I was out for the day – thought when I got home I would post the media articles article of the day and then carry on with the James Bateman/Dick Nadeau email ….but computer and software finicky and it took a bit of time to get things in hand.
So, one article up. What a dandy: 08 November 2007: City hit with inquiry bill; Taxpayers on the hook for 40%
Seems the Cornwall Police Service has been quietly and alternately arranging with Mayor Bob Kilger and the Attorney General to siphon tax payers dollars into its Gowling law firm coffers.
Not a boo about this little endeavour until now!!!
Did you tax payers of Ontario know the McGuinty government made a deal to pick up 60% of the Cornwall Police Service legal tab? And that on top of the $3+M it kicked into the cause last February? 60%.
You Ontarians remember who’s paying the bills every time you see John Callaghan or Peter Manderville step up to the plate to draw and quarter Perry Dunlop, or lynch his lawyer, or pillory Carson Chisholm or Dick Nadeau. Remember who’s picking up th tab every time you see one of the pair circle the wagons to pluck this one, that one or the other one out of Malcolm MacDonald’s porn-ridden cottage on Stanley Island.
Yes, thanks to our benevolent former Attorney General Michael Bryant and the McGuinty government Ontario tax payers are financing the Cornwall Police Service’s all out efforts to circle the wagons and shoot the messenger.
To put what’s happened here into perspective we need to recall that when the Cornwall Police Service applied for standing at the inquiry it did not seek funding. Had it done so CPS would have been restrained by caps on its legal fees and restrictions on the numbers of lawyers, clerks, researchers and legal assistants it could retain. So, the CPS wisely took a bye on funding, implied it would cover its own costs, hired its ‘top-notch’ lawyers whose salaries without a shadow of a doubt far exceed the cap, and retained who knows how many researchers etc.
That was Act One.
A bit over a year later off went the CPS crying – hat in hand – to the Attorney General.
No problem. $3M.
That was Act Two.
Now we learn that barely was the $3M cheque signed off than another deal was struck behind closed doors. 60%. The AG promised a minimum of 60% of the CPS legal tab will be picked up for the duration.
A minimum of 60% until this ruse of an inquiry is over, Perry Dunlop is behind bars, Charles Bourgeois’ legal days are numbered, Carson Chisholm is hammered into the ground, Dick Nadeau is rolling in his grave, and Claude Shaver, Crown attorney Murray MacDonald and anyone else of note is airlifted off Stanley Island and right out of Ken Seguin’s waterfront home.
60%. No questions asked. No caps. No limits. 60%. Probably more in the not too distant future.
That was Act Three.
Since this act of perfect charity was executed Michael Bryant has been slipped out of the Attorney General’s office. He’s conveniently gone. Cabinet shuffle. Chris Bentley, a London, Ontario boy, will fill his boots.
Timely indeed.
Some are speculating that the move is on to pull the plug on the inquiry. All this talk about costs, and the Toronto Globe & Mail coming in out of the blue to stir the pot, and a new AG, and the old AG who made the deal out of the hot seat, and the Freeholder’s own Claude McIntosh stirring the pot in homosexual and lesbian circles and inciting hatred against the Dunlops.
It makes some sense I suppose. Pull the plug now before the institutions have their turn on the hot seat. Pull the plug before we the unwashed public snatch a few more crumbs from under the table about what really went on behind closed doors in the diocese, and at the Cornwall Police Service, and in the AG’s office, and in Correctional Services offices, and the Children’s Aid Society offices and so on.
Pull the plug before the cat wriggles its way out of the bag.
Perhaps that’s why Dalton McGuinty shuffled Bryant right out of the AG’s office and squirreled Bentley right in?
It’s worthy of thought.
I’m not sure they’d go that far, but, who knows? I thought they’d come up with a decent mandate. I thought when they said Justice Normand Glaude had no connections to Cornwall they really meant it. I even thought they meant it when they said no one would be forced to testify against his/her will, and the inquiry isn’t a trial, and no one would face criminal charges,.
I was wrong on all counts.
So, we’ll have to wait and see…
Meanwhile, one party heavily implicated in the scandal and cover-up (CPS) is getting preferential financial treatment from a fellow party likewise heavily implicated (the office of the AG) to finance its costly foray into the Weave Shed courtroom to circle the wagons and shoot the messenger. And Ontario tax payers are footing the bill!!!!
As I say so often these days, tell me this makes one iota of sense.
But, it’s Cornwall. The same old same old. The institutional response to allegations of sexual abuse and cover-up.
Nothing changes.
Let’s close our collective eyes, bury our heads in the sand, let the “alleged” paedophiles of Cornwall sleep tight, then do a little huggy-bear here and a little kissy-face there, apologize for something-or-other here to someone-or-other there, and start healing from something-or-other here or there.
That’s called community renewal.
That’s Act Four.
I will carry on. Another media article to post. Then on with the other postings as promised.
Enough for now,
Sylvia
(cornwall@theinquiry.ca)