By Elisabeth Johns
The Standard-Freeholder
January 16, 2008
http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=859273&auth=Elisabeth+Johns
Lawyers at the Cornwall Public Inquiry hammered a former Tory MPP and provincial court judge after he admitted making mistakes as he tried to get his own government to call a probe into sexual abuse allegations.
Former Ottawa-West Nepean MPP Garry Guzzo took the stand in lieu of ex-city cop Perry Dunlop, who had been scheduled to testify at the inquiry.
The lawyer for the Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese tried repeatedly to get Guzzo to admit he was "mistaken" over whose name appeared on registration slips from a seedy motel in Florida known to attract pedophiles.
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| Diocese lawyer David Sherriff-Scott asks questions of Garry Guzzo at the Cornwall Public Inquiry Tuesday. |
Guzzo testified previously he had a meeting with OPP Det. Insp. Pat Hall, who was working on the Project Truth investigations, in which he said Hall had registration slips from the Saltaire Motel which indicated Bishop Eugene LaRocque stayed there on occasion.
"(Hall) did not obtain these slips, he did not see the registration slips and he never had the registration slips bearing the name of my client, Bishop Eugene LaRocque, did he?" David Sherriff-Scott asked Guzzo.
"I contend you may have been mistaken about it," the diocese counsel said, maintaining that Hall had obtained registration slips from other Cornwall men, but not ones that include the now-retired bishop.
"Well, I think you're wrong about that, sir," Guzzo replied.
The lawyer earlier suggested Guzzo made mistakes in his political career.
"Oh I have made mistakes here, yes," Guzzo admitted. "I made them as a judge and as a lawyer as well, sir."
Guzzo's cross-examination was halted more than a month ago after he had a heart "scare" as his wife described it.
He resumed Tuesday after suggesting the inquiry commission needs to hear from former premier Mike Harris about his role in how the OPP's Project Truth investigations were conducted.
Guzzo also answered questions about why he wrote letters to the then Ontario premier over the destruction of pornographic video tapes that were believed to have belonged to Ken Seguin, a now deceased former probation officer.
The ex-judge said he had been told there were 24 films in total, some commercial, some homemade which had been filmed using a camera mounted at the foot of the probation officer's bed.
He talked to Project Truth investigators about the tapes, who told him they were commercial. Guzzo testified he couldn't understand if the tapes were commercial, why they were destroyed and not given back to the estate of Ken Seguin.
Guzzo had even at one point suggested the "kingpins" of an alleged pedophile clan were caught on these tapes.
"You've never seen the videotapes have you?" asked Allan Manson, counsel representing the Citizens for Community Renewal. "So the video tapes showing the alleged kingpins is just more rhetoric."
"Well, I don't think it's more rhetoric," Guzzo replied.
"But you had no idea who might be on the videotapes?"
"No, I didn't," said the former MPP.
Guzzo's cross-examination continues today.
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