Fantino to take stand at inquiry

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

05 October 2007

Posted By Terri Saunders

The province's top cop is expected to take the stand at the Cornwall Public Inquiry later this month.

OPP Comm. Julian Fantino is on the list of witnesses expected to give testimony during a phase of hearings referred to as community context evidence. During this phase, witnesses who had contact with victims and public institutions, but don't fit under either category themselves, will talk about their experiences in relation to the commission's mandate.

"We will be calling Comm. Julian Fantino," Pierre Dumais, commission co-counsel, confirmed Thursday. "He is on our witness list."

In late 1996, former city cop Perry Dunlop, who was still a member of the Cornwall Community Police Service at the time, delivered a number of boxes of documents to Fantino, who was then serving as chief of the London, Ont. police force.

During an interview with the Standard-Freeholder in May 2006, Fantino said he wasn't sure why he would be called to testify at the inquiry but he was available to the commission if officials determined it was important to hear from him.

"The relevance of what I might have to offer is beyond my determination," Fantino said at the time. "I have knowledge, some knowledge, of course, of some of these events. I will be at the disposal of due process."

Fantino made the comments while in Cornwall as part of his work as the province's then-emergency management commissioner. Since that time, Fantino was named OPP commissioner and found himself returning to Cornwall in January 2007 to see the inquiry's work in action.

"I'm quite interested in what's going on here," said Fantino after he'd sat in for a day's worth of testimony. "A number of our members are seconded here, so I wanted to come by and see how it's going."

Fantino is on the list to testify in the coming weeks, but not before the commission determines whether or not it will hear from Dunlop himself. The former city cop took the stand at the inquiry several times the week of Sept. 17, but each time refused to answer questions, saying he'd done so multiple times in the past and has nothing more to offer.

His wife, Helen, did answer questions from the commission and some of the parties with standing at the inquiry, but didn't go into great detail about her husband's dealings with victims or institutions.

In the years following a series of police investigations into abuse allegations in the region, Dunlop delivered the boxes to Fantino, a man Dunlop described as "the only honest cop" in Ontario.

Dunlop, who resigned from the Cornwall force in the summer of 2000, has testified in the past he had little faith in members of his own force or regional OPP detachments.

In September 2004, Dunlop told Judge Terence Platana, who was presiding over a stay motion related to sexual assault charges laid against city lawyer Jacques Leduc, he drove from Cornwall to London with the boxes of documents.

"After receiving numerous statements from victims, some of whom indicated they did not trust the Cornwall Police Service or the Ontario Provincial Police, I gave full disclosure of my material and hand delivered it to Chief Julian Fantino," Dunlop wrote in a statement to Platana. "I gave copies of the same material to the Attorney General, the Solicitor General's office and the Ontario Civilian Commission on Policing."

On Sept. 21, inquiry Comm. Normand Glaude ordered Dunlop to return to Cornwall Oct. 9 and Dunlop said he would do so. He also told the commission he planned on seeking legal advice prior to his arrival back in town in an effort to determine whether or not he will testify.

If he chooses to remain silent, Dunlop could face contempt of court charges. Glaude did tell Dunlop commission counsel would be willing to travel to British Columbia, where the former cop and his family have been living since August 2000, in order to prepare him to testify.

Commission staff confirmed Thursday no one from the inquiry has travelled to B.C. to meet with Dunlop since he left Cornwall Sept. 21.

Other witnesses expected to be called in the next few weeks include Dunlop's brother-in-law Carson Chisholm, retired judge and former Ottawa-area MPP Garry Guzzo, and Charles Bourgeois, a lawyer who once represented Dunlop in a civil lawsuit.

The inquiry will resume Tuesday at 10 a.m. when it's expected Dunlop will return to the stand.