A parody on the inquiry’s legal spin-doctoring of the Cornwall sex abuse scandal and cover-up
It all started when David Silmser told Cornwall police and officials at the Alexandria-Cornwall diocese that he was sexually abused as a young boy by Father Charlie and probation officer Ken Seguin….
The liar
David Silmser was a liar. Cornwall police officers knew he was liar. They also knew he had some mini skirmishes with the law. Because they knew Silmser was a liar and had also been in trouble with the law they knew he wasn’t a credible witness and probably hadn’t been sexually abused by anyone, let alone two pillars of the community like Father Charlie and probation officer Ken Seguin.
They dilly dallied over Silmser’s allegations. They couldn’t outright tell him they knew he was a liar. That wouldn’t look good.
They told Silmser they had to corroborate his story. It was very special kind of corroboration they needed. They had to go hunting around for more men who, like Silmser, lied and said they’d been abused by Charlie. It was like a threshold thing for liars – once they reached an unknown threshold things would change and even though he’s still as much the liar he always was and all the others are liars too there are then enough liars to maybe convince someone that they’re telling the truth.
There was no big hurry.
The long and short of it was that David Silmser was a liar. Father Charlie and Seguin were definitely not paedophiles. Charlie and Seguin could spend all the time they wanted around children. The children of Cornwall were safe.
The act of perfect charity
Bishop Eugene Larocque somehow knew David Silmser was a liar too. The bishop also knew Silmser was terribly upset when he said he had been molested by Father Charlie.
The bishop knew Silmser was lying.
The bishop knew Charlie. Charlie was not a liar. When Charlie said he never laid a wayward on David Slimser the bishop knew without a shadow of a doubt that his priest was telling the absolute truth.
Kind-hearted as he was, the bishop felt compassion and sorrow for David Silmser. Even though Dave was telling awful lies about a good priest, the bishop’s heart went out to him.
Father Charlie emulated of the great saints of the Church. He overlooked the cruel and hurtful lies which Dave had heaped upon him. He forgave. His heart too went out to the young man.
What followed was an act of perfect charity. The bishop and Father Charlie decided to give Dave $32,000 to him feel better. To make the act of perfect charity more perfect the benevolent pair decided that not a soul should know about the gift. Both were of the mind that their rewards would be greater if their good deeds were conducted in secret. To that end and that end alone they asked Dave to sign a little statement, a Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement, and he did.
An imperfection in the perfect act
For some mysterious reason the act of perfect charity compelled Dave to tell police he no longer wanted to pursue criminal charges against Charlie.
As much as this was an act of perfect charity to help Dave and make him feel better it is always illegal to try to halt a criminal investigation. That’s obstruction of justice.
There was an illegal clause that went with the act: no $32,000 for Dave until he told police cease and desist their investigation of his allegations.
In truth there hadn’t been terribly much investigating for some time, but that was beside the point. It was just an illegal thing for anyone to do to make an act of perfect charity hinge on obstructing justice. It verged on relegating the act to one of imperfect charity. Not quite. But it was close.
Thankfully Bishop Larocque had nothing to do with obstructing justice. We know he didn’t because he said he didn’t, and he’s a bishop and bishops don’t lie.
The bishop said he didn’t know about or see the illegal clause because he said didn’t see the Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement after Dave signed it. We know he didn’t see it because he said he didn’t, and he’s a bishop and bishops don’t lie.
The dioceses’ lawyer Jacques Leduc had nothing to do with putting an illegal clause into the Let’s Keep it to Ourselves Agreement either. He said he didn’t, so, he didn’t, and lawyers who are canon lawyers for the Church don’t lie.
Leduc said he didn’t see the signed statement in there either so that meant he couldn’t possibly have seen the illegal clause. He didn’t see the signed statement because when he got it in an envelope he didn’t peak inside to make sure the Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement for the Act of Perfect Charity was in good legal order before he turned it over to his client/employer the bishop/diocese.
We know Jacques Leduc didn’t see the signed statement and hence the illegal clause because he says he didn’t, and, as we already know, lawyers who are canon lawyers don’t lie.
Sean Adams, the lawyer who was called in to help Dave understand the Keep it to Ourselves agreement, didn’t know the illegal clause was there either. He said he didn’t so he didn’t. He’s a lawyer and lawyers don’t lie.
Adams read the Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement to David Silmser so Dave would understand it before he signed it. That’s in whole or in part what Dave was going to have to pay him for.
Adams said he did was supposed to do, but somehow or other that illegal clause escaped his notice. It must have been one of those moments where he saw and read something without seeing it. No matter. Adams didn’t see the illegal clause in the Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement. We know he didn’t see it because he said he didn’t. He’s a lawyer and lawyers don’t lie.
