Should Nunatsiaq News apologize?
Kenn Harper insists that he be identified as the author of the mean-spirited letter on Stu Kennedy’s resignation from city council published prominently in last week’s Nunatsiaq News.
But what neither he nor your newspaper has disclosed is that Kenn Harper is Vice-President of Nunavut Operations for Northern Property REIT, the Calgary-based property developer with over 600 residential units in Iqaluit. Nor has Kenn Harper disclosed that he is president and owner of Arctic Management Services Ltd., a large retailer in Iqaluit.
These disclosures should have been made because Northern Properties REIT has been in conflict with City Council in the past, while Arctic Management Services Ltd. competes with similar businesses in Iqaluit owned by Stu Kennedy. Have these private interests contributed to Kenn Harper’s negative view of Stu Kennedy’s five years of public service on city council?
The Nunatsiaq News provides a regular platform for Kenn Harper in its pages, and when, as a noted Arctic historian, he confines himself to his interesting Taissumani column, his views are welcome.
But too often in the past, and now with this recent letter, your newspaper has allowed Kenn Harper to promote his own private interests, sometimes in lengthy columns on property development issues. This relationship is especially troubling when companies in which Kenn Harper is involved also advertise in the Nunatsiaq News.
You owe it to your readers, and to the maintenance of journalistic standards, to do better than to publish without disclosure letters like Kenn Harper’s of last week, and you owe Stu Kennedy a public apology.
In the interests of full disclosure, I serve as a volunteer member of the executive committee of Namminiq Angirraliit Iqalunni Association. I don’t, but some might see this role as having potential for conflict with a rental property developer. This letter is not intended to represent Namminiq Angirraliit Iqalunni Association or anyone else’s view other than my own.
Ed McKenna
Iqaluit
Editor’s note: Ed Mckenna makes an extremely serious allegation. It would be defamatory if it were made about members of any other profession, and it is not supported by any evidence that we can find.
For the record: In mid-2002, we published one letter to the editor from Kenn Harper that attacked a city council decision denying a development permit for a building proposal made by Ninety North, a company associated with Northern Properties REIT. We identified his interest in this business when we ran the letter.
At around the same time, we published a long letter from Robert Billard, a local architect, who defended council’s decision. We also ran a long letter from John Matthews, then the mayor of Iqaluit, who defended council’s decision. The evidence shows that we actually devoted more space to the views of Harper’s opponents than to Harper’s views. A review of the relevant news stories we published at the time reveals the same thing. And for the three years since that time, we haven’t been able to find even one opinion piece or letter in our archives that would have been written by Harper on a development issue.
In conclusion, we’re not sure what McKenna means by “too often in the past.”
There’s no need for us to apologize to Stu Kennedy or anyone else. Kenn Harper’s letter was neither libelous or obscene, and we balanced it, on the same page, with another letter expressing the opposite view. Besides, you don’t surrender your right to freedom of expression simply because you happen to own a business.
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