SQLFusion - Digging up the Truth in Cornwall

Digging up the truth in Cornwall
Meet the judge who will lead the sex abuse inquiry

Kelly Egan
The Ottawa Citizen

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

A public inquiry always makes news and sometimes it makes waves; witness the tsunami that is Gomery.

And so the choice of commissioner of inquiry is important, as his background -- not to mention his every word -- will be parsed for meaning. Judge John Gomery, recall, nearly detonated himself with a suggestion that Jean Chretien's sponsorship golf balls showed the heart of "small-town cheap."

The Cornwall sexual abuse scandal is, by some measures, more serious than Gomery. This is not a matter of wasted public funds.

People died here; careers were ruined; a whole city lived unsettled.

Into this landmined territory walks Mr. Justice G. Normand Glaude.

He has begun his work by deciding to grant media interviews, which seems rather clever. Any coverage that illuminates the man's compassion can only help in his line of inquiry, which will carve through a jungle of hurt.

"The story goes that my mom asked me, once upon a time, what I wanted to do," Judge Glaude said yesterday from Sudbury, where he is regional senior justice.

"I was just a young guy, maybe 10 or so. I said I either wanted to become the prime minister of Canada, or a judge. How's that?"

Judge Glaude was born and raised in Sudbury, one of six children. He had a grandfather in the Chesterville area, however, and has childhood memories of cutting hay and milking cows in this part of the world.

He is an overachiever. A graduate of the University of Ottawa's law school in 1980, he became a provincial court judge (criminal division) in 1990. He was only 35.

In 2000, he was named the senior justice for a Northern Ontario area around Sudbury that covers 250,000 square kilometres. In 2004, according to the Ontario salary disclosure act, he was paid $254,500. The first initial G. stands for George.

He is married with three children, two of them students at the University of Ottawa, the third living in the state of Washington. One of the first people he spoke to about taking the job was his wife, as it will take him from home for weeks at a time.

"Folks are going to have to realize that I'm not a superhuman."

Fine. A mere Solomon would do.

To briefly summarize, a number of sexual abuse complaints were twice investigated by Cornwall police in 1993, resulting in no charges. A followup probe by Ontario Provincial Police in 1994 also came up empty.

Finally, after the city of 47,000 was humming with stories of coverup, the OPP launched Project Truth in 1997. It was exhaustive: 672 individuals were interviewed, linked to 69 complainants. Four years later, the police concluded there was no pedophile ring in the city, but laid 115 charges against 15 individuals. There was only one conviction.

One of the more delicate questions for the Glaude inquiry is this: How can complainants come forward, tell their stories, name names, yet not engage in a retrial of the failed prosecutions?

On the flip side, how can the rights of acquitted or innocent people be protected against wild accusation?

"That's a very good point and a sensitive one. I don't have all the answers right now. I have to get my team together. Lawyers, researchers, investigators. Once that is set up, and as we begin to look at how we're going to deal with the information that's coming in, those decisions will be made."

When asked if publication bans were possible, he answered: "Oh, absolutely."

He was more uncertain about whether the commission would ever answer the root question of whether a pedophile ring -- formal or otherwise -- existed in the city, possibly involving community and church leaders.

"Too early to tell. It will depend on how the evidence unfolds, that kind of thing."

It is clear Judge Glaude intends to have a large amount of public input.

He is already talking about town hall meetings and a website with regular progress reports and an easy means of gathering written submissions.

Some of the abuse victims will want to come forward; others may not, he said. In any case, he will have a mountain of court transcripts to rely on. "A lot of what they have to say has already been documented."

One of his main jobs at this point is to find a lead counsel, hire some staff and find an office in Cornwall. It's unclear at this point what other parties -- the police, the church, the Children's Aid Society, possibly -- will have standing at the inquiry.

Every commission has its own style, he said. What will his be?

"I like to get to the issues. I hope we don't get bogged down into irrelevancies. Depending on the number of parties, it's always difficult to manage a case with a lot of parties. One has to be careful not to go off on tangents."

He hopes the inquiry will find answers, but not point fingers. It is a little unclear at this point how these two goals can be met.

"In the end, it's my hope that everyone will say 'Well, we were heard, we heard what other people had to say, we may not agree, but at least we heard the whole story and now we can get on it with it'."

Public hearings, he hopes, should begin later this year.

Contact Kelly Egan at 726-5896 or by e-mail, kegan@thecitizen.canwest.com

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