Cornwall Standard Freeholder

25 October 2008

Posted By CLAUDE MCINTOSH

The conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this one.

Christopher Bentley, the province's attorney general, has told Commissioner Normand Glaude to turn out the lights at the Weave Shed for a final time on Feb. 27, 2009 and have his report filed by July 31.

Still to be trotted in and out of the witness box are representatives of the school boards, Ontario Provincial Police and Bentley's own attorney general's office.

The consensus around the lumbering, hugely expensive, sometimes off the rails inquiry is that the Feb. 27 conclusion date will force the process to take some detours.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on.

In August, Bentley, when asked about the time and money invested in the inquiry, with no end in sight, pointed out that the commission was independent from the province and under the control of Justice Normand Glaude.

That was before the bottom fell out of the provincial cash box.

Just a few days ago Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, finally taking off the blinders, said the province was in a financial tailspin.

No stone is being unturned in search of ways to save money.

One of those stone's is the Cornwall Public Inquiry.

Bentley is suggesting the inquiry has cost taxpayers around $37 million.

A case could be made that it is much higher than that . . . and it will go higher.

Not included are legal bills piled up by publicly-funded institutions like the Cornwall Police Service, attorney-general's office, Children's Aid Society and Ontario Provincial Police, organizations not on the commission tab, and the cost of maintaining an army of commission lawyers and staffers.

When the inquiry is finally put to rest, the province owes taxpayers a complete accounting of what this exercise cost, and where the money was spent.

Right down to the last penny. Taxpayers will be shocked.

There were no complaints about possibly shortchanging witnesses.

So why, two months later, the inquiry feels the ministry is putting a gun to its head with a Feb. 27 deadline that's approximately 75 working days beyond Engelmann's Christmas projection?

Of course, it could be argued that when Peter Engelmann suggested back in August that the inquiry could wrap up by Christmas, he didn't say which Christmas.

Maybe he was talking about Christmas 2009, or 2010.

 Considering how long this thing has been crawling along at something less than a break-neck pace -- witnesses who were originally told they would be called 12 months ago are still waiting in the wings, some now being told they won't be called -- the Feb. 27 deadline is more than reasonable.

The commish needs to take the inquiry out of cruise control: Start sittings on Monday mornings, put in a full day's work on Fridays, add an extra hour to each day's sitting and cut lunch breaks to one hour.

In the real world it is called being efficient.

COFFEE GRINDS

Last week we mentioned that the Alexandria-Cornwall Diocese had a policy that banned eulogies at funerals in its churches. Not so. There is no policy. The decision is left to parish priests, some of whom have, because of unpleasant experiences, ruled against them.

There is efficieant and there is wanting to sweep things under the rug so the big bad problem goes away.  

For me, there's no "crying conspiracy"...I, as many others, including you and the "pearheads", know the facts.

Now, we'll watch you "surrogates", especially you "Mac", "desperately paddling, in your self constructed quagmire"....It's time to ride off into the sunset "Mac"....pretty soon "everyone" will be gone and you can get back to "scribbling" about the cracks on Pitt Street. Until we meet again. 

Reply | Report | Page Top Post #4 By luckyred,

Yeah .....OPINION of local Editor makes it as BIG NEWS in Cornwall. More than a joke luckyred - this guy needed to be fired a hell of a long time ago!!!