Last week, journalist Mike De Souza published his final article for Postmedia News. The outlet closed its Parliamentary Bureau dismissing De Souza and four other employees amid a scandalous revelation that senior staff are colluding with Canada’s largest oil and gas lobby, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), to shift the national conversation to more positively reflect on the energy industry, particularly Alberta’s oilsands.

De Souza’s final piece fittingly covered an internal memo that showed the Harper government was warned back in 2011 that a massive increase in oil-by-rail transport was impending, given the rate of oil production in the oilsands outstripped Canada’s pipeline capacity. The Harper government, despite such cautions, failed to address the safety concerns associated with such sharp growth in oil tanker train traffic. Two years later, the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic killed 47 people.

There’s no question that Mike De Souza has been crucial to the survival of investigative journalism on energy and environment in Canada over the last several years. His work has exposed government and industry collusion, shining a light behind closed doors and serving the public interest. He has detailed high-level climate change denial, suppression of scientists and environmental regulations and the high level of orchestration between the Harper government and the oil, gas and pipeline industries in the creation of the infamous Omnibus Budget Bill C-38.

Ultimately, De Souza’s reporting has provided Canadians with a critical counter-narrative to Harper government spin when it comes to climate, energy and the environment.

Here’s a list of just 20 stories worth highlighting and remembering from De Souza’s career with Postmedia News:

Climate denial and killing Kyoto

Thanks to a generous donation from a major oil and gas company, an anti-Kyoto Protocol group sets up some “research” accounts at the University of Calgary. Fighting through multiple freedom of information requests and a legal challenge, Postmedia News obtained hundreds of pages of receipts, letters and other evidence revealing that the money was used for ads during an election campaign, lobbying, marketing, travel, wining and dining, with donors eligible for tax receipts for charitable contributions.

The goal of the so-called research was to cast doubt on scientific evidence showing that the consumption of fossil fuels and other human activity was causing global warming and push the government to withdraw from the international Kyoto agreement on climate change.

This series of stories earned a citation at the 2012 National Newspaper Awards in the “investigations” category.

1) Talisman Energy kickstarted University of Calgary climate skeptic fund

2) University climate research accounts used for PR, travel, wining and dining: records

3) University of Calgary and Talisman distance themselves from global warming contrarians

Spin, PR and delays

Former Stephen Harper adviser Bruce Carson left the prime minister’s office and took over a University of Calgary based “think tank” with a fresh $15 million federal grant. He proceeded to change the research mandate of the Canada School of Energy and Environment (CSEE) so that it could contribute to a lobbying and marketing strategy to green the image of the oil and gas industry.

The plan was elaborate, involving secret meetings between government officials, industry reps from companies such as Exxon Mobil or BP, and diplomats. Their goal: to lobby foreign governments, to “kill” international action on climate change, and to ensure “the oil keeps a-flowing” from Alberta.

4) Bruce Carson changed research mandate

5) Canada’s oilsands strategy includes lobbying against global warming measures

6) Governments working with oil execs to curb oilsands criticism, documents show

7) Canada enlists Big Oil to help kill U.S. green policies

8) Conservatives deny diplomatic push to shield oilsands from U.S. environmental rules

9) Feds say industry organized PR strategy for oilsands

10) Feds spent nearly $54,000 on pro-oil lobbying retreat over two days in London, England

11) Harper deploys diplomats to counter U.S. climate change campaign

12) Diplomats targeted influential media to boost oilsands coverage in Europe

Reckless Resource Development

Days before announcing Canada would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the federal government drafted plans for a “strong and coordinated” public relations campaign and major regulatory reforms to promote oil and pipeline industry expansion, say personal notes drafted by the top bureaucrat at Natural Resources Canada. His minister, Joe Oliver, was in the midst of getting briefed about what was at stake, as the federal Conservatives planned billions of dollars in cuts across the government, affecting scientists who monitored the impacts of industrial activity and eliminating thousands of federal environmental reviews of projects.

