What we’ve since learned in the Larry’s Gulch investigation
Murray Guy, former assistant managing editor of the Times & Transcript, appears on the Larry’s Gulch guest lists at least three times between 2008 and 2014.
By Patricia Graham, for Brunswick News Inc.
[[{“fid”:”3832″,”view_mode”:”default”,”fields”:{“format”:”default”,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:””,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:””},”type”:”media”,”link_text”:null,”attributes”:{“height”:”400″,”width”:”620″,”style”:”width: 300px; height: 194px; float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;”,”class”:”media-element file-default”}}]]This is another instalment on the issue of a now-former employee of the Moncton Times & Transcript attending the provincially owned Larry’s Gulch fishing lodge. I apologize to readers who may be growing tired of the subject, but Brunswick News, which publishes this newspaper, has committed to being transparent as new facts become known.
The latest information is that Murray Guy, former assistant managing editor of the Times & Transcript, appears on the Larry’s Gulch guest lists—just released to some media Friday by the provincial government—at least three times between 2008 and 2014.
He is on the list for 2013, which he previously admitted. He is on the lists for 2010 and 2011, information current management only learned Friday because Guy did not reveal it during the recent questioning preceding his resignation. And he is not on the list for 2008, when he said he went with, he believed, the blessing of senior management at the time.
As previously revealed, Guy, when questioned by management in 2013 about whether he’d been at the lodge that summer, denied he’d gone.
In the recent investigation, he confessed this was a lie, and he also revealed he had sought to have Darell Fowlie, then deputy minister of communications in former premier David Alward’s government, alter the 2013 guest list before releasing it to other media.
Management also learned in the recent investigation that Al Hogan, then managing editor of the Times & Transcript and Guy’s superior, had participated in this attempt to have the list altered. Hogan, who was not forthcoming with senior management in 2013 or during the recent investigation, is no longer employed by the company.
My Feb. 16 column on this matter noted that management had not yet confirmed what Guy had said about visiting the lodge in 2008 with the alleged blessing of the senior management at the time.
It also noted that management didn’t yet have the guest lists for years other than 2013.
On Friday, the Liberal government released the guest lists for 2008 through 2014 to media outlets Canadaland and CBC.
Just before 7 p.m., in response to a right-to-information request from Brunswick News, the government released to us the lists from 1996 through to 2014.
[node:related]Based on our review of the lists and our ongoing inquiries, here is what I know and can share now:
Guy attended the lodge in 2013 and appears on the guest list in 2011; the Progressive Conservatives were in power in those years, and on both occasions Guy’s name appears as a guest of Daniel Allain, then president and CEO of NB Liquor.
In 2010 Guy is on the list as a guest of Chris Collins, then environment and local government minister in the Liberal government of Shawn Graham, and now Speaker of the legislature. Collins says he made the invitation spontaneously during an editorial board meeting with the Times & Transcript, and Hogan was in the room.
James C. Irving, then and now vice-president and publisher of Brunswick News, was not at the meeting.
Irving stated today that he did not see the 2013 list for Larry’s Gulch attendees until it came to light during Brunswick News’s 11-day investigation. He also said he did not see lists for other years until released Friday by government, was not aware of any newsroom employee other than Murray Guy attending Larry’s Gulch and never authorized any employee to attend.
A longtime employee in the Telegraph-Journal newsroom has reviewed the guest lists for 1996 to 2014 and has not identified on them the names of any other Brunswick News editorial staff. No current editorial employees have told us they were guests at the lodge.
Here’s what we don’t yet know but are endeavouring to find out:
We have not yet confirmed that Guy did in fact go to the lodge in 2011.
We have not yet determined whether anyone in senior management authorized him to go to the lodge in 2011 and, if so, whether it was a work assignment or was paid for by the company.
We have yet to speak to everyone who may have knowledge of these matters, particularly those who have already left the company. The latter are not obliged to respond to management’s inquiries.
Management will continue to look into these matters and I will continue to share new information with readers.
Once again, I assure readers that if we uncover further actions contrary to BNI’s journalistic and ethical standards, we will continue to be transparent and share the information.
This column was originally published on the Times & Transcript‘s website.
