Herald publisher praised in House of Commons

Mr. Brison noted that Mr. Dennis had received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 Atlantic Lifetime Achievement Award this fall.

"Mr. Dennis has served as publisher of the Halifax Chronicle Herald for almost 54 years," Mr. Brison said. "He leads the largest independently owned newspaper in Canada in a province where Joseph Howe first established freedom of the press in the British colonies in the 1830s.

"In 2007, The Chronicle Herald was named one of Canada’s top 100 employers by Maclean’s magazine, the only newspaper in Canada to receive this honour.

"The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes Graham Dennis’s dedication to maintaining a progressive, modern and independent newspaper serving the people of Nova Scotia. Congratulations to Mr. Dennis, a proud Nova Scotian and a great Canadian."

Mr. Dennis is responsible for keeping The Chronicle Herald in Nova Scotia hands in an era of ever greater media concentration in Canada.

This year, on his 80th birthday, he donated $1 million to St. Francis Xavier University’s Coady International Institute. Mr. Dennis’s father, William H. Dennis, and Rev. Moses Coady were close friends.

When Mr. Dennis received the award from Ernst & Young this fall, Premier Rodney MacDonald praised him for "having the guts and exuberance" to keep the paper independent while most competitors have become part of national chains.

Mr. Dennis said he didn’t know why he was receiving an award.

"If Nova Scotia goes ahead, that’s good enough for me," he said.

( smaher@herald.ca)