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	Coffee Break: Return of the Inquiry By Claude Mcintosh Standard-Freeholder December 13, 2009 http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2212442 Remember the Cornwall Public Inquiry? After several months of hibernation it is about to resurface. It wraps up next week (Dec. 15) when Commissioner Normand Glaude, the Sudbury judge who took on the job that many didn't want, and who the conspiracy theorists said he shouldn't have because he is a Roman Catholic, unveils his report ... a report that has taken an incredible nine months to pen. That's about the length of time the inquiry was to take before it came off the rails and disappeared from the radar screens of the bored national media. The Warren Commission that investigated the Dallas assassination of John F. Kennedy only took 10 months. And that included the 888-page report. The Cornwall inquiry will become one of the most expensive (an estimated $50 million) and longest running (almost four years) public inquiries in Canadian history. Legal fees alone were running at about $8,000 an hour per session. If the provincial government hadn't given the commissioner a drop-dead deadline in its final year, there's reason to believe it would still be going on, outlasting the Second World War. Most of the institutional players came to the inquiry with the understanding that it would be a six-month exercise that just might stretch into 12 months. On the bright side, the inquiry provided a major economic shot-in-the-arm for the city with as many as 25 lawyers staying over in Cornwall during the week, most of them booked in at the Parkway. Even Ottawa got a small slice of the pie. Click here to find out more! The commissioner stayed in Ottawa during the week, travelling back and forth and flying home to Sudbury for weekend reunions with his family. COFFEE GRINDS * It would be hard to find another 10-kilometre stretch of highway in the Western world with more gas stations than the piece of Route 37 that slices through the U. S. portion of Akwesasne. The only place that passes more gas is Parliament Hill. Gas stations outnumber cigarette factories. The proliferation of gas pumps has caught the attention of the tribal council. Mercifully, the tribal council has called a timeout on any more gas stations opening on the rez. Apparently there is still room for one or two more cigarette factories. * U. S. authorities have come to the startling conclusion that alleged Ponzi schemer Willie Wise, Cornwall's gift to the financial world, has fled the U. S. and has taken refuge in Canada. Oh really. Did anybody expect him to stick around the U. S. where he could be facing 20 to 25 years in a federal prison. He's Willie Wise, not Willie Dumb. The betting is that Willie brought at least one suitcase full of money with him. Not even free-spending Willie could have gone through the estimated $260 million stolen from investors. * The first major sponsorship contract for the yet-to-be-christened/ named sports centre will give the city $200,000 toward its share ($12 million) of the $32.5 million project. It covers a 10-year period with Goodyear (the tire people) paying $5,000 a year for 10 years for the field house clock. The clock will bear the Goodyear name. Jiffy Auto, part of the huge Benson success story, will kick in $150,000 for naming rights to the field house. Jiffy will pay $15,000 a year for 10 years. The Jiffy logo will be displayed on the playing field and logo etched on the glass looking into the field house. * Next warden of the United Counties will be Bryan McGillis, mayor of South Stormont, home to a long list of city employees who have escaped our high property taxes. He'll be sworn in Friday.
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