Hallelujah!!!
Uncategorized April 8th. 2009, 2:00amProject O. Bookmark is off the ground!
Hallelujah!!!!
Last evening (Tuesday 07 April 2009) John MacDonald met with two RCMP officers. The investigation into his two-year-old complaint with the Cornwall Police Service is up and running. It is code named Project O. Bookmark, the “O” I believe being “O Division,” as in Ontario Division of the RCMP.
Why Bookmark I have no idea.
The two RCMP officers are
Sgt. Glenn Trendell (Proceeds of Crime Unit, Kingston, Ontario)
Sgt. M.O.M. Paul S. Thompson (Commercial Crimes Section, Kitchener, Ontario)
According to John the pair have been working on the investigation for about two-and-a-half weeks. They were called in to do the job by D/C Danny Aikman.
I understand that Thompson will be back and forth to Kitchener and is currently returning home until end May to carry on with other business. Trendell will carry on with the investigation. I understand that although he will busy with other things Thompson will be able to find time to do some necessary reading. There is certainly no lack of reading material when it comes Cornwall 
.
I also understand that the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General`s office has been notified that the investigation is under way.
John is relieved and, I would say, cautiously optimistic. The two year wait has come to an end. He was pleased with the meeting. Things are finally moving.
Call me a fool but I must say I am surprised to find myself quite hopeful. Barring former Chief Claude Shaver and John Spice (the Cornwall Public Inquiry lead investigator) who are both ex RCMP the RCMP is an unknown entity in the Cornwall scandal, i.e. I am unable to say the RCMP pooched this, or covered up that because, to my knowledge, they have never been involved. So, for now at least I am content to give them the benefit of the doubt and trust that they will do what good officers should do to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation.
As always, we shall see….
******
Does anyone have any news on the recent Don Greccocourt appearance? OIf yes, please pass it along. We are anxiously waiting for an update.
*****
I’m still plugging away – going through transcripts. I keep vowing “that’s it” and then come across something that I absolutely have to check out – and away I go again. It is amazing to see the bee hive of activity that was unleashed after Perry passed David Silmser’s victim statement over to the CAS. Amazing. I am looking forward to eventually getting that detailed timeline hobbled together to see just who was tripping over who and where.
What I happened on today by chance was David Silmser’s testimony in which he said he had gone to the Children’s Aid Society before Perry ever went. Dave has consistently maintained that he went to CAS before Perry ever went. Those who followed the inquiry will recall that Geraldine Fitpatrick’s testimony corroborated that.
Fitzpatrick’s explosive testimony seems to have gone by the bye and been dismissed as irrelevant. But, she doesn’t know David Silmser from a hole in the wall and comes up with testimony that puts Dave going to CAS before Perry? I think that’s rather significant.
During his 16 January 2007 John MacDonald’s also testified that Dave had told him he, Dave, had gone to CAS before Perry. In fact John had a note to that effect from 25 March 1996 which he took with him when he, John, went to see Rick Abell. I won’t go further on that because there is John’s testimony about Abell writing something on a piece of paper, and Dave has given testimony about the same meeting where he said Abell slipping a piece of paper under the door. It’s a bit confusing - I want to see if there’s any other testimony related to that incident..
The obvious question though is is it possible that Dave is confused with his time frames? I suppose it’s possible, but he is just so adamant on this. .
Another example…
On 14 August 1996 Carson Chisholm put some questions to Dave to clarify some issues, and Dave came out with the six month time frame again – in this instance he said he went to CAS six months before the media leak.
Anyway, below is Dave insisting in his 09 September 1997 testimony at Charlie’s preliminary hearings that they have their dates wrong. It’s a little confusing too but I think one can get the gist of it. All this came inot evidence as John Callaghan (CPS) played the Let’s Pretend David Silmser is on the Stand game (19 April 2007). It started with Callaghan stating the following:
The last area I would have touched upon is, I would have touched upon the evidence, you know, recall when I examined Mr. John MacDonald. There was a note of Mr. John MacDonald’s wherein he had indicated in the note that David Silmser had advised him that he had told, or that he had reported, the abuse of Father MacDonald to the Children’s Aid Society six months before Constable Dunlop, and I would have reviewed that in light of the comments in the transcript of January 30th.
Callaghan then proceeded to read the questions put to Dave and Dave’s answers from the transcript of R. vs Charles MacDonald – September 9, 1997. Callaghan did not identify but I would imagine the questions were posed by Michael Neville, Charlie’s lawyer, Callaghan picked it up at this point:
Question: “Do you remember when that interview was?
Answer: — and they’re talking about the interview with Mr. Bell and Ms. DeBellis.
Answer: “Not exactly, no.”
Question: “If I suggest to you it was the 2nd of November ’93 would you agree with that, accept that?
Answer: “No, I wouldn’t.”
Question: “Okay. Well, I’m taking it off the transcript. It’s dated.”
Answer: “But there’s a problem there.”
Question: “What’s that?”
Answer: “What I feel the Children’s Aid Society have, have changed dates in order to protect Perry Dunlop on something. I think I seen him a lot. A lot. It was before that date they were written down. I think the Children’s Aid they are involved in this cover-up in Cornwall.”
Question: “Okay.”
Answer: “So I wouldn’t stand by any of those dates. I wouldn’t stand by any of that
Question: “Okay. They’re part of a cover-up?”
Answer: “I believe so.”
Question: “And they’re involved in a cover-up with whom, with Mr. Dunlop?”
