A partial list of costs for a provincial public inquiry into the handling of sexual abuse allegations in an eastern Ontario community totalled more than $17 million during the inquiry's first 20 months. And taxpayers will be on the hook for millions of other costs that weren't included.

Commissioner Normand Glaude gave a financial update Wednesday on the Cornwall Public Inquiry, revealing that with almost a year to go, the inquiry has so far spent:

• $11.9 million on direct commission costs, including the building for the hearings, the commission lawyers and community meetings.
• $2.75 million on lawyers and other costs for parties with standing at the inquiry.

The costs do not include the $3 million spent on the inquiry as of March by the Cornwall police.

Nor do they include the millions that taxpayers are spending on lawyers for such parties as the Ontario Provincial Police, the provincial children's aid society, corrections officials and the Ministry of the Attorney General.

The inquiry opened in February 2006 and has hearings scheduled until August 2008.

In its final stage of hearings, scheduled to begin Wednesday, officials from institutions such as the police and children's aid society will testify about how their organizations responded to the sexual abuse allegations.

The commission is looking into how authorities responded to allegations that dozens of children were sexually abused by prominent members of the community over decades starting the 1950s. More than a dozen men were charged after police investigated the allegations, but only a handful of the accused were ever convicted.