13) Secret Environment Canada study warns of oilsands’ impact on habitat 

14) Communications strategists deliberated on $60 million in cuts at Environment Canada

15) Joe Oliver doesn’t know very much about energy projects, emails reveal

16) Federal government planned strong PR campaign to promote oil industry

17) Bureaucrats told Stephen Harper’s government environmental reforms would be “very controversial,” records reveal

18) Stephen Harper’s government sent mixed messages to industry, First Nations about environmental reforms

19) Pipeline development was ‘top of mind’ in Stephen Harper’s budget bill, say “secret” records

20) Bureaucrats told Peter Kent reforms could undermine environmental protection

Do you have a favourite story of Mike De Souza’s that we didn’t include here? Let us know in the comments section.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A public opinion survey commissioned by Environment Canada suggests that many Canadians are unhappy with the way the Harper government is balancing environmental issues and economic priorities.

Two in five, or 40 per cent, of Canadians who took the telephone survey "disagreed or strongly disagreed that the government is striking the right balance between addressing environmental and economic concerns," reports Postmedia News.

26 per cent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement.

The survey was conducted by Harris-Decima from May 23 to June 6, 2013, and included 3,001 Canadians from across the country. It was carried out to help Environment Canada gauge the mood of Canadians, and develop "communications products and policy" accordingly.

The survey also found that residents of British Columbia and the territories were most likely to strongly disagree that Canada was striking the right balance between environment and economy — 17 per cent as opposed to 12 per cent nationally.

Residents of Quebec were most likely to to strongly agree with the statement — nine per cent as opposed to six per cent nationally.

Most Canadians who took the survey did, however, prioritize economy over environment. When asked what the government's top priority should be, the economy was the top answer, given by 15 per cent of respondents.

11 per cent answered healthcare, and environmental issues came in third with 10 per cent of the respondents. Following environmental issues was job creation, and government accountability and leadership.

Respondents who wanted the government to focus on the environment indicated that water quality, oilsands, greenhouse gases and pollution were the most pressing environmental concerns.

Should the survey be repeated, results would be expected to fall within 1.8 percent of the current results 95 out of 100 times.

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Mercury levels have risen to 16 times the regional "background" levels in an area around oilsands developments in northeastern Alberta, according to Environment Canada researchers.

Environment Canada researcher Jane Kirk, who presented the as-yet unpublished report at a Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) conference in Nashville last November, told Postmedia News the affected area encompasses 19,000 square kilometres around oilsands operations.

Margaret Munro of Postmedia News reports that Kirk told the conference the area is "currently impacted by airborne Hg (mercury) emissions originating from oilsands developments."

The mercury levels fall off gradually with increasing distance from the oilsands "like a bull's eye," said co-researcher Derek Muir, head of Environment Canada's ecosystem contaminants dynamics section. The highest mercury loadings, which reached up to 1,000 nanograms per square metre, were found in the "middle of the bull's eye," covering around 10 percent of the impacted area.

In October, Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq signed a global treaty pledging to decrease mercury emissions.

The federal researchers stressed that the findings were still lower than mercury levels found in southern Ontario and southern Quebec, where toxins from incinerators and coal-burning power plants are affecting the environment.

But the scientists said that mercury is "the number one concern" when looking at toxins released by oilsands production, with "indications that the toxin is building up in some of the region's wildlife." The contamination is further worrying to environmental groups and First Nations concerned about the oilsands' impact on fishing, hunting and wildlife.

Environment Canada wildlife scientist Craig Herbert told the toxicology conference that the eggs of several species of waterbirds downstream of the oilsands have been showing increasing levels of mercury, with levels found in the majority of Caspian Tern eggs in 2012 exceeding "the lower toxicity threshold."

Kirk's team measured contaminants in cores of the snowpack collected from over 100 sites near the oilsands every March, to calculate how much pollution enters the ecosystem at spring melt after gathering in snow over winter.

