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	Public Inquiry Opens on 'Pedophile Clan' Claims By Paul Likoudis The Wanderer March 9, 2006 [Reprinted in Matt C. Abbott, Ontario's alleged 'pedophile clan', RenewAmerica, March 20, 2006. http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/abbott/060320] Cornwall, Ont. — Fifteen years after allegations that a "pedophile clan" consisting of prominent local officials in government, the Church, police, child welfare and probation departments abused dozens of young boys in the St. Lawrence River community of Cornwall on the eastern edge of Ontario, an official public inquiry led by Justice Normand Gloade opened here last week under a national spotlight. This public inquiry is not to "determine who did what to whom," in the words of Justice Gloade — though that may come out in the course of the ten-month inquiry (broadcast daily on the Internet at www.cornwallinquiry.ca), but to determine "how public institutions in Cornwall responded in the past to any allegations of sexual abuse that were brought to their attention — not just in the Church but in all institutions," and to help those individuals who were abused, and who may be abused in the future, to cope with their trauma. On the inquiry's opening day, February 13, the chief witness was Dr. David A. Wolfe, one of Canada's top sex abuse experts, a professor at the University of Toronto and a practicing psychologist whose specialty is sex abuse, and the author of the first academic textbook in the world dealing with issues of child sex abuse. Over the next ten months, numerous witnesses will testify, building a mountain of paperwork that some critics of the inquiry fear will bury the scandal in a way that numerous government and police cover-ups, along with heavy doses of media ridicule, never could. In past government inquiries into large scale sex abuse cases, such as the Winter Commission that probed Canada's first clerical sex abuse scandal in Newfoundland in the late 1980s, observed Ottawa-area Catholic Sylvia MacEachern, who has done ground-breaking work in the Cornwall sex abuse scandal, "recognized fully that every single priest involved was homosexual, and they quickly put that into context by saying that pedophile activity is not the norm for homosexuals. "Then, the Winter Commission proceeded to 'muddy the waters' by lumping all victims together, male and female, and all perpetrators together — those who molest little boys and those who molest little girls — and went on to deal with pedophilia in the broad sense, rather than the pederasty that was applicable to the case," she said. "One of the Winter Commission's conclusions," said Mrs. MacEachern, "was the imperative of addressing the issue of homophobia." JUDGE SPEAKS OUT On the day the inquiry opened, February 13, former judge and Member of Parliament Garry Guzzo was interviewed on CFRA-Radio in Ottawa, where the former MP, who had forcefully called for an official, independent public inquiry into what he called an "official cover-up" of a pedophile protection racket in Cornwall, only to be refused, flatly told host Steve Madely "there had to be a cover-up." Asked by Madely if there "were members of very prominent family trees involved" in the crimes in Cornwall and the cover-up," Guzzo replied: "People thought it was just the Church, but we will find out that there were politicians, and they went to the police and gave them their orders.... "That's the trouble when you have a politicized police force," he added. Guzzo recalled that when he went to the chief-of-staff of Ontario Premier Mike Harris, to plead for a public inquiry, a Harris aide told him, "Garry, find something else to do." In 2001, after Guzzo successfully passed a bill calling for a public inquiry into the numerous police investigations in the Ontario legislature, it was ruled out of order by David Goodis, Senior Adjudicator in the Office of the Solicitor General, who said such an inquiry would not only violate the privacy rights of living people, but dead people as well. In the Ontario government, the Office of the Solicitor General has oversight over all probation and corrections service personnel, and last year, the Office paid out a multi-million dollar settlement to individuals who claimed they were abused by probation and corrections employees. Fourteen of 20 victims took the pay-out (and accepted a gag-order not to talk about what happened to them), three refused because the money was not enough, and three insisted on going to trial with a different set of lawyers. Guzzo's bill would have forced the Ontario Provincial Police to turn over to Parliament all of its records relating to the various investigations into the alleged "pedophile ring" in Cornwall, as well as coroner's records; but Goodis denied the legislature the right to see them. THE CORNWALL CASE A decade before "clerical sex abuse" became a national blood sport in the United States, this little down-and-out city of 46,000 was rocked by charges that its top civic leaders, including the Catholic bishop, his top priests and canon lawyer, the police chief, Crown attorneys and prominent local doctors and businessmen sexually abused dozens of young boys over a 50-year period. Over the past seven years, Sylvia MacEachern investigated the allegations and broadcast her results in the lay newsletter, The Orator, subsequently publicized by The Wanderer in August 17, 2000, only a few cases have gone to trial, and there was only one conviction. As Garry Guzzo explained