This week employees of the Children’s Aid Society of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry take the stand. Due to the existing state of legal limbo created by the mandate, the diocese and Father Charles MacDonald, and until such time as Justice Glaude rules on the two motions filed last week by the diocese and MacDonald, there will be no testimony regarding the role played by the CAS in the Cornwall scandal.
But, the show must go on….
Yesterday (03 April 2006) William George Carriere, special assistant to the Executive Director of the Children’s Aid Society was on the stand.
Among other things we heard about the structure of the CAS, risk assessment, risk analysis and the evolution of protocols. I won’t go into that other than to say I am floored by the message which I believe is being elicited and conveyed through this inquiry that an appropriate response to allegations of child sexual abuse is an evolutionary thing which depends solely on research, and training and guidelines.
That aside, two things which crossed my mind as I listened to Mr. Carriere:
(1) We hear time and time again about allegations of “historical” sexual abuse. I am now wondering if there are any other serious criminal acts categorized as “historical” if several years have transpired since they were committed? For example, are murderers which were committed 10 or twenty years ago considered historical? And if so, is a suspect serial murderer considered less a risk to society because the murders are historical?
(2) Mr. Carriere testified that in 1995 he assisted the diocese in drafting the “Diocesan Guidelines on Sexual Abuse by Priests, Deacons, Seminarians and Pastoral Assistants” According to Carriere Bishop Larocque appointed Father Denis Vaillancourt to head the drafting committee which included Carriere, Detective Sergeant Ian Grant (Ontario Provincial Police), Rick Trew (Cornwall Police Services) and Reverend Gordon Findley (First Baptist Church minister).
Carriere doesn’t recall whether it was he or the bishop who chose the Baptist minister, and he doesn’t recall what transpired at the meetings he attended, but he does recall the names, and he does recall that a lot of the work was done by Vaillancourt and the group responded to what he, Vaillancourt, did.
I don’t have the guidelines handy but I do recall reading them and being less than impressed. And now I learn that Father Vaillancourt played a large part in getting the document out.
On 13 May 2002 a small group of victims, their family and supporters met with Monsignor Vaillancourt. During the meeting Vaillancourt told the group that sexual abuse of boys is only a serious matter if the boys are pre-pubescent.
And that’s enough for now,
Sylvia