Perry has now spent 109 days in jail – for stepping up to the plate to protect children, and then daring to say he has lost faith in the justice system. This is the institutional response to allegations of childhood sexual abuse.
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Hearings resumed at 0930 hours (9:30 am) this morning, Friday, 06 June 2008. Retired Deputy Chief Joseph St. Denis has resumed his testimony. It’s Friday. That means an early afternoon wrap-up so the gathered throng can take their respective planes, trains and automobiles to their respective homes across Ontario. There will be no lunch break, just an extra break.
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Mark your calendar. Perry will be appearing at the Ontario Court of Appeal, Osgoode Hall, Toronto, Tuesday, 17 June 2008. Show your support for Perry and Helen. Be there for them and with them. Make your travel plans now.
I still don’t know start time. Plan for an early morning start – around 09:30 or 19:00 am. If you’re driving, find out who else would love to go but has no means of transport.
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I’m working on Brendon Well’s testimony, trying to sort out the David Silmser public complaint business against Cst. Heidi Sebalj. To put it lightly, the paperwork is rather confusing. Even the lawyers in the Weave Shed are confused! Hopefully with Reality Checker’s familiarity with the Police Service Act we can make some sense out of what happened. The one given is the sights were set on Perry from the get go.
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An interesting little piece of information from yesterday’s testimony. Carl Johnston was involved in some fashion with Cornwall Police Service business somewhere around 1990 or shortly thereafter.
Johnston was the Acting Chief who filled Claude Shaver’s shoes in January 1994 when news of the $32,000 pay-off and cover-up of sex abuse allegations against Father Charles MacDonald and Ken Seguin began to seep into the public domain.
Johnston it seems played some role in quelling and/or reviewing the CPS senior staff officer uprising of 1990. He was later hired as Acting Chief. He has previously been working as a Deputy in the Bob Rae NDP government. Leo Courville, then Chairman of the Cornwall Police service Board, testified that with the early “retirement” of Shaver it was “fortuitous” that Carl Johnson Carl Johnston “who was at that time the Assistant Deputy Minister in charge of the Police Servicing Division within the Solicitor General’s department, was retiring from that position.”
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And some interesting little bits of information on St. Denis’ background.
St. Denis joined the RCMP in 1963. After his training in Regina, Saskatchewan he was posted to Montreal Quebec. He did undercover work at the municipal, provincial and international level. While in Montreal he took courses at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia). He was promoted to Corporal and transferred to Ottawa, Ontario where he worked for a number of years with Interpol. While in Ottawa he took courses at St. Patrick’s College and Carleton University. He was promoted to S/Sgt. and at some point transferred back to Montreal, Quebec. St. Denis testified he was about to be transferred again when he saw an ad in the Ottawa Citizen for the position of Deputy Chief of Police in Cornwall. He applied for the position, made the short list and was hired. Claude Shaver, also a former RCMP officer, was Chief of Cornwall Police at the time.
Some members of the Cornwall Police Service Board who were present when St. Denis met with the Board re the job included Mayor Brian Lynch, Ron Adams (Board Chairman and father of lawyer Sean Adams), Alderman Guy Léger. Someone from Toronto was there. Shaver was there – St. Denis believes Shaver was there more as an observer.
What if any role Shaver played in St. Denis’s hiring I have no idea. With their RCMP backgrounds I think it’s highly possible they knew each other pre their Cornwall Police acquaintance, but, perhaps not 🙂 (One for sure is St. Denis thinks well of Shaver. He just testified that Shaver was “a good guy,” “intelligent,” “funny.”)
Joseph St. Denis was employed as Deputy Chief of the Cornwall Police Service from 23 March 1987 to 15 June 2001. He was on sick leave from 14 April 1998 until his retirement in 2001.
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I will carry on with Wells’ testimony with an ear open to St. Denis’ 🙂 A closing note: I find St. Denis seems quite unsettled this morning, not as comfortable and confident as when he initially took the stand yesterday. Interesting too….
Enough for now,
Sylvia
The testimony today by former R.C.M.P officer and former DEPUTY POLICE CHIEF for the Cornwall Police Services, Joseph St. Denis is a brutal disgrace.
IT blackens the eyes of ALL police constables, worldwide.
WHY does his perceived “uncooperation” warrant special attention, above and beyond the other imcompetent (intentional or through error) buffoons?
Well, this is a former Deputy Police Chief, Acting Police Chief of Cornwall, who during a crucial time period in Cornwall’s history, remembers little of significance.
Trained by the R.C.M.P., Joseph St. Denis, kept no notes, destroyed notes, filed and stored notes internally, through other means than notebooks, that MUST have been eventually destroyed (expired time period for keeping notes). St. Denis, can’t recall, didn’t keep notes because important issues were discussed in morning meetings and notes were not necessary, etc., etc.
Joseph St. Denis, in my opinion, is evasive, negligent and uncooperative, among other things.
He did not, nor does not display the professional standards and behaviours, I would expect of an R.C.M.P. trained police constable. Is he a reflection of standard R.C.M.P. training?
IN the destroying of notes: I don’t believe notes are ever destroyed, that can or may be used in ongoing investigations or anticipated investigations. (I wonder, what exactly is the time period for keeping notes in storage after a book is “filled” and when would the date “START” and “run” or be “tolled”, because of ongong or anticipated investigation or inquiry?
SYLVIA, as you have often stated, this is more evidence that “this stinks to high heaven.”
HOW can anyone NOT suspect cover-up?
The $200,000 used so far to prep these guys for the Inquiry was for the phrase “I don’t remember” to be placed in strategic locations throughout testimony…or they could use “I made no notes”
CPS should copyright those phrases.
So far, all of next week has been set aside for Claude Shaver. I don’t know about all of you, but I am going to be glued to my computer screen. I want to hear every word this man has to say.
INCOMPETENCE, INEPTITUDE or COVERUP?
Let’s say many people in the public domain have followed the Cornwall public inquiry and related issues, including the previous “Project Truth” investigations and related.
Let’s say, that after watching and listening to witnesses testify at this public inquiry, including and especially the testimony of high ranking members of the Cornwall Police Services, the esteemed Julian Fantino, lawyer-judge and politician Garry Guzzo, as well as others, ….many of the people in the public domain, have come to the opinion, that these witnesses have done nothing more for the “greater good”, than to attest to their own inept, ignorant, incompetent, negligence and acts of omission. “Keystone Cops” and worse, so-to-speak.
WOULD the people be correct? That is; to “assume” these well-trained, highly educated and experienced professionals were ALL, simply, a truckload of “idiots”, in the very same place at the very same time? Or, have I/they been duped?
YOU see, incompetence and ineptitude, is supposedly, easy to remedy.
Commissioner Glaude could easily provide recommendations and to facilitate those recommendations, the advisory panel could easily implement programming as part of an extended Phase II or a newly introduced, Phase III.
Simply admit errors were made and offer new training, advanced communications, advanced technology, state-of-the-art employee assistance programs, modified internal practices, procedures and protocol.
On the other hand, “cover-up”, well even the word itself, sends shivers up and down my spine. This is harder to address, right?
IN THIS CASE, what does logic suggest, “incompetence, ineptitude, or, the “C” word?
P.S. Wait until you hear the testimony former R.C.M.P. officer and former Chief of Police for the Cornwall Police Services, offers next week or will it be “more of the same”?
YOU see, how can Claude Shaver now testify any differently than the previous “batch” of “Keystone Cop” types?? How can he offer anything other than what the others have offered, which was absolutely nothing. What does logic and what do the facts, suggest?