The Westcoaster.ca reports that, “Canadian recording artist Sarah Harmer was so impassioned by her own internal fire she took a time-out from music to protect the escarpment and Mount Nemo in her hometown of Burlington, Ont. Now she’s back with new album, ‘Oh Little Fire’… The tour (for her new album) bringing Harmer to Tofino is a quick two weeks because the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) is in pre-hearings to decide Nemo’s fate.”
“While Nemo is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Nelson Aggregates made the proposal for a massive quarry via a loophole unforeseen by the original environmental plan. Four levels of government have already said ‘no’ to the proposed quarry, but the company still has the right to an OMB joint hearing.”
“Harmer’s organization, PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land) joins David Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace, Council of Canadians, Sierra Club and a host of environmental organizations in pushing to update the plan and protect significant headwaters, wetlands, woodlands and species at risk.”
To find out more about PERL, please go to http://www.perlofburlington.org/. To listen to Harmer’s song on this issue, ‘Escarpment Blues’, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52vXPZAkDug.
If you are not familiar with the song, the lyrics are:
If they blow a hole in my backyard
Everyone is gonna run away
The creeks won’t flow to the Great Lake below
Will the water in the wells still be ok?
We’ll need to build some new apartments
And I know we’re gonna have to fix the roads
But if we blow a hole in the escarpment
The wild ones won’t have anywhere to go
If they blow a hole in the backbone
The one that runs cross the muscles of the land
We might get a load of stone for the road
But I don’t know how much longer we can stand
We’ll keep driving on the Blind Line
If we don’t know where we want to go
Even knowledge that’s sound can get watered down
Truth can get sucked out the car window
We’re two-thirds water
What do we really need?
But sun, showers, soil and seed
We’re two-thirds water
The aquifers provide
Deep down in the rock
There’s a pearl inside
If they blow a hole in the backbone
The one that runs across the muscles of the land
We might get a load of stone for the road
But I don’t know how much longer we can stand
The Westcoaster.ca article is at http://www.westcoaster.ca/tofino/10690-Igniting-The-Tofino-Legion-Recording-Artist-Sarah-Harmer-Returns-Jan.html.