on CFRA-Radio, "There was never any intention of anyone at the top to have a conviction. That's why three investigations never found anything. Only one fool went in and plead guilty, and if he hadn't, he would have got off... "And all five people charged with over 30 charges died before trial," added Guzzo, though he did not specify most were suicides. In the case of one of the charged, Jacques Leduc, an attorney and canon lawyer for the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall, who was accused of molesting three young men, a judge in October 2004 dismissed the charges, claiming the six-year delay by the Crown Attorney in bringing the case to trial violated Leduc's right to a speedy trial. One of the problems with Leduc's trial was that the first judge, Colin McKinnon, was exposed during the trial by one of the witnesses as an attorney for the Cornwall Chief of Police and the Cornwall Police Services, and who had also threatened a legal action on behalf of the police chief against a local citizen for raising questions about the chief. Then, the second judge appointed to the case, after McKinnon recused himself, gave Leduc a stay because the Crown Attorney allegedly did not disclose some information to the defense. That ruling was appealed, and by the time the appeal process was complete, the new judge ruled Leduc's right to a speedy trial was violated. DR. WOLFE'S TESTIMONY In a day-and-a-half of testimony, Dr. Wolfe explained the current level of understanding on pedophilia, and the traumatic effect it can have on the pedophile's victims, and his professional opinion backs claims often made by the U.S. bishops that they handled their pedophile priests the same way principals handled pedophile teachers and coaches. Dr. Wolfe insisted that little was known about the "orientation" of pedophilia before 1991, and even less was known about the traumatic effect of sex abuse on children. He described pedophilia as "an attraction to children, a sexual orientation to children. That's the only one that's an official mental disorder in the Diagnostic Manual, pedophilia. So it really means anyone from the ages zero to 18. He said research indicates far more girls are abused than boys, but that may be because boys are more reluctant to admit abuse. But he also said that one reason so many boys were abused by pedophiles is because they are more available, since many parents, especially single parents, are eager for their young sons to have a "male mentor." "The pedophile is attracted to children, so they will be interested in whichever child they have access to, and some are more interested only in one sex or the other, but they still may be involved with a child of the lesser desired sex because it's more accessible," he said. "For example, adolescent boys are much more accessible to men than girls are...because in our society it's more acceptable for men to mentor boys. It's an important thing, and most adults feel it's a good thing for their sons to have a male figure that spends time with them and so forth, but they may feel less comfortable with their daughters...." RERUNNING WINTER As up-to-date and compelling as Dr. Wolfe's analysis is, Sylvia MacEachern fears that by his leading off of the Cornwall public inquiry, the result will be the same as the Winter Commission. The Winter Commission report, observed Mrs. MacEachern, "acknowledged that its focus on sexual abuse was 'the involvement of male children in any form of sexual activity with members of the Roman Catholic clergy.' It also acknowledged that: the cases before it were homosexual in nature; the clerical predators of Newfoundland 'engaged in homosexual behavior by preference'; the boys involved were at least 12 years old when the sexual abuse started; and there was therefore 'no compelling evidence' of classical pedophilia; some of the 'perpetrators were sexually active with a number of adolescent male partners at any given time' and 'also appear to be homosexual'; and approximately 30 percent of the diocesan clergy were homosexual in orientation. "Despite these stated observations," she continued, "which were categorized as a 'statistical anomaly,' the Commission refrained from delving into the sphere of homosexuality and completely avoided Church teaching on the subject. "Moreover, the Commission chose to take the politically correct route, so, among other things, the Commission indicated it was disturbed by the 'climate of homophobia' in the Archdiocese of St. John's and advised that this needs to be addressed 'if society is to avoid the unnecessary stigmatization of a significant portion of humankind' and recommended that 'education programs should direct public attitudes towards a healthy understanding of sexuality with concomitant goals of discouraging sexual stereotyping and homophobia.' "In short, the Commission sidestepped the real issue, that of predatory clerical homosexuals; instead it took the opportunity to rely on 'feminist experience,' bashed the patriarchal structure of the Church and broadened its study to the 'larger social issue of childhood sexual abuse.' "As Americans have seen how the clerical sex abuse scandal in the Church led to a massive education program on 'child safety,' so we can expect the long-awaited, long-demanded inquiry in Cornwall to lead to more 'child safety' programs, more sympathy for homosexuals, and more rights for pedophiles, whose orientation and rights will be protected by our Charter of Rights."
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