Accused should come forward and testify at inquiry: Guzzo

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 08:00

Terri Saunders

Local News - Long before Niagara MPP Peter Kormos stood in the legislature and demanded Premier Dalton McGuinty look into historical abuse of children in Cornwall, and years before local MPP Jim Brownell said he wished he'd been the one to ask that question, a former judge turned politician began calling on the province to pull this community out from under a cloud of rumour and innuendo.

In the fall of 1998, then-Ottawa-Rideau MPP Garry Guzzo wrote a letter to then-Premier Mike Harris asking his Tory government to examine the work being done by a group of Ontario Provincial Police officers as part of an investigation called Project Truth.

The team's mandate was to investigate allegations of historical child sexual abuse leveled at a group of Catholic priests by a number of complainants.

It wasn't the first time Guzzo had asked Harris to look into the "situation" in Cornwall, but it was the first time the public found out about his pleas.

Guzzo said he was concerned about how the investigation was being conducted and worried the police weren't getting all the facts.

Guzzo said, at the time, he was particularly disturbed by reports many of the individuals who had provided statements regarding alleged abuse to the offices of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General. "I'm still convinced we're not hearing the whole story," Guzzo said in an interview with the Standard-Freeholder late last week.

"The truth is out there, but if a number of people aren't called to testify (at the Cornwall Public Inquiry) we may not get the whole story."

Guzzo has been following the inquiry since it began in February 2006.

After nearly a decade of publicly calling on the province and a number of police forces to investigate claims of systemic child abuse allegedly perpetrated by a group of prominent area men, the former attorney and judge says the inquiry has to do one thing if the community is ever to get to the bottom of the scandal.

"Those people who have been accused have to be called as witnesses," said Guzzo.

"In my opinion, if you're accused of something and you don't come forward to declare your innocence, you may be admitting what's being said is the truth."

In late June, a witness at the inquiry admitted he'd made up aspects of statements he's made in the past about prominent men alleged to have gathered together to collectively abuse children and cover each other's tracks as well as the nature of the abuse that was alleged to have occurred.

Guzzo said if it turns out some of the rumours which have floated around the community for decades aren't true, the inquiry will have served an important purpose. "All we said from the start is we wanted to get to the truth," he said.

"If this all has been a fraud, it will be helpful to get that out."