The team's 2011 results confirmed that "aerial loadings" of 13 priority pollutant elements including mercury were 13 to 15 times higher at sites within 50 km of the upgraders that convert bitumen into synthetic crude oil, and "highest within 10 km of the upgraders," according to the presentation abstract.

The results "support earlier findings that the bitumen upgraders and local Oil Sands development are sources of airborne emissions to the Alberta Oil Sands Region."

The researchers also found up to 19 nanograms of methyl mercury per square metre near oilsands sites, which is 16 times the region's background level. Postmedia News reports that this is the first finding of this more toxic form of mercury in snow. The finding is significant because, as the abstract explains, "methyl mercury is a neurotoxin that bioaccumulates through foodwebs."

"Here we have a direct source of methyl mercury being emitted in this region and deposited to the landscapes and water bodies," Kirk told Postmedia News. "So come snowmelt that methyl mercury is now going to enter lakes and rivers where potentially it could be taken up directly by organisms and then bioaccumulated and biomagnified though food webs."

Muir said that microbes in the snow could be converting mercury into methyl mercury, or that it could be coming from "dust and land disturbances," though there is currently no data to support this.

"To our knowledge, emissions data from blowing dusts due to various landscape disturbances (open pit mines, exposed coke piles, new roads, etc.) and volatilization from tailing ponds are not publicly available," the researchers said.

The research shows that zinc, nickel and vanadium levels in lake sediments peaked in the 1990s following oilsands development, but have fallen off since, which Kirk attributes to "improvements in the air pollution catcher technology at the upgraders."

But levels of mercury and other "crustal elements" in lake sediments have been "going up more or less continually" with the expansion of the oilsands, said Muir, with open pit mines and coke piles possibly contributing to the pollution.

The fact remains that more research is required on why mercury levels are going up and the impact it's having on ecosystems.

"Is it affecting fish levels and is it going to result in increasing fish consumption advisories? We don't know," said Kirk.

But Environment Canada's latest results only confirm the need to further study and address the serious impacts of oilsands development.

Image Credit: Elias Schewel / Flickr

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In a CTV interview, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's environment minister Leona Aglukkaq seemed reluctant to admit that climate change was a scientifically proven reality.

Mike De Souza writes for Postmedia News, that "when asked whether the ice was melting in the Arctic, considered by climate scientists to be part of the evidence of global warming, Aglukkaq said there may or may not be changes underway."

During the interview, which was aired during CTV's daily political program Power Play, host Don Martin brought up the issue of disappearing arctic sea ice. Aglukkaq, who represents the riding of Nunavut in Parliament, responded that people like her in the north were "seeing those changes every day, or no changes, what have you."

She also said that "there was a report that came out yesterday, I have not received a copy of that but there's always a debate around science and what's changing."

When Martin asked her directly whether she was personally seeing evidence of climate change in the north, Aglukkaq once again refused to give an unambiguous answer, mentioning that the north had "had a particularly bad summer" with snow, and saying that it was "debatable."

Martin observed that what Aglukkaq was describing meant "changing climate, if not climate change," to which she laughed and said: "But it's also important to look at science and use science to make our decisions as best as we can and but to also continue to work with people in the north."

Minister Aglukkaq seemed reluctant to even say the words "climate change," stopping short of using the term when talking about a conference in Norway of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-lived Climate Pollutants.

"I was in Oslo, just recently at the climate ch- ah climate conference, ah environment ministers conference, sorry," she said.

De Souza notes that other members of Harper's cabinet have "openly questioned scientific evidence about climate change," including Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver. In an April interview, Oliver suggested that that scientists had "recently told us that our fears (about climate change) were exaggerated." He was unable to name said scientists or cite any of their research at the time.

Minister Aglukkaq's office did not initially provide comment on her interview. But following the Postmedia News story on Aglukkaq's comments, spokeswoman Amanda Gordon emailed saying that "Minister Aglukkaq was not casting doubt on climate change."

