Mainstreet Research and Postmedia, the company that owns the Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun, are involved in an ongoing legal dispute with each company accusing the other of being more to blame for a poll and series of newspaper articles that they're being sued over.

Another polling firm, Illumina Research Partners, filed a $5-million lawsuit in December against both Mainstreet and Postmedia alleging, among other things, defamation of character.

The lawsuit relates to polling work Illumina did for the Calgary Police Commission that was criticized in a series of articles in the Calgary Sun and Calgary Herald, based on polling done by Mainstreet that yielded different results.

​The Illumina survey found high levels of public satisfaction with the Calgary Police Service, but the Postmedia articles questioned the accuracy of those results, citing polling done by Mainstreet for Postmedia that suggested Calgarians were actually far less satisfied with their police.

In its statement of claim, Illumina cites numerous passages from those articles, saying they unfairly damaged its reputation.

In its statement of defence, Postmedia denies any wrongdoing and asserts that it had a duty to publish the articles, as they "relate to subject matter and events of enormous local, provincial, and national political importance and interest."

Separate actions between Mainstreet and Postmedia

Meanwhile, Postmedia also filed a separate legal action in May against Mainstreet, claiming the polling firm is primarily responsible for any liability resulting from the Illumina lawsuit.

In a court filing, Postmedia claims any damage to Illumina's reputation would have stemmed from Mainstreet failing to conduct its own poll on satisfaction with police "in a reasonable, diligent and accurate fashion" or Mainstreet "misrepresenting" its own polling work or the polling work of Illumina to Postmedia.

Mainstreet responded with a court filing of its own in June, which claims the articles published in the newspapers took Mainstreet's poll results and comments from its president, Quito Maggi, "out of context, and used and twisted them in a way that was not foreseeable" by the polling firm.

It adds that Postmedia "acted recklessly, wilfully, or negligently" in their treatment of the poll results and Maggi's comments.

Mainstreet contends that "between 90 per cent and 100 per cent of any liability should be apportioned" to Postmedia.

Mainstreet also contends that the terms of its contract with Postmedia should require that the matter be dealt with in an Ontario court, rather than in Alberta.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Maggi said he couldn't comment on the ongoing legal actions.

Lorne Motley, the publisher of the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun, didn't reply to an email late Wednesday but previously declined to comment on a separate report into polling failures involving Mainstreet and the city's 2017 civic election.

Motley cited "separate legal proceedings" as the reason he couldn't speak to that report.

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