Answer: “No, no. I think they’ve covered up some dates so they wouldn’t — they covered up dates because what happened there was I went to see the Children’s Aid Society and the Children’s Aid Society said that Perry Dunlop went to see them before I did, and I’m saying no, I didn’t work that way so they changed dates type of thing. So I don’t know why it’s just —
Question: “Let’s take another try at this. Where is the discrepancy again?”
Answer: “The discrepancy’s in the dates. I went to see them first, the first information from Children’s Aid.
Question: “I’m sorry?”
Answer: “The first meeting I had but there’s a discrepancy in the dates.”
Callaghan’s plan had been to clarify this with Dave.
Any thoughts?
*****
A reminder that there is no longer a need to log in to blog. And that the little red x is the submit button.
On that note I’ll call it a day
Enough for now,
Sylvia
April 9th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Not sure if anyone noticed, but Judge George Normand Glaude got paid a whopping $302,884.64 by the province for 2008.
That’s up by about 33 per cent from the annual salary he earned in 2004, the last full year he was a judge in Ontario BEFORE he was named commissioner of the inquiry. In that year, the regional senior justice for northern Ontario earned a comparably paltry $205,782.94.
No wonder that thing went on as long as it did. Wouldn’t you want to continue for as long as possible in a job where your salary was jumping about eight per cent every single year?
Nurses and teachers have to fight tooth and nail to get the province to agree to annual wage increases in the one to two per cent range, not even enough to keep up with inflation.
Not that I don’t believe people should be paid well for work they do well. I just wonder sometimes about the amount we, as taxpayers, are on the hook for.
April 15th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Here’s a few more salaries of interest to add to the list AbsentObserver – most not the whopping “$300,000 plus which went to Glaude, but pretty nice figures nonetheless.
I am intrigued to see that the Cornwall Police Chief draws the same salary as that of the Ottawa Chief. (Ottawa has a population close to one million). That Cornwall’s Justice McPhee earned as much as Glaude. That Derochie earned $120,000 sitting in the Weave Shed. That Perry would undoubtedly be earning in the range of $100,000 or more if he hadn’t been drawn and quartered by his own for blowing the whistle. And that heading up Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada is financially lucrative.
Judges
Salary Taxable benefits
GRIFFITHS PETER Judge $297,107.69 $3,971.4
MACPHEE BRUCE Judge $302,884.64 $3,842.36
RENAUD GILLES Judge $260,735.76 $3,632.47
Ontario Civilian Commission on Policing
CHITRA MURRAY Chairperson $213,380.94 $354.42
Cornwall Police Service
BRUNET LUCIEN Staff Sergeant $115,983.62 $593.84
DEROCHIE GARRY Staff Sergeant $120,329.82 $1,192.68
DUPUIS DARCY Inspector $123,087.17 $593.84
SNYDER BRIAN Acting Inspector[3] $125,369.45 $593.84
WELLS BRENDON Inspector $115,008.35 $593.84
WHITE SHAWN R Acting Sergeant[4] $104,584.75 $593.84
WHITE VERNON Chief of Police $219,464.98 $6,579.83
Ottawa Police
WHITE VERNON Chief of Police $219,464.98 $6,579.83
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada
MACDONALD BRUCE President/Chief Executive Officer $146,117.50 $11,365.71
April 27th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Sylvia:
I hope the “O” Division of the RCMP gets it right, but I wouldn’t hold my breath as I went to the CFSEU Div. of the RCMP about the lies and cover-up being done by the Hamilton Police Services. End result O as I never heard back and I still have the Police in front of the IPC and remember that the Asst. Privacy Commish Brian Beamish got involved in my case and issued out a “Notice of Inquiry” to the Police Chief, Superintendants and detectives involved in my case ordering them to have Affidavits filled out and signed “Attesting as to their QUALIFICATIONS as Police officers and also as to their KNOWLEDGE of child abuse” and get it into his office. Everybody knows what a butcher job those cops did but it would appear like I’ve said many times that cops just don’t want to either investigate or charge other cops. And hey, we can’t forget what a swell job the RCMP did in their lying about the tasering death of that Polish man in B.C. I wouldn’t trust those clown nor any other cops as far as I could throw them. Even after the “movie” of the tasering, the cops still continued to lie or shall we say not tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth about how they killed that man as some have said they did. Good luck but don’t hold your breath, sorry for the pessimism but after watching how cops handled my case and also some of the issues up there, I would allege that they might well do the job by grabbing a broom, lifting up the carpet and sweeping it all under the rug
April 28th, 2009 at 9:09 am
You’re right Dave, A good dose of caution is always in order
The trouble is we really won’t have a clue what’s going on until a decision is made by the RCMP to charge or not to charge. I guess if there’s a PR blitz “insufficient evidence” to lay charges just before Glaude’s report is due in July I’ll certainly smell a rat.
Can you imagine what a pickle Glaude will be in if he releases his report with findings that Pelletier, Murray MacDonald and Griffiths were a little overworked, and little understaffed and a whole lot shy on knowledge of the horrific impact of sexual abuse on male victims of same sex sexual abuse, and then imagine that within weeks or months the RCMP announces that one, two or all three are charged with obstruction of justice? That would be a lot of mud for a judicial face to wear.
So, I am watching with great interest to see if the RCMP investigation happens to wrap up weeks before the Glaude report is released for public consumption. In other words, will the investigation wrap up in time to take the pressure off the commissioner before he commits his findings to the public?
We shall have to wait and see. What else can we do?