"Is it possible to correct the story?" Gordon asked Postmedia News.

Gordon also said that the CTV interview was conducted last month, and that Aglukkaq's comments were related to research published by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre. As De Souza writes, "this research confirmed the downward trend in summer Arctic sea ice but did not suggest there was any debate about what was happening."

Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent for September 13, 2013 was 5.10 million square kilometers (1.97 million square miles). The orange line shows the 1981 to 2010 median extent for that day. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Sea Ice Index data. About the data

Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

Like Aglukkaq's own comments, her office's response did not provide any specific views on climate change. "Scientific debate regarding our understanding of climate change and its effects on Canada, particularly the North, is what Minister Aglukkaq was referencing," Gordon wrote.

De Souza writes that "Aglukkaq's office has failed to respond directly to questions from Postmedia News asking whether she believes scientific evidence justifies further action to stop the causes of climate change and adapt to its impacts" since her appointment in June.

De Souza notes that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a coalition of governments and scientists approved by Harper, has said in its first published report that "human influence has been detected in the warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes."

The report said that human activity, including deforestation and GHG emissions released by fossil fuels, have "very likely contributed to Arctic sea ice loss since 1979."

Aglukkaq's own department, Environment Canada, has predicted average global increases in temperature of at least two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050.

De Souza draws attention to internal briefing notes from 2012 in which Environment Canada calls climate change "the most serious environmental issue facing the world today and carries with it significant impacts on human health and safety, the economy, natural resources, and ecosystems in Canada and throughout the world."

Some months ago, Aglukkaq, then health minister, took over as chairman of the eight-nation Arctic Council and signed a statement expressing an "urgent need" to reach a legally-binding deal to prevent human activity from further exacerbating global warming.

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In the coming months, European Union environment ministers are set to vote on the proposed Fuel Quality Directive (FQD), which would label tar sands oil as 'dirty' because of its higher GHG emissions in comparison to other fuels, bringing the Harper government and Alberta's years-long lobbying against the law to a decisive point.

As Jason Fekete writes for Postmedia News, this is "a critical few months for the future of Canada's oilsands industry and the environmental movement that has targeted the development."

It's hardly surprising that two senior Alberta government ministers depart Saturday "for a weeklong trip to Europe to trumpet what they say is Alberta and Canada's solid environmental credentials, and have EU countries reject a proposal that would "discriminate" against oilsands-derived fuels," as Postmedia News reports.

Canada has been actively fighting the EU proposal for years now for its labelling of tar sands oil as leaving an especially high carbon footprint. A July 2011 report by environmental group Friends of the Earth Europe documented over 110 lobbying events organized by the Canadian government on the tar sands and FQD between 2009 and 2011.

For example, in October 2011, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver wrote to the EU Commissioner for Energy, Gunther Oettinger, warning that "if unjustified, discriminatory measures to implement the FQD are put in place, Canada will not hesitate to defend its interests."

In December 2011, David Plunkett, Canadian Ambassador to the EU, wrote to European Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard saying that "Canada will not accept oil sands crude being singled out in the Fuel Quality Directive." He added that the Canadian government would "explore every avenue at its disposal to defend its interests, including the World Trade Organisation."

Hedegaard has called the FQD a "science-based and non-discriminatory proposal," and stressed that “studies on the lifecycle GHG intensity of various fuels have been conducted" for it, in a 2011 letter to Minister Oliver.

A 2013 briefing by Friends of the Earth Europe details more recent instances of Canada's lobbying for the tar sands in Europe, including sending two Albertan government ministers on tour in Europe this January to hand out fliers assuring the 11 countries visited that Canada was showing "global leadership in the fight against climate change" despite leaving the Kyoto Protocol and pushing for the tar sands.

The aggressive lobbying efforts by Canada and its EU supporters like the UK have continued unabated since reduction targets were decided on in 2009, forcing the European Commission to undertake an Impact Assessment on the FQD and delaying the vote on the proposal from June 2012 to later this year.

