Carleton Free Press - Controversy

Controversy

One of the co-owners of the Carleton Free Press and its publisher, Ken Langdon, was a former publisher of the competing Bugle-Observer.

Langdon's departure from his position at the Bugle-Observer was the focus of a controversial court action by his former employer Brunswick News which has accused him of holding information that might unfairly benefit the Carleton Free Press.

The battle over the Carleton Free Press started on September 27, 2007, when a team of four forensic accountants hired by CanadaEast News Inc., a media holding company owned by industrial conglomerate J.D. Irving Limited, barged into Langdon's home in Woodstock with a search warrant.

The search by the forensic accountants was authorized under an obscure provision of the Criminal Code of Canada relating to industrial espionage. "They even rooted through my wife's lingerie drawer," Langdon said.

Days before the search, citing a poor relationship with his immediate supervisor, Langdon had resigned his post after four years as publisher of the Bugle-Observer, a paper owned by Brunswick News. In his resignation letter, Langdon expressed his intent to start a new paper.

"During my last weeks in the employ of the Irvings, I consulted with a lawyer who advised me that I had grounds for a constructive dismissal suit," wrote Langdon in the Carleton Free Press' first editorial. "Subsequently I sent to my home files that I could use as part of that suit."

The Irvings allege those files contained confidential commercial information. They were able to secure a court injunction to search Langdon's home while attempting to block the publication of the Carleton Free Press.

Langdon was exonerated by a New Brunswick court on all charges. On November 2, 2007, Justice Peter Glennie of the province's top court blocked the Irvings' request to halt the publication the Carleton Free Press, while prohibiting Langdon from using confidential Brunswick News information. "In this province, the Irvings are connected to their monopoly in the forestry sector," Jeannot Volpe, leader of New Brunswick's Conservative Party, the official opposition, told IPS.

"I've been to events concerning this sector with hundreds of people which no one from the Irving papers covered. People are starting to get frustrated: how is our voice going to be heard if the media won't report the message?" said Volpe, whose party normally takes the side of big business.

While media rights activists are hopeful about the Carleton Free Press, Irving still dominates the province's public sphere. The company has big plans in the works, including a seven-billion-billion dollar oil refinery and a new liquefied natural gas facility and pipeline in the city of Saint John.

These mega-projects have raised the ire of environmentalists who say the province should be decreasing rather than increasing its production of greenhouse gases. "There is no credible reporting by anyone who understands the science behind these proposals," said Inka Milewski, science advisor to the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.

"There is no credible capacity of any Irving media outlets to cover these stories," Milewski told IPS.

"Media concentration is worse in Canada than in other industrialised countries -- and in New Brunswick, way worse," Robert Picard, a U.S. media economics expert, told a 2003 conference in Moncton, New Brunswick.