November 2019 – Child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces

Lawyers and other musings.

I had a conversation with a lawyer a few days ago. Another one of these ex-JAG lawyer types.

I’ve had calls with these ex-JAG lawyers before. And this call, just like the others before it got off on the wrong foot.

See, Captain McRae was never supposed to have been given a courts martial for Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery. So, when someone like me calls up claiming that the military conducted a courts martial for a Captain charged with sexual crimes against children these ex-JAGs obviously think that I’m some fucking nut making bullshit claims against the Canadian Armed Forces.

And that’s more or less how this call went.

For the last eight years, all the way from Halifax N.S. to Victoria B.C., ex-JAG lawyers have basically given me the same brush off. Captain McRae could not have been prosecuted by Courts Martial as crimes such as rape, gross indecency, indecent assault, bugger, invitation to sexual touching, sexual interference, etc, were ALWAYS handled by the civilian courts, never the military tribunals.

And previously, all I ever had was newspaper stories referring to the courts martial. I never had anything in concrete.

Well know I have a copy of CFSIU investigation report DS-120-10-80 which clearly states that Captain McRae appeared before a courts martial to answer for the charges of Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery.

I have Department of Justice paperwork that clearly referres to the courts martial of Captain Father Angus McRae.

I also have copies of back and forth communications between the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada referring to the courts martial of Captain Father Angus McRae.

I sent copies of some of these documents off to the lawyer.

These documents changed things.

The lawyer’s reply back was probably the most detailed and concise response that I’ve had to date.

The lawyer explained that criminal case notwithstanding, my ability to make a civil claim against the babysitter, Mr. P.S. actually expired long ago. Criminal code matters have no “statute of limitations”. Civil claims do. My legal guardians, acting on my behalf, would have had to initiate a civil claim against Mr. P.S. years ago. I could have possibly argued in court using my social service records as evidence that my guardians at the time were unfit and were not acting with my best interests in mind. But the time frame for that claim would have been 2011 to 2013.

So far as initiating a civil claim against the Minister of National Defence. The Crown Liability and Proceedings Act has a limitation period of 6 years.

This is why when Mr. P.S. sued the Minister of National Defence in 2001 he had to state in his claim that “due to counselling, he had just become aware of the effect the abuse had on his life”. By making that statement in his claim, Mr. P.S. reset the countdown timer to March of 2001.

In 2011, I became aware of the effect that the abuse at the hands of Mr. P.S., and possibly Captain McRae had on my life, and the psychological scarring that I suffered due to the forced conversion therapy I endured at the hands of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke in the period of 1980 to 1983. Therefore the time for me to bring an action against the Minister of National Defence expired in 2017.

The lawyer did mention that those members of the Canadian Forces who were suspected of being homosexual and who were subsequently booted out of the military during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s would have run out of time to file a civil action against the military long ago. Moreover, those members of the Canadian Forces who were suspected of being homosexual and who were subsequently booted out of the military prior to 1985 could never bring a Section 15 charter challenge against the Canadian Forces as the Charter did not exist prior to 1985. Even though the government could have blocked the lawsuit, it didn’t. The lawyer said that this was more than likely for political reasons.

The lawyer did mention that I could approach the MPCC and ask for a review of the current CFNIS investigation.

This I actually did last year and the review is ongoing. Remember though that during a review the MPCC does not have the power to subpoena documents, nor does it have the power to subpoena witnesses, nor can it administer oaths. The MPCC can only accept documents from the CFNIS. The MPCC cannot question the veracity of those documents. And if the statement of former MPCC chairman Glenn Stannard is to be believed, the MPCC has never been given access to the policy guidelines or manuals that govern to operation of the Canadian Military Police Group and therefore the MPCC has no idea of the documents that it should be requesting.

Because of the shortcomings of an MPCC review, I did request that the MPCC conduct and inquiry into the CFNIS investigation. The MPCC declined this request.

It should be noted that the Deputy Commander, Colonel Martin Laflamme, of the Canadian Forces Military Police Group / Professional Standards refused to conduct a review as requested. In his reasoning for directing that no review be undertaken, Mr. Laflamme leans heavily upon the flawed 2011 MPCC review. The initial 2011 MPCC review found in favour of the CFNIS. However, bear in mind that I was unable to view any of the documentation that was supplied to the MPCC by the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal until AFTER the MPCC had reached its decision.

An interesting thing about Mr. Laflamme’s response to me is that my complaint was far more than just a complaint about a “verbal debrief”.