"It has got to be fair, it can't be discriminatory, and it should be based on the facts and the science – and this is not. This is my definition of bad policy," Minister Joe Oliver said of the FQD in an interview last Friday.

Oliver made a similar claim that the proposal "is not based on science and so discourages disclosures and will not achieve its stated objectives," last month in an email to the Canadian Press.

The repeated refrain from the Canadian government that the FQD is not scientific doesn't address the fact that the proposal is based on a 2011 Stanford University study commissioned by the European Commission. The study found that average lifecycle GHG emissions from tar sands oil are 23 per cent higher than conventional fossil fuels.

Image: 'Upstream greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Canadian oilsands as a feedstock for European refineries,' by Adam R. Brandt.

Since then, research by NGO Oil Change International has indicated that emissions from tar sands oil could be even higher than thought before, because of emissions released by the burning of tar sands refinery byproduct petroleum coke, or petcoke, which is also used as a cheap fuel.

According to the Stanford study, "GHG emissions from oil sands production is significantly different enough from conventional oil emissions that regulatory frameworks should address this discrepancy with pathway-specific emissions factors that distinguish between oil sands and conventional oil processes."

The Pembina Institute also published a June 2013 report confirming that "average oilsands production is significantly more GHG-intensive than conventional oil production," and calling tar sands GHG emissions "the fastest growing source of climate change pollution in Canada."

The FQD sets a mandatory six percent reduction in GHG emissions from transport fuel suppliers by 2020, and assigns default emission values to different fossil fuel feedstocks (the raw material from which the fuels are made).

Tar sands oil production requires more energy than conventional fossil fuels because of its extraction and refining process from bitumen. Because of this, the FQD would give tar sands oil a higher default emission value, making it unattractive to European fuel suppliers, who would be hit with financial penalties and higher carbon offsets if importing it.

The Harper government's plan of making Canada a global energy superpower by opening up the tar sands oil reserves via international trade would be adversely affected by the FQD, which guarantees that the federal government and the Albertan oil industry will continue lobbying against it, and for the tar sands, in full force in the months to come.

Postmedia News reports that EU environment ministers are set to vote on the FQD in mid-October or mid-November. If approved, the proposal would need to be ratified by the European Parliament in 2014.

Image Credit: Pembina Institute / Flickr  

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"About two weeks before the emissions trends report's release in 2012, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was told in a memo that Environment Canada was still 'considering different media strategy options' for how and when the report would be announced. Natural Resources Canada also said that both departments had prepared 'responsive lines' in anticipation of questions from journalists. Similar lines would normally be developed for newly-appointed Environment Minister Leone Aglukkaq," writes De Souza.

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Government records newly released under access to information legislation say that Canada supports carbon pricing as part of a global climate change strategy.

Mike De Souza writes for Postmedia News, that the documents "come from the Privy Council Office and Environment Canada, and they contrast with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's public criticism of carbon taxes."

As De Souza explains, the Privy Council Office (PCO) is "the central department in the government that supports the prime minister's office."

The PCO notes were reportedly prepared for the November 2011 G20 summit attended by Harper a month before Canada's pullout from the Kyoto Protocol. They highlight the World Bank's recommendation for "putting a price on carbon for developed countries," and comment that "Canada could support other countries implementing this proposal."

The PCO records also say that "Canada supports the development of new market-based mechanisms that expand the scale and scope of carbon markets." De Souza adds that the records suggest Canada "wanted to expand markets that require polluters to pay and allow other companies to profit from deploying technologies or other methods to reduce emissions in the atmosphere."

The Environment Canada documents were notes given to Deputy Environment Minister Bob Hamilton after he was appointed in July 2012, briefing him on the potential for job creation and economic growth in a strong climate change strategy.

The notes say that a "well-designed environmental policy, including GHG emission reduction policies, can also support economic objectives, in areas such as innovation, improved energy and resource productivity, and opportunities in global clean technology markets."

