CANADA
Globe and Mail
TIMOTHY APPLEBY
It was called Project Truth, encompassing multiple, years-long investigations into an alleged pedophilia network that had supposedly operated for decades in and around Cornwall, Ont.
And it cast a wide net, shocking the Eastern Ontario city to its core. By the time police were done in the mid-1990s, more than 670 people had been questioned, 114 criminal charges had been laid, and 15 of the city's most high-profile figures stood accused of sex-related charges. They included doctors and lawyers, justice officials and priests.
But the truth proved elusive, and still does.
Only one man was convicted, and there was no evidence he had anything to do with any organized sex ring. Along the way, numerous other charges were abandoned, chiefly because they took so long to wind their way through the courts. In one instance, that process lasted more than six years.
So what really happened? Was there substance to the complaints? Or was it all a giant witch hunt?