The lawyer suggested approaching the Canadian Forces Ombudsman. The lawyer did mention something that I’ve been aware of since 2012, and that is that the Ombudsman cannot review anything that occurred prior to 1998. 1998 is the date that the Canadian Forces Ombudsman was created. The lawyer explained that the Office of the CF Ombudsman was created by ministerial authority and not by statute like the Military Police Complaints Commission.

The Military Police Complaints Commission is unable to review any military police investigation that occurred prior to 1998. This I believe is for a few reasons. The first reason is that the MPCC was created in 1998. The second reason is the existence of both the “Summary Investigation Flaw” and the “3-year time bar flaw”. The third reason is that the military justice system as it was before the reforms of 1998 via Bill C-25 was so broken that the MPCC would be eternally bogged down reviewing each and every questionable decision made by the pre-1998 military justice system.

How broken was the military justice system prior to 1998? Look no further than the Somalia fiasco. Or look at the Captain Father Angus McRae fiasco. Same broken justice system.

The Minister of National Defence can request that the CF Ombudsman look into matters that occurred prior to 1998, but there are limitations to what the Ombudsman can do.

For example, the Ombudsman cannot investigate the military police or the military justice system. However, the Ombudsman could look at tangential issues.

I have contacted the Office of the CF Ombudsman numerous times since 2012, the most recent being June 22, 2019.

My complaint involves the Canadian Forces Military Police and the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit, therefore it cannot be looked at by the CF Ombudsman (nor by the MPCC for that matter). However, as the lawyer inferred, and as Mr. Lick has stated, the Minister of National Defence, Harjit Sajjan, has always had the authority to request that the CF Ombudsman review any pre-mandate matter.

The problem with Harjit Sajjan is though, he was a career soldier. He’s not going to shit in the bed that he sleeps in considering that his military career launched his political career.

The CF Ombudsman is appointed by the Minister of National Defence. The Minister therefore may be inclined to appoint an Ombudsman whose ideology aligns with that of the Minister.

In 2013 the Ombudsman received numerous complaints about the 1974 Valcartier grenade incident in which 6 teenagers were killed and 62 more were injured due to the negligence of a member of the Canadian Armed Forces who allowed a live grenade to be handled by teenagers. The Minister of National Defence at the time was Rob Nicholson. Mr. Nicholson requested the CF Ombudsman review this matter, even though the matter fell far outside the legal mandate of the CF Ombudsman.

I have no doubt in my mind that the only reason why Mr. Nicholson called on the CF Ombudsman to review the Valcartier cadet matter is that Mr. Nicholson had no tangible connection to the Canadian Armed Forces.

The CF Ombudsman noted that the cadets fell into a “legal void”. As they weren’t members of the Regular Forces, and as they weren’t civilian employees, they were unable to receive any matter of compensation from the Canadian Forces or the Federal Government. What the CF Ombudsman found most alarming is that the members of the Canadian Forces who were wholly responsible for this incident did in fact receive compensation for their injuries related to this event.

The OMBUDSMAN has to seek and receive the permission of the Minister of National Defence in order to initiate any manner of investigation for pre-1998 matters.

The entire Ombudsman’s report can be downloaded here:

valcartier-en

So, where does this leave me, or any other person who as a child was sexually abused on a military base in Canada?

Going through the courts would be an obvious waste of time. The Crown Liabilities and Proceedings Act pretty well slams the door shut. The fact that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence have no culpability for anyone who was injured on a Defence Establishment if that person was not a civilian employee or a member of either the Regular force or the Reserve force also places any type of civil action outside the realm of possibility. I think that the inability to bring any manner of legal action against DND or the Government of Canada is the primary reason why child sexual abuse on the bases in Canada has been unheard of to date.

It’s not that child sexual abuse didn’t occur, it’s that the courts offer absolutely no remedy. Don’t forget, Mr. P.S. setteled with the Minister of National Defence. There was no court award. There never could be a court award. However, the Department of National Defence and the Department of Justice felt that it was better to settle with Mr. P.S. than to risk the public humilation of a trial where all of these shortcomings would be aired in public.

What would the public think if it became public knowledge that Angus Alexander McRae could not be sued by Mr. P.S. as Mr. McRae was an employee of the Department of National Defence at the time?

What would the public think if it became public knowledge that the Department of National Defence could not be sued for the actions of one of its employees which occured in military housing on a military base?

So a settlement was reached, DND admitted no guilt, Mr. P.S. walked away with some cash, and everything went away.

Public attention is about the only way that the Government of Canada or the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence are ever going to be coerced into owning up to what happened.

The real question is, will the media get on board, or will the media sit back and wait for the Minister of National Defence or one of their minions to announce that there was in fact a problem?