The briefing observes that "environmental damage and natural resource degradation can have important economic costs" in addition to posing "serious" and "significant impacts on human health and safety…and ecosystems in Canada and throughout the world."

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq's spokeswoman told Postmedia News "that the government does not support a carbon tax," reiterated the Harper government's position "that an NDP climate change proposal from the last election to raise billions of dollars by auctioning of pollution permits as part of a market-based carbon pricing scheme — was a tax on gas, groceries, electricity and everything else."

Aglukkaq's office said Canada is "playing a leadership role in addressing climate change."

De Souza writes that despite all major Canadian federal political parties supporting carbon pricing in the 2008 federal elections, "the Conservatives later decided to favour binding regulations in each industrial sector instead, because of the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass legislation creating a carbon market."

Several provinces have implemented their own forms of carbon pricing or taxes on greenhouse gas emissions, such as British Columbia's highly-successful tax on buying or using fuel.

The Environment Canada briefing notes suggested Canada inteded to meet its "GHG emission reduction target of 17% under 2005 levels by 2020," especially with "greater international pressure to demonstrate concrete action and to outline how Canada's national emissions targets will be met." A new report from Environmental Defence shows Canada cannot, however, met its emission reduction targets given current planned expansion in the tar sands – Canada's fastest source of growing GHGs.

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Today federal scientists from Environment Canada presented research at an international toxicology conference in the U.S. that indicates contaminants from the Alberta tar sands are polluting the landscape on a scale much larger than previously thought.

A team lead by federal scientist Jane Kirk discovered contaminants in lakes as far as 100 kilometers away from tar sands operations. The federal research confirms and expands upon the hotly contested findings of aquatic scientist David Schindler who, in 2010, found pollution from the tar sands accumulating on the landscape up to 50 kilometers away.

"That means the footprint is four times bigger than we found," Schindler told Postmedia News.

Senior scientist Derek Muir, who presented some of the findings at Wednesday's conference, said the contaminated region is "potentially larger than we might have anticipated." The 'legacy' of chemicals in lake sediment gives evidence that tar sands pollution has been traveling long distances for decades. Samples show the build up of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, known to cause cancer in humans and to be toxic to aquatic animals, in 6 remote and undisturbed lakes up to 100 kilometers away from tar sands operations.

The pollutants are "petrogenic" in nature, meaning they are petroleum derived, and have steadily and dramatically increased since the 1970s, showing the contaminant levels "seem to parallel the development of the oilsands industry," Muir said.

After the release of Schindler's groundbreaking research on tar sands pollution in 2010 the Alberta government claimed the contaminants were naturally occurring and posed no risk to aquatic life.

However at today's conference, the annual meeting of the North American Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Kirk discussed the long list of 'priority pollutants' that accumulate in the region's snow. Within 50 kilometers of the tar sands, snowpack contains numerous contaminants including dangerous neurotoxins, such as methyl mercury, that bioaccumulate in food webs. Kirk found priority pollutants in the air were 1.5 to 13 times higher at test sites within 50 kilometers of tar sands refineries, and highest within 10 kilometers.

Abstracts for Kirk, Parrott and Muir's presentations can be found on pages 103 and 104 of the conference programme (pdf).

"We don't really know the fate of the various metals including mercury as they go from snow, to melt water to run-off and then into the aquatic environment," Muir told Postmedia.

The toxicity of melt water from snow falling in the tar sands region was researched by federal scientist Joanne Parrott, who also presented at the conference. Studying snow samples taken in 2011 and 2012 along the Athabasca River, Parrott found that the melt water was toxic to minnow larvae, even when diluted down to 25 percent. "The larval fish don't do very well in that snow at all," she said.

Parrott suggests melt water, once mixed with water from the Athabasca River, will no longer be toxic to minnows.