Dave did such a good job of keeping it to himself that even the people in the inner sanctum who should have seen it didn’t see the Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement!
But one person knew about it…
The Bad Guy
Father Charlie’s lawyer Malcolm MacDonald was the bad guy who nearly ruined the act of perfect charity. Yes, he saw the illegal clause because he said he put it there. All by himself.
Malcolm apparently snuck the clause in behind everyone’s back, a sneaky move which caused untold Episcopal grief and humiliation because it made the bishop look the liar when he proclaimed there was no such thing as a gag order attached to his act of perfect charity.
That was after the act of perfect charity had leaked out and everyone knew about it, but before anyone saw the Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement.
After people learned of Bishop Larocque’s benevolence and attached agreement the bishop was terribly terribly embarrassed. But, as one act of perfect charity begets another so in a act of perfect charity Malcolm stepped up to the plate, did the honourable thing, and said it was he who single-handedly snuck the illegal clause in. The good bishop had nothing to do with it.
We know that’s true because Malcolm said it and, yes, Malcolm’s a lawyer and lawyers don’t lie.
The police had to thoroughly investigate the bishop’s act of perfect charity and its Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement, and they had to ponder what Malcolm had to say in order to decide if there were reasonable and probable grounds or something like that to lay charges against anyone.
From time to time Helen Dunlop jogged memories about the act of perfect charity gone bad. If for a moment police forgot, Helen, in yet another act of perfect charity, would refresh their memories.
One year downstream and after an extensive investigation Malcolm was charged with obstruction of justice..
Malcolm got an absolute discharge. That was another act of perfect charity, this one bestowed on a Malcolm by the benevolent Justice Lennox.
There was no illegal clause in this act of perfect charity. It was legal and it was perfect – Malcolm just made a little mistake in judgement and other than that he was a really great guy. A truly charitable act.
Justice Lennox’ decision was akin to a Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement. The courthouse had it flagged as next to top secret, but Helen found a clerk who was willing to retrieve it.
Back to the police station
Chief Claude Shaver knew David Silmser had had trouble with the law. Like most at the Cornwall Police Service, he knew Dave was a liar too. He didn’t know that because he knew probation officer Ken Seguin. In fact, Shaver didn’t know Seguin at all. He says he didn’t know him and he didn’t. He’s a former police chief and police chiefs don’t lie.
For goodness sake if Shaver really knew did know Ken Seguin and Father Charlie he’d have been in a pretty bad conflict of interest situation.
He didn’t know them. He said he didn’t know them. Those who say he did know them are liars.
So, Claude Shaver definitely wasn’t in a conflict of interest and he was chief when David Silmser arrived at the police station in 1992, and he was chief over ten months later when the bishop and Father Charlie gave Dave $32,000 as an act of perfect charity.
It was after this that Perry Dunlop read David Silmser’s victim statement. Perry naively believed that David Silmser was telling the truth. He didn’t know that Dave was a liar.
After Perry Dunlop was charged under the Ontario Police Services Act for going to the Children’s Aid Society he was really mad at the Cornwall Police Service (CPS). He actually thought it was his own police force which dragged him before a board of an inquiry. He had not an inkling that it was actually the Police Complaints Commissioner (PCC) which had him charged. He had not a clue that the CPS had absolutely nothing – nothing! – to do with having him charged. And I don’t believe he had any idea who Colin McKinnon was and what kind of advice McKinnon, as legal counsel to CPS, was giving anyone. Had Perry known about McKinnon he would no doubt have understood that since this was all about an act of perfect charity wrought by the diocese and gone bad McKinnon, a Roman Catholic, would act charitably and with the best interests of Perry, a Roman Catholic member of the CPS, at heart.
Nor did Perry understand that when he was exonerated by the board of inquiry it was actually the PCC which appealed the decision, NOT CPS. He foolishly didn’t know that the CPS had nothing whatever to do with that and the CPS took no part in launching the appeal, either for or against him. He didn’t realize that not a soul from CPS picked up the phone or had one single conversation with anyone recommending an appeal. And he certainly should have understood that the CPS failure to speak in his defence at the appeal was a show of support and an act of perfect charity.
Besides that, had Perry known that Colin McKinnon might be involved somehow in the background he would have instantly known that McKinnon would ensure that acts of perfect charity were the order of the day.
The long and short of it is that Perry should have understood that his peers and superiors at CPS were his friends. They all stood by him and defended him through thick and thin. There were countless random acts of kindness and acts of perfect charity exhibited toward Perry.
Sadly enough Perry didn’t know that he was the object of random acts of kindness and perfect charity. Fool that he was he thought the CPS was trying to make life difficult for him. To the contrary, Perry was angry. In fact, he was raging mad. So was his wife Helen.
