Jason Unrau
Northern News Services
Wednesday, May 02, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Chief coroners in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are scouring their files to determine whether discredited Toronto pathologist Dr. Charles Smith worked on any autopsies involving deceased children from the North.

This comes after the Ontario government promised a public inquiry into Smith's work following an expert panel report that questioned findings in 20 of 45 autopsies it reviewed.

The concern in the NWT and Nunavut is that Smith, based at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, may have been involved in cases originating from the territories, as was the arrangement between the province and the Northwest Territories back when the NWT and Nunavut were still one territory.

"Certainly the possibility exists (Smith) has had his fingerprints on some of these cases," said Percy Kinney, NWT chief coroner.

"We decided it was prudent to have a look at this and while we don't think he had anything to do with the cases, we acknowledge the possibility exists."

According to Kinney, the criteria used to weed out files Smith could have had a role in are persons under the age of 16 who died in the Eastern Arctic between 1981 and 1999 and were sent to Toronto for an autopsy. Nunavut's coroner Tim Neily is searching for related files after 1999, when Nunavut territory was carved from the NWT.

A self-proclaimed expert in child pathology, Smith was removed from the roster of forensic pathologists permitted to conduct autopsies in suspicious deaths after questions were raised over his findings. In one case, Kingston mother Louise Reynolds spent two years in jail facing a murder charge in the 1997 death of her seven-year-old daughter. Smith believed 80 cuts on the girl's body were caused by scissors but then changed his view and said that the injuries could have been from a pitbull attack. The Crown withdrew the charge.

Prior to the division, autopsies from the eastern Arctic were conducted in Toronto; in Winnipeg for those from the central Arctic in Winnipeg; and those from the western Arctic in Edmonton. Since 1999, all autopsies from the NWT have been done in Edmonton.

Kinney said there were "a couple thousand" files to examine and the search would probably run through the summer. Neily was unavailable for comment as of press time.