BishopAccountability.org
	Still Looking for an Answer By Kevin Lajoie Standard Freeholder December 17, 2009 http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2225326 Canada -- Mayor Bob Kilger said he's disappointed that Comm. Normand Glaude's final report on the Cornwall Public Inquiry didn't rule out claims of a pedophile ring operating in the community. "I would have hoped that . . . . that matter could have been addressed with greater conviction (in the final report)," said Kilger on Wednesday. "The time and the resources were certainly available to the commission to come up with a far stronger answer to that question." In his final report, Glaude did not make a final pronouncement on the long-standing claims of a pedophile ring, saying the issue was not fully explored and it was not within his mandate to make such a finding. Much of the public interest and media attention surrounding the local sex abuse scandal has focused on claims that a "clan" of pedophiles -- many of them prominent members of the community -- were working in concert to abuse boys. The allegations originated from Ron Leroux, a key figure in the scandal who later recanted most of the claims while testifying at the inquiry. In delivering the report on Tuesday, Glaude noted that contrary to popular belief, the OPP's Project Truth investigation did not look into the larger issue of sex abuse in Cornwall. The investigators handled sex abuse allegations as individual cases and not as "one part of a possible interconnected whole," he added. "The Ontario Provincial Police concluded Project Truth by saying there was no pedophile ring in Cornwall. Since they did not investigate this, they could not have reasonably come to this conclusion," Glaude told the audience. "This does not mean that I find there was a ring of pedophiles. It is not my role to make such a finding. But I do find that no investigation provided conclusive evidence on this point." Despite Glaude's conclusion, Kilger doesn't give much stock to the pedophile ring claims. "I never believed it for a moment and I haven't read or seen anything to change my mind," he said. "The fact he (Glaude) wasn't able to say there was (a ring) tells me that there wasn't (one)." As for the rest of the report, Kilger said he was pleased with Glaude's finding that were was no evidence of a conspiracy between Cornwall police and the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall over the church's $32,000 non-disclosure settlement with former alter boy David Silmser in 1992.
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