The Dunlops were so mad they wanted revenge. They wanted to get back at everyone they thought had maliciously blamed Perry for exposing the bishop’s act of perfect charity and the Dave/diocese Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement.
The rest is history….
Revenge
There weren’t many sex abuse victims in Cornwall, particularly victims of same-sex sexual abuse. Men in Cornwall just didn’t do bad things like that to young boys.
There were, however, a few men who, like David Silmser, are liars and say they were victims, but they really aren’t. They’re “alleged” victims. No one believes them because as soon as they say they are victims everyone finds out that they’re liars.
When the vindictive Dunlops set out to wreak revenge that’s who they looked for, men who were “alleged” victims – liars to start with and malleable enough to incorporate whatever lies the Dunlops had up their sleeves. They needed men bold and brazen enough to launch false allegations of sexual abuse against Father Charles MacDonald and Ken Seguin and whoever else the Dunlops fancied.
They found enough to do the job
For starters, there was John MacDonald, and the Renshaw brothers, and C-8 and Ron Leroux.
C-8 happened to be one of the few real sex abuse victims in Cornwall. He was molested by Roman Catholic school teacher Marcel Lalonde.
C-8 was also a paedophile. That, according to some legal circles, made him a very adept liar.
Just for kicks and perhaps to hone their skills the Dunlops went to work embellishing C-8’s allegations against Lalonde. Lalonde wasn’t on the hit list of those who had done them wrong, but they probably felt it would launch them on the steep learning curve which loomed ahead. How best to take a liar’s lie and make it better? And how best to force a reluctant liar to lie?
Perry coerced C-8 to lie and say that he was also molested by Lalonde on a school field trip. C-8 hadn’t been molested on a field trip. He’d been molested by Lalonde elsewhere, but not on a field trip.
The coercion worked. C-8 said he’d been molested by Lalonde on a school field trip to Toronto. They also got him to lie and say he was molested by Father Charlie!
C-8 also said he was molested by Ron Leroux. For some strange reason the Dunlops had nothing to with that. There was no coercion there.
That, according to many lawyers, was the truth.
The Clan
The Dunlops were relentless. They twisted countless arms and forced countless men to tell even more lies. It is unconfirmed but not at all unlikely that they held a gun to C-8’ and Leroux’ heads. Whatever they did it was effective in getting any number of men to lie to police and the media and/or to sign statements loaded with the most outrageous lies and the most horrific accusations imaginable against good decent and honourable men.
In their zeal Perry and Helen made up a story about a paedophile clan and ritual sexual abuse. There may be an outside chance they got some of the information from C-8, Leroux and others, but the chances are high that the Dunlops made most of it up themselves. They saw this as a great way to wreak revenge on all the people who had anything to do with the fallout of what they in their ignorance saw as protection of paedophiles through a cover-up, but which was in reality an act of perfect charity bestowed by “the Church” upon David Silmser, a liar and criminal.
That could take care of the whole lot of their ‘enemies’ without expending untold time, energy and resources.
A “damn good”lawyer
Perry decided to sue the men he erroneously thought had made life difficult for him. He looked for a “damn good” lawyer and lucked in on Charles Bourgeois, who, unlike other lawyers, was thoroughly incompetent, negligent, legally wet behind the ears and suffering from an rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s.
Charles Bourgeois climbed on board what by then had become the Dunlop conspiracy wagon. He had no trouble jeopardizing his reputation, credibility and future for Perry Dunlop’s noble cause. Bourgeois was happy to offer his limited expertise and dug into the business at hand of conspiring to destroy the stellar reputations of countless prominent men in Cornwall.
By then several people had joined the conspiracy band wagon, including, but by no means limited to Carson Chisholm, Helen’s brother.
Bourgeois quickly learned the ropes. He learned how to take a liar and eke a few more lies out of him, and how to force people to sign statements loaded with wicked and very false allegations of sexual abuse against a lot of very prominent and equally innocent men in Cornwall.
Whether it makes a difference or not it’s interesting to note that Bourgeois was so green he didn’t even know what other lawyers seem to know or think – at least those in the Weave Shed – and that is specifically that, barring a few unique exceptions, most if not all paedophiles and alleged paedophiles are liars – they rarely if ever tell the truth. The exclusions to the rule seems to be pillars of the community who are alleged paedophiles (i.e., Father Charles MacDonald) and real paedophiles who say they were molested by non-prominent men in the community (C-8).
It really didn’t matter in the long run to Bourgeois. Paedophiles, alleged paedophiles, victims or alleged victims, it made no difference as long as they were liars. It was imperative that they be accomplished liars, or at least malleable enough to become such.
