Things to watch for

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Hearings resume at 14:00 hours (2 pm) this afternoon, Monday, 10 September 2007. The commission will address (1) the motion to excuse Ron Leroux from further cross-examination; (2) Ron Leroux’ Application for Standing and Funding; and (3) Carson Chisholm’s application for Standing and Funding.

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I’ve posted three new documents:

(1) 09 January 2001: Lawsuit filed against the Viatorian priests who operated Cornwall Classical College and against the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall.

(2) 04 May 1994: “Strictly Confidential” Colin McKinnon letter to Staff Sgt. Brendan Wells (Cornwall Police Service) re Police Service Act charges against Constable Perry Dunlop

(3) 18 October 1994: Colin McKinnon threatens Carson Chisholm with legal action. Demands Caron apologize to former Chief of Cornwall police Claude Shaver.

All the above documents are pdf files (if you don’t have Adobe Reader to open them it’s available free online).

The Lawsuit
Regarding the lawsuit, as yet we haven’t heard a word in the Weave Shed about the Viatorian priests who ran the Cornwall Classical College. Will that be a topic on the plate when the commission moves to the Institutional response phase and the diocese presents its case? It most certainly should be.

As is the norm with such lawsuits, the victims who settled are gagged. Not a word can be uttered about the settlement. What does that tell us about “Church” openness and transparency? I trust that before the inquiry is over and done with we will hear more about and see the court settlements hankered over the years by the diocese and/or the ordered priests functioning within the diocese, including the Viatorians.

(I started to re-do the Viatorian page. The lawsuit is accessible via that page – a few more bits and pieces of information re the lawsuit are added beside the link)

Justice Colin McKinnon letters

The next two posts deal with Justice Colin McKinnon, the judge who took the bench at the Project Truth sex abuse trial of Roman Catholic lawyer and Church canon lawyer Jacques Leduc. Rather than repeat what I have on the website I will direct you to comments regarding both on The Cover-Up page. Scroll down to Justice Colin McKinnon’s Cornwall connections.

When you open the no. 2 document (04 May 1994) scroll beyond the first page – I scanned two of the attachments referenced by McKinnon (the others are simply forms so I left them aside). And keep scrolling on the no. 3 one too – the McKinnon letter to the Seaway News is attached. (The Seaway News, incidentally,has kept arms length from the Cornwall Public Inquiry. It seems that as far as it’s concerned the inquiry is a non issue. To my knowledge, no coverage at all! Not a word. I used to check regularly and then gave up.)

Anyway, read the letters. And McKinnon took the bench at a Project Truth trial and sic weeks later said he forgot about his prior dealings with Perry Dunlop?! And he said the name Perry Dunlop rang a bell?! And he said that seeing the letters he dispatched on Shaver’s behalf “refreshed” his memory?! And then and – only then! – did he publicly divulge that before he was called to the bench he spent years providing legal counsel to the Cornwall Police Service?!!

Perry Dunlop didn’t stand a chance. Not a chance. And he didn’t get one. He was thoroughly drawn and quartered when the Jacques Leduc sex abuse trial morphed into the trial and lynching of Perry Dunlop.

Is it any wonder the Leduc “trial” put the talk of a paedophile ring and cover-up into overdrive?

Anyway, some questions related to the McKinnon letters:

(1) What, if anything, will we learn at the Cornwall Public Inquiry of Justice Colin McKinnon’s Cornwall/Shaver/Cornwall Police Service connections?

(2) Will the Cornwall Police Service disclose all of its Colin-McKinnon-related files?

(3) Will Cornwall police officers be asked specifically what interactions, if any, they had with McKinnon while he was a lawyer?

(4) Will we learn how well, if at all, McKinnon and Leduc, knew each other?

(5) Will the commission attempt to find out how well Shaver and McKinnon knew each other? and for how long? and if they continue to communicate and visit?

(6) Will Justice Colin McKinnon be called to testify, or might he – as a federally-appointed judge – get a bye because he sits neatly outside the scope of a provincially commissioned inquiry?

(7) How did Justice McKinnon manage to be appointed to take the bench at the Leduc trial in the first place?

Those are just a few of the many questions which cross my mind as I think back to Jacque Leduc’s sex abuse trial – things to listen and watch for as this hobbled inquiry valiantly limps its way to the finish line….

Enough for now,

Sylvia
(cornwall@theinquiry.ca)

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