CANADA
Ottawa Sun
By CP
CORNWALL — A public inquiry into the handling of allegations of systemic child sexual abuse in this eastern Ontario city is slated to begin Feb. 13.
The long-awaited investigation is expected to take much of the year and involve more than a dozen parties eager to get to the bottom of the case, said Peter Engelmann, lead counsel for the commission.
He said the first phase of the two-part inquiry will look at how various institutions responded to claims that community leaders were involved in the alleged abuse of several young people in the 1990s.
“It could be police, it could be probation, it could be the Children’s Aid Society, it could be a school board for example, any public institution,” Engelmann said of those included in the inquiry’s scope.
Parties with standing at the hearings include Ontario’s attorney general, the Cornwall Police Service, Ontario Provincial Police, the local Children’s Aid Society and the local diocese of the Catholic Church.