Jan 29, 2009
CORNWALL– After more than 300 days of testimony and more than 3,300 exhibits, the Cornwall Public Inquiry is in its last hours of testimony.
The last witness is Deputy Attorney General Murray Segal, who says he was not aware of a feeling that there were not enough victim services during the Project Truth investigation looking into allegations of a pedophile ring.
Provincial police laid more than 100 charges against 15 men from the Cornwall, Ont., area.
Only one suspect was convicted, and he was not connected to an alleged pedophile ring.
The inquiry, which has heard from nearly 180 witnesses, was established in 2005 to look at how a number of public institutions, including the provincial justice system, handled historical sexual abuse allegations.
Lawyers will come back at the end of February to deliver their final submissions.
commentary by the Ottawa Men's Centre
Thank you Justice Glaude
Back in 2005 the Attorney General made the decision to appoint Justice G. Normande Glaude as the commissioner of the Cornwall Inquiry. It's taken nearly four years and many millions of dollars to discover that the star witness would not testify. If there is a moral to this story, its that the province of Ontario absent hindsight, did everything right. Perhaps the Ontario government could pay more attention to the root causes of endless litigation, the most obvious being undiagnosed mental health issues and personality disorders which at present are a taboo subject. The province needs to recognize those very obvious symptoms and order the parties for assessments as a safety mechanism to provide appropriate solutions that may end billions of dollars in endless litigation. They can start like Obama did at the top, and order all new judges undergo psychological screening prior to appointment and when its obviously needed.
http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/579233