Vatican crimes in Canada: Hughes Inquiry into Mount Cashel Orphans abuse

The various chapters and appendices of both Volumes 1 and 2 of The Report of the Commissioner of the (1989-90) Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Response of the Newfoundland Criminal Justice System to Complaints, can be found at the links to the right. (Adobe Acrobat Reader is required for viewing them)

This inquiry, which was otherwise known as the Hughes Inquiry into the Cover-up of Mount Cashel, was officially announced on March 31, 1989.

Its principals were commissioner Samuel H.S. Hughes (a now deceased former Ontario Supreme Court judge), and inquiry co-counsel David C. Day, Q.C. of St. John's, Newfoundland and Clay M. Powell, Q.C. of Ontario.

Hughes, Day and Powell were initially recruited to fill their respective roles as commissioner and inquiry co-counsel in or about late March 1989, by the then governing Tory administration of then newly minted premier Thomas G. Rideout, who had recently won the race for the leadership of the Tory party at their March 10-11, 1989 leadership convention, which was brought about by the January 21, 1989 resignation of then long time Tory premier A. Brian Peckford.

Soon after announcing the inquiry, however, the long-governing Tories (who'd been in power for the previous 17 years) were defeated at the polls by the Liberals in the April 20, 1989 'snap' election that Rideout called on March 29, 1989 (just a week after being sworn in as premier and just a couple of days before the inquiry was announced).

Nevertheless, Hughes, Day and Powell were subsequently continued in in their respective roles by the new Liberal administration, under new premier Clyde K. Wells.

The initial Terms of Reference for the inquiry ("the Rideout Terms") were issued to Samuel Hughes by the Rideout administration "under the great seal of Newfoundland and dated March 31, 1989."

The Rideout Terms, however, never were published, and were later replaced by the Liberals with a new Terms of Reference ("the Wells Terms") dated June 1, 1989, which were formally issued to the Hughes Commission either on that same date or the following day.

The Wells Terms were thus the Terms of Reference that the Hughes Commission operated under from June 1, 1989 forward.

On June 2, 1989 then justice minister Paul Dicks, Q.C. made this statement about the Hughes Commission of Inquiry in the House of Assembly (Newfoundland legislature).

(Note: The requirement to report within ninety days of commencing public hearings was withdrawn in the fall of 1989.)

The Hughes Commission held two public organizational meetings in the summer of 1989, on the dates of June 28-29 and August 14, 1989, respectively.

Public hearings of the Hughes inquiry commenced on September 11, 1989 and continued on through from there, with a number of breaks in between, until June 29, 1990.

The Hughes Report was eventually officially submitted by Sam Hughes to then 'acting' premier of Newfoundland Winston Baker and the minister of justice for Newfoundland Paul Dicks on Friday May 31, 1991on May 31, 1991.

But it was withheld from publication by the government until April 24, 1992, after the last of a series of criminal trials of certain Christian Brothers and former Christian Brothers who, in 1989, at least, were charged with various counts of physical and/or sexual abuse of children at Mount Cashel during the 1970s had concluded.

See original article at: http://www.mountcashelcoverup.com/hughesinquiry.php