Encryption and the art of hiding things.

If you ever wanted to know why no one has ever really paid attention to child sexual abuse on the various Canadian Armed Forces bases, it’s because the Canadian Armed Forces are good at hiding and obscuring issues.

A couple of years ago I filed an Access to Information to the Department of National Defence. I was looking for copies of any documents or emails between myself and a particular person.

What I received in response blew me away.

It was a copy of an email between Denis Paradis and William Bain of the Ministerial Correspondence Unit.

Paradis was requesting that Bain attach a copy of an email between the Chief of Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, and the Deputy Judge Advocate General, Major Zenon Drebot, to my file.

Denis Paradis is requesting that my file be encrypted, and the subject matter of my file be changed in name to “Concerns with the CAF’.

This would pose sigificant problems to anyone who was ever searching for the existence of my paperwork.

For example, if a media wonk was to submit a request to DND to see if the Minister of National Defence has ever dealt with subjects such as “child sexual abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces”, their request would come back with negative results as the Ministerial Correspondence Unit changed the subject name of my correspondence.

What’s stopping a media wonk from requesting copies of any documents that mention “Concerns with the CAF”?

Well, they’d never get my files as my files are encrypted. And any files they do get might run the gamut from disgruntled vets upset about their pensions to fishers worried about the impact of our submarines on the cod stocks. Concerns with the CAF might yield so many results that DND would be able justifiably turn this request down due to the amount of time to collect all of the results.

I was able to request a copy of the “encrypted files” because I specifically knew they existed and I knew who created the “encrypted files”. The file contains copies of letters that I had sent to the Chief of Defence Staff and the Minister of National Defence. The file also contains 8 pages of documents redacted in their entirety due to Section 27 of the Privacy act. Numerous sections redacted due to solicitor / client privilege. And a whole bunch of back and forth between the Judge Advocate General, the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Minister of National Defence.

Am I being paranoid?

Nope. Not in the slightest.

A high ranking officer was found during the recent fiasco involving the former Vice Chief of Defence Staff Vice-Admiral Mark Norman to have avoided using Mark Norman’s name on documents and internal correspondence in order to thwart access to information requests and discovery requests.

During the Mark Norman pre-trial, it was discovered during the examination of a DND employee that when this employee went to their commander to fulfil an access to information request for documents relating to Mark Norman, the commander told their subordinate “Don’t worry, this isn’t our first rodeo. We made sure we never used his name. Send back nil return”

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/witness-at-mark-norman-hearing-alleges-dnd-attempts-to-keep-files-hidden-from-public-view

It is very apparent that DND is adept at the art of hiding information. And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that they actively use their skills to hide a lot of embarrassing issues from the public eye.

SAMPIS and other musings

I’ll post a copy of the email I received from the Office of the Information Commissioner.

SAMPIS does not have searchable fields that would give the age of the victims. This is what DND itself has told the OIC. DND has also told the OIC that records outside of the SAMPIS system cannot be searched.

In the final report of the Fynes Public Interest Hearing, the Military Police Complaints Commission voiced numerous concerns about SAMPIS. SAMPIS does not retain a history of changes made to documents contained within the SAMPIS system. General Occurrence reports can be re-written and no history will remain of what was added, removed, or amended to the GO report. Article 636 from the Final Report of the Fynes Public Interest Hearing: ” The hearing revealed that, once created, SAMPIS entries can be, and routinely are, reviewed and edited by investigators and their supervisors. This is of particular importance as SAMPIS does not retain a history of changes made to a document. It saves only the latest version”

Now, so far as the CFNIS investigating historical child sexual abuse that occurred prior to 1998. This would be a legal impossibility. Prior to 1998, a service tribunal had to be commenced against an accused no more than three years after the date of the alleged service offence. This time bar was removed in 1998. Service offences included all criminal code matters. But certain offences had to be prosecuted through the Civilian courts.

Murder, manslaughter, and rape had to be prosecuted through the civilian courts prior to 1985.

After rape was removed from the Criminal Code in 1985 murder, manslaughter, and sexual assault had to be prosecuted through the civilian courts.

In 1998, the National Defence Act was amended and Murder, Manslaughter, and kidnapping are now the crimes that have to be prosecuted through the civilian courts.

It should be noted that rape was never a crime that could have ever applied to males. The Criminal Code was very specific that rape could only apply to females. This is how the Canadian Forces had a court martial for Captain Father Angus McRae in July of 1980 for the crimes of “gross indecency”, “Indecent assault”, and “buggery”. Also, in most cases, not every sexual assault of a female child resulted in rape charges. Indecent assault and gross indecency were the preferred charges. prior to 1985.

