Fantino may not testify at inquiry

Terri Saunders

Wednesday, January 17, 2007 - 10:00

Local News - The province's top cop said Tuesday he's not certain he'll be called as a witness at the Cornwall Public Inquiry.

Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino was at the inquiry Tuesday strictly to observe, he said.

"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."

The issues associated with the inquiry, including his force's four-year investigation of child sexual abuse claims called Project Truth, and the role of former city police officer Perry Dunlop, are not exactly foreign to Fantino.

In late 1996, Dunlop delivered a number of boxes of documents to Fantino, who was then the chief of police in London, Ont.

During a Project Truth trial in 2002, Dunlop admitted he had trouble trusting members of the city police force or area members of the OPP after he was told to stay out of a matter in which an area man had made allegations a city priest had sexually abused him in the 1970s when the man was an altar boy.

The documents which Fantino received were eventually turned over to the Attorney General of Ontario. But in a number of Project Truth trials, both defense lawyers and Crown attorneys admitted it was never entirely clear whether Dunlop had delivered all of the documents in his possession to Fantino and whether all of them were turned over to the provincial government.

In May 2006, Fantino was in Cornwall to promote safety as part of his tenure as the province's emergency management commissioner. At that time, Fantino said he was "very familiar" with Project Truth but was unsure when and if he would be asked to take the stand at the inquiry.

"The relevance of what I might have to offer is beyond my determination," he said.

"I have knowledge, some knowledge, of course, of some of these events. I will be at the disposal of due process."

Inquiry officials have said in the past Fantino's name is "on the list" of potential witnesses.

On Tuesday, Fantino also commented on the task undertaken by members of his police force to participate fully at the inquiry.

A witness at the Cornwall Public Inquiry disagreed with a lawyer who suggested Tuesday a letter the witness wrote to a city priest in the mid-1990s inferred he was seeking a payoff related to abuse allegations.

John MacDonald, a city man who says he was sexually abused by Rev. Charles MacDonald in the 1970s when the man was an altar boy, was under cross-examination at the inquiry Tuesday. David Sherriff-Scott, a lawyer for the Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese, said portions of a letter John MacDonald wrote to Rev. Kevin Maloney at St. Columban's Parish in August 1995 may have led Maloney to believe the man intended to either go to police or seek a settlement for the abuse he spoke of in the document.

In the letter, MacDonald writes about "wanting something done" and writes: "Please don't make me push this any further than between us."

"Were you suggesting you wanted a response soon or you would go to the authorities or sue the diocese?" asked Sherriff-Scott.

"No," said MacDonald.

"You knew David Silmser (another alleged victim) was attempting to pursue a settlement," said Sherriff-Scott. "You were looking for the same thing - financial compensation."

"No," said MacDonald. "That's not where my frame of mind was at."

Although the letter does not explicitly say what, if anything, MacDonald wanted done, Sherriff-Scott suggested an inference could have been made by Maloney that MacDonald was intending to take the matter further if things were not resolved to his satisfaction.

"You were non-specific," said Sherriff-Scott. "It was left to the reader to infer what you wanted."

MacDonald said he doesn't read anything in his letter which suggests he was threatening to go to the police or was seeking some form of financial payment.

"I read the pain in the letter," he said, "and that's all I can see."

Sherriff-Scott then questioned MacDonald about communications between his mother and diocese officials. In the past, MacDonald admitted, he'd convinced himself his parents had contacted the diocese by writing a letter about their concerns related to himself and some of his brothers and their contact with diocesan priests.

During testimony last month, MacDonald admitted it's become clear his mother did not in fact contact the diocese as he had once thought, although there was some communication between herself and Charles MacDonald.

During an interview with an Ontario Provincial Police officer in December 1995, Agnes MacDonald told the officer she had telephoned the priest in relation to two of her sons, but not John.

Agnes MacDonald said she remembered talking to the priest about the fact two of her sons had gone on a retreat north of Ottawa with a man by the name of Brown and she relayed something one of her sons told her upon his return home. Her son asked her to never "ask me to go to anything like that again."

"I asked, 'What's the matter with you?'" Agnes MacDonald told the officer.
"He said something like, 'Some old bastard of a priest was after me.'"

Agnes MacDonald said she made it clear during her conversation with the priest her sons were not to be involved in any similar activities in the future.

"When I phoned Father Charlie and told him, he didn't say anything and he didn't do anything," Agnes MacDonald told the officer, "and I told Father Charlie not to ask any of my kids to do anything anymore." John MacDonald's cross-examination is expected to continue today.