CBC News
December 15, 2009
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2009/12/14/cornwall-public-inquiry-backgrounder.html
 |
| The inquiry heard its final witness on Jan. 29, 2009, and was scheduled to release its final report on Tuesday, Dec. 15. |
In 1992, a man claimed that he had been sexually abused by a priest and a probation officer while he was an altar boy in Cornwall, Ont. The local Roman Catholic Diocese offered the man $32,000 in return for dropping the complaint he had filed with police.
A local police officer blew the whistle on that coverup, unleashing a flood of other child sexual abuse complaints and a chain of events that would eventually lead the Ontario government to call a public inquiry.
The $50-million Cornwall Public Inquiry's final report is scheduled to be released Tuesday, Dec. 15, after several delays.
Since that first complaint, dozens of people in the eastern Ontario community have come forward with allegations that they were abused as children and teenagers by priests, probation officers, lawyers and other men in positions of power and trust. The allegations go back to the late 1950s, and there were even claims that children were passed from one abuser to another by a ring of pedophiles.
A number of police investigations were launched by various Ontario police forces, including the high profile Ontario Provincial Police probe Project Truth. Dozens of charges were laid in that investigation. In the end, police found no evidence of a pedophile ring. Many of the accused had their charges stayed due to court delays, some committed suicide, some died of natural causes and a few were punished with significant jail time.
Meanwhile, there were nagging questions about the roles of the institutions that backed the men and took part in the investigation. Some were accused of dealing poorly with the situation, acting inappropriately or helping the alleged abusers avoid serious consequences.
Premier's promise
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promised to launch a public inquiry after the last Project Truth court case wrapped up, and went on to establish the Cornwall Public Inquiry, with two main goals:
* To hold public hearings into events surrounding allegations of abuse of young people in Cornwall, to examine the response of the justice system and other public institutions to the allegations, and to make recommendations.
* To work with residents of Cornwall to facilitate healing and reconciliation within the community.
 |
| Justice G. Normand Glaude, regional senior judge for the Northeast Region of Ontario, was asked to chair the public inquiry, which began on Feb. 13, 2006. |
Justice G. Normand Glaude, regional senior judge for the Northeast Region of Ontario, was asked to chair the inquiry, which began Feb. 13, 2006.
After more than 300 hearing days spread over three years, the inquiry heard from more than 170 witnesses, accepted 3,400 exhibits of evidence and generated 60,000 pages of transcripts.
About 400 people received provincially funded counselling as a result of the inquiry. Two-thirds of them were victims or alleged victims, both male and female, and the others were people who dealt with victims. Heather McIntosh, the psychologist who oversaw that counselling, said some "amazing transformations" resulted.
When Glaude launched the inquiry, he said it would be a "lengthy and sometimes difficult process."
Lengthy and difficult
It proved to be lengthier and more difficult than many anticipated.
From the beginning, the inquiry was bogged down with court challenges and motions that put witness testimony on hold time and again, delaying and dragging out the proceedings as lawyers for some of the institutions and the accused fought to withhold evidence and the identities of some of the accused.
Those challenges, along with other publication bans, led members of the media to accuse the inquiry of not being "truly public."
By November 2006, more than a dozen motions had tied up the proceedings — far more than the one or two brought forward in previous provincial inquiries.
Another major setback came in September 2007, when a key witness refused to testify.
Former Cornwall police officer Perry Dunlop blew the whistle on an apparent coverup of abuse allegations in 1993, when he overheard some police sergeants discussing a former altar boy who had been paid $32,000 by the Catholic Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall to drop a sexual abuse complaint against two priests. Dunlop took a sexual abuse complaint to the Children's Aid Society against orders from superiors, leading to an OPP investigation and eventually the latest inquiry.
Dunlop, who says he and his family were subjected to harassment and death threats, twice refused to testify at the public inquiry, saying he believed it was not about finding the truth and he had lost faith in a justice system that treated him as a bad guy.
Stonewalling witness jailed
Glaude ruled that Dunlop had no good legal reason to refuse testimony and he was eventually convicted of both criminal and civil contempt of court, serving seven months in jail.
The commission was also criticized by those who said they had been sexually abused. They complained about the way they were questioned by lawyers while on the witness stand. After one witness stormed off during cross-examination, Engelmann reminded lawyers that an inquiry is not a trial.
The inquiry heard its final witness on Jan. 29, 2009 — Murray Segal, Ontario's deputy attorney general.
Dallas Lee, a lawyer for about 50 alleged victims, said while the question of whether there really ever was a pedophile ring was not answered during the hearings, even though some witnesses did touch on the topic. For example, Claude Marlow, said he was abused by eight men between the ages of 11 and 17 and was "unequivocal" that he was passed from one man to another in at least one case, although he did not go as far as to say they knew each other.
In the end, Lee said he found the lack of specific apologies at the inquiry by representatives of the institutions involved "very, very disappointing."
He said he hoped the commission's final report will:
* Acknowledge that something unusual and wrong happened in Cornwall with respect to the sexual abuse of children.
* Lead to institutions responding properly and compassionately to allegations of abuse and help the justice system do a better job of prosecuting those accused of abuse.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.