of Commons now for more than two years. What do you think she’s accomplished?
From my perspective, she seems to be incredibly positive, hard-working, practical, clear. I find out about pressing issues that I’m interested in and concerned about often from her first. She is a human being with personality and strengths and weaknesses, but I think she’s amazing. And I want parties to co-operate, I hate this whole, “I’m on the blue team” kind of thing. The way that our voting system is set up right now is not conducive to progressive government, and I think Elizabeth May is a huge part of the solution for us to come together and make things better around here.
You performed last weekend at Rock the Line, a Toronto concert to raise awareness about Enbridge’s plan to switch the direction of its current pipeline in order to carry oilsands bitumen from northern Alberta to Quebec. What are you concerns about Line 9?
It’s an aging, deteriorating, 38-year-old pipeline that isn’t designed to have heavy, diluted bitumen pumped through it at high pressure and increased volume. It’s going through places that have been built up over the last 40 years, so it’s underground across the Finch subway line and places with condominiums built right over top and next to aggregate quarries and places all across the most populated areas in Canada. It’s going to rupture — that’s what experts are saying as part of this hearing ... and based on information calculated, it’s not a good plan. I could go on and on.
Does it cross your land?
Yeah, it goes right through the back field of my parent’s farm (near Burlington, Ont.).
How do measure progress? How do you personally measure whether we’re getting anywhere?
My first thought was that progress is measured in actual relationships ... and if those feel successful, that’s a good indication that you’re moving in the right direction. But it’s also collaboration with lots of different people ... I think these companies that put proposals out there and spend millions of dollars trying to get them approved, sometimes they’re just bad ideas and they need to be reminded of that, and everybody needs to change tack. And I think that’s where we’re at. As far as pipelines go, we’re not going to address climate change if we lock ourselves into this outmoded form of expanding the tarsands. We can’t do that, so that’s the bigger picture on political fronts, and that’s the big battle right now — and I think we’re going to be successful in transitioning out of tarsands. That’s my goal, and I hope I can be a small part of that happening.