Snow melt, however, provides a significant amount of water to tributaries where fish hatch in the spring, says Schindler. "My big concern is that slowly because of mortalities at spring melt, that this will erode the fishery, killing off the embryos," he told Postmedia, pointing to the abnormally low numbers of fish in the Muskeg River as a possible occurrence.

Parrott plans to expand her research to consider whether young fish in tributaries that feed the Athabasca River are affected by the pollution.

Schindler's research has already highlighted the increasing incidence of fish deformity in areas downstream of tar sands operations, like Lake Athabasca. "I think what could happen is that the few embryos that manage to survive, deformed as they are, struggle down to Lake Athabasca," he said, adding the fish look "so horrible" the First Nations who depend on them for survival will not eat them, even if they don't have confirmed high levels of contaminants.

"I think that's fair enough, they wouldn't sell in Safeway," Schindler commented.

The scientists' presence at the conference is significant given the Harper government's strict control of scientific communications surrounding the tar sands. Federal scientists were prevented from speaking with the media at the same conference in Boston last year.

An internal document uncovered by Postmedia instructed federal scientists to avoid answering media questions, saying "if scientists are approached for interviews at the conference, the EC communications policy will be followed by referring the journalist to the media relations…phone number. An appropriate spokesperson will then be identified depending on journalist questions."

After Postmedia's Mike De Souza released the internal document last week, Environment Canada made arrangements for the news agency to speak with both Muir and Parrott.

Postmedia's Margaret Munro explains: "Environment Canada earlier this month said scientists were not available to comment on their findings of contamination around the oilsands. The department’s media office arranged this week’s interviews with Muir and Parrott after Postmedia News obtained details of the reports the scientists will present at the U.S. conference on Wednesday."

As DeSmog covered in an earlier post, the Harper government's heavy-handed treatment of federal scientists led to a mass demonstration this summer, where scientists and academics mourned the "Death of Evidence," claiming "Stephen Harper Hates Science." 

The government's strict communications policy is seen by some as an attempt to silence critics voicing science-based opposition to development of the tar sands.

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The Canadian federal government deliberately excluded data documenting a 20 percent increase in annual pollution from Alberta's tar sands industry in 2009. That detail was missing from a recent 567-page report on climate change that Canada was required to submit to the United Nations.

According to Postmedia News, Canada left the most recent numbers out of the report, a national inventory on Canada’s greenhouse gas pollution. The numbers are used to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions and prevent catastropic climate change. It is certainly not the first time that Canada has dragged its feet on its international climate obligations, but omission of vital information is a new low, even for them.

While Canada's report reveals a six percent drop in annual emissions for the entire economy from 2008 to 2009, it fails to account for the extent of pollution from tar sands production, which is greater than the greenhouse gas emissions of all the cars driven on Canadian roads.

Canada's attempts to greenwash Alberta's tar sands are increasingly brazen. Last week we reported that the Canadian government was complicit with industry in the creation of an "Oil Sands Team" to lobby abroad to aggressively undermine European environmental standards.

Emissions per barrel of oil produced by tar sands developers are increasing, despite claims to the contrary made by industry in an advertising campaign.

Overall, Environment Canada said that the tar sands industry accounts for about 6.5 percent of Canada’s annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2009, up from five percent in 2008. Pollution from the tar sands has skyrocketed 300 percent since 1990, cancelling out many pollution reduction efforts in other sectors of the Canadian economy.

Industry claims that its figures do not show any significant growth in emissions per barrel of oil produced, yet the full report noted an intensity increase of 14.5 per cent from 2008 to 2009.

In the report, emissions from a mining category, which includes tar sands extraction, saw a whopping 371 per cent increase in greenhouse gas pollution.

To make matters worse, Canada was the last country to file its report to the UNFCCC. It submitted its report even after earthquake-struck Japan, and was unable to explain in detail why its report was late.

Evidence is mounting that the Harper government is deliberately trying to scuttle international action to fight climate change.

Head over to the Montreal Gazette to read more.

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