The Dunlops and Charles Bourgeois believed in doing things right. They held training sessions. They drilled Ron and forced him to memorize the lies they concocted for him, particularly if he was going for a police interview.
And then there was the business of nomenclature. For example, Ron never ever used the word paedophile. He insisted on categorizing some of his former friends as “homosexuals.” That had to change. Now that they had false sex abuse allegations against so many of Ron’s old friends the Dunlops insisted he refer to them as “paedophiles.”
It took a while.
Ron would say “homosexual” and they’d say “No, no,no. It’s paedophile. You have to say paedophile.” They pushed and harped and hounded him and badgered. I think it worked because I have heard tell that he used the word paedophile a number of times since. Not when he was testifying at the Cornwall Public Inquiry, but lots of other times.
It was the same sort of thing with the word “clan.” It wasn’t a word Ron used, but the Dunlops wanted him to use it. A “clan” was the backbone of the Dunlop conspiracy, so, time and again they twisted Ron’s arm and made him use that word.
Belated additions
When the Dunlops looked over the tale they’d concocted for Ron they realized there was a major oversight. Murray MacDonald was nowhere to be seen. Not in one single statement.
In their zeal to eke revenge they had actually forgotten about the Cornwall Crown attorney Murray MacDonald.
Murray MacDonald talked to members of the Cornwall police when they were dilly dallying around with the Davis Silmser lies.
Murray would have to pay the piper for that.
Not a problem. The innovative gang redid things and stuck Murray’s name in. Just for good measure they decided they’d have him going to the VIP meeting on Stanley Island, the big conspiracy meeting they forced Ron to memorize, the one where they had it that a bunch of VIPs met at Malcolm MacDonald’s Stanley Island cottage to brain-storm ideas about acts of perfect charity and how to stop David Silmser’s sex abuse allegations against Father Charlie and Ken Seguin from leaking out, and how to keep Father Charlie from being charged.
That would fix Murray MacDonald.
Then, horror of horrors, they realized they’d forgotten Cornwall police officer Luc Brunet too!
No problem. Brunet was squeezed in. He went in as another of the VIPs heading off to Stanley Island.
I think the Dunlops may have done the same thing with lawyer Jacques Leduc. They were really mad at him for being involved with the bishop’s act of perfect charity and Let’s Keep it to Ourselves agreement. If it hadn’t been for all that Perry wouldn’t have been stuck with having to blow the whistle.
My guess is that’s probably how and why Jacques Leduc wound up as one of the VIPS heading off to Malcolm MacDonald’s porn-strewn cottage on Stanley Island. Revenge!
Fool-hardy
On and on the duelling pair went. Perry was on leave from the force while he did all this plotting and conspiring, but day after day he’d dutifully don his uniform and head off to talk to any new liar he could groom to come up with false allegations against another innocent pillar of the community.
It was a fool-hardy and risky business this donning the uniform. It was, after all, common and public knowledge that Perry was on disability.
Perry didn’t think of that, he was so anxious to deceive people by misrepresenting himself as an on-duty police officer conducting an investigation that common sense went out the window.
Carson, on the other hand was never a policeman. He didn’t have a uniform to wear so he did the next best thing when it came to deception, he just told people he was a detective conducting an investigation. It worked just as well. Foolish but fun.
The Dunlops found that sitting up late at night making up sex abuse stories and getting drunk was lots of fun too. Sure, it was expensive running around making sure everybody got their stories straight and tracking down people who would lie to corroborate the lies. And yes, it was hard on family life, and yes, after they forced Ron to lie and say there was a hit out on them it was hard acting scared all the time, but …..getting revenge was worth it.
Through it all the Dunlops and their lawyer diligently followed Guidelines for Whistleblowers Who Can’t Trust Their Local or Provincial Police Force. The policies, practices and procedures were a little different than those of police forces, but they worked for people intent on eking revenge.
Fourteen years later and the Dunlops are still on a learning curve. They know now, for example, that they should have reported Ron Leroux to the police and/or Children’s Aid Society after C-8 said he was molested by Ron Leroux. It wasn’t wise to wait until C-8 reported.
Back in 1997, very shortly after the Dunlops found out, C-8 personally told the Ontario Provincial Police that he had been molested as a 15-year-old by Ron Leroux. C-8 told police not too long after he told the Dunlops.
Here we are. Ten years later. Ron still hasn’t been charged. Whether that’s because the OPP decided C-8 isn’t credible because he’s both a paedophile and a victim and therefore a darn good liar is unknown. The bottom line is that for whatever reason Ron has never been charged.
Perhaps another act of perfect charity?
No matter. It’s taken a long time. The Dunlops and their lawyer finally know that’s their fault.
They’re still learning