Postmedia Fires A Useful Guy

From J-Source:

Postmedia Network is downsizing its parliamentary bureau and had laid off five parliamentary bureau staff.

Three political reporters—Mike De Souza, Andrea Hill and Tobi Cohen—as well as planning and production editor Rhonda Cumming and librarian Kirsten Smith were laid off.

Mike De Souza is, or was, pretty much the only journalist in Canada who  consistently covered issues surrounding the federal government's response to Global Warming.  And now he's gone.  On the other hand, pointless blow-hard climate change denier Terence Corcoran remains.

For the consipracy-minded, this deal signed bewteen Postmedia and CAPP last July certainly looks suspicious:

If they're willing to ensure that their editorials will be onside with CAPP, who knows that they wouldn't terminate a reporter whose stories have been an embarrassment to their new pay-masters.

Tar Sands Contaminated Ground Water Headed For Athabasca River!

...though it hasn't got there yet.  No good way to sugar-coat this (though the shill from CAPP makes a good attempt in the linked article):

Two unsurprising facts noted in Mike DeSouza's twitter feed.  The Harper government knew about this last year, and they've told the scientists who reported it to STFU.  Give it up for Mike DeSouza, the only enviro reporter in Canada worth reading.

The Shoe Is On The Other Foot

OTTAWA — While it has aggressively slammed environmental groups for using foreign dollars to finance a small portion of their budgets, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is being tight-lipped about revelations that climate change skeptics in Canada are getting money from an American think-tank with corporate funding.

Another good piece from PostMedia's Mike De Souza, who's up for a National Newspaper award this year for his coverage of the AGW Denialist movement in Canada.  I just wish Mike had more competition.  It always surprises me how much coverage climate change issues get in the U.S. and U.K. press as opposed to Canada.  That's what happens, though, when the national government and too many of the nation's people are content to see themselves in the role of hewers of wood and bearers of bitumen.

I Like Mike DeSouza

This PostMedia reporter did bang-up work on the PWU's (Power Worker's Union) astroturf campaign against Ontario's Green Energy Act.  And this article, chronicling how Enviro Canada scientists have been trying to defend the science of AGW in the face of their Evil Tory Overlords, is similarly good work.  As PostMedia lurches towards its deservedly bloody, hideous, and inevitable demise, we can only hope that Mr. DeSouza finds continued employment with a more deserving employer.  But if you ever see this guy flipping burgers at McDonalds, please tip him well.  And if Jonathon Kay is standing beside him, also flipping burgers, tell Jonathon Kay to go suck rocks, and make sure you tip him inadequately.