Anyways, back to the 3 year time bar.

Any former retired member of the Canadian Forces who was suspected of committing the crimes of “gross indecency”, “Indecent assault”, and “buggery” prior to 1985 would have their matter dealt with via a service tribunal as these were not excluded offences. This means that these crimes could never be prosecuted in the modern day as they would have to be prosecuted through the military justice system and more than 3-years have lapsed between the date of the offence and the resultant service tribunal.

The time period of 1985 until 1998 is a murky period as the Canadian Forces couldn’t conduct a service tribunal for the criminal code charge of sexual assault (271 – 272), but they could conduct a service tribunal for the criminal code charges of 151, 152, 173(2).

It should be noted that the criminal code of Canada has no such limitations on indictable offences and this is why you hear of civilian cases going to court where some 80 year old pervert, who was a hockey coach or a school janitor, molested kids back in the 60s.

Now, it also should be remembered that prior to November of 1997, the commanding officer of the accused was required to conduct a summary investigation AFTER the military police or the CFSIU laid charges against their subordinate. The flaw with this was that the commanding officer could dismiss any charge brought against their subordinate whether or not the commanding officer would have had the authority to try the accused on the charge. This means that prior to November of 1997, commanding officers could dismiss charges brought against their subordinates that would have had to have gone either to court martial or to the civilian courts.

Jurisdiction is another weird issue that changes more often than the weather. In 2011, the CFNIS took the investigation of my complaint of sexual assault at the hands of another military dependant away from the civilian police. I was 7, the accused was months shy of his 15th birthday. The Juvenile Delinquents Act made the accused culpable for any criminal code offence he committed as of the day of his 14th birthday. And there were a lot of offences.

In 2017 I made a complaint to the CFNIS related to some sexual assaults I endured at the hands of a commissionaire at the Denison Armouries in Toronto when I was in cadets. The Denison Armouries were a defence establishment, the commissionaire worked for the Canadian Corp of Commissionaires. The CFNIS in Borden handed this matter over to the Toronto Police Service. The TPS was able to lay six charges of sexual assault against Earl within a month of the TPS being given the case.

I can’t figure out what the criteria is for CFNIS claiming investigative jurisdiction and what the criteria is for the CFNIS to cede investigative jurisdiction. As I said, it seems to change more often than the weather.

Boys Beware

The attitudes of society in general towards male victims of child sexual abuse has always been less than desirable.

Males have always been seen to be the instigators of sexual assaults and never the victims of sexual assaults. If a male was he victim of a sexual assault, it was becuase he was weak, or defective, or even a budding homosexual.

Under the criminal code as it was prior to 1985, the charge of “rape” only applied to males having intercourse with females. In Canada, rape was never a crime that could apply to males.

RAPE was only a crime that could be committed by a male against a female.
In Canada, male children could never be the victim of rape.

Male teens have always been an outlier if you will. Most laws that involved an adult having sex with an underage male put the male child at almost equal fault with the adult perpetrator.

Boys_aware_clip — Yes, this was an actual “educational” video used is schools.
It was produced in cooperation with an actual police department.

“Ralph was arrested, Jimmy was released on probation into the care of his parents”

And let’s be clear. Ralph isn’t a normal homosexual. Depending on how old Jimmy is, Ralph is either an ephebophile, a hebephile or a pedophile. And yes, heterosexuals can be ephebophiles, hebephiles, or pedophiles

This was the attitude towards male victims of child sexual abuse in the ’60s. The Canadian Armed Forces have always been about 20 years behind civilian society. Canada, for the most part, decriminalized homosexuality in the ’70s. In 1973 the APA, the American Psychiatric Association, removed homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses. It would take the Canadian Armed Forces until 1994 before it stopped discriminating against homosexuals and ceased treating homosexuality as a mental illness. So yeah, almost 20 years behind the times.

I can undertand why society may be more protective of females. They’re the ones that risk getting pregnant. Sure, boys can’t get pregnant, however they can suffer just as much psychological damage as females can.

Being blamed for the abuse causes issues of self worth.

Being shamed into silence causes trust problems.

The child will sometimes have great difficulty understanding why one adult enjoys sexual touching while other adults will be repulsed and disgusted.

Many times, in small closed communities, the abused child is seen as defective, that there is in fact something wrong with the child. This also happens in a large open community to a certain extent, but in the civilian world the possibility that two neighbours work for the exact same employer are pretty slim. The idea that everyone on the same block works for the same employer is even less likely. And the idea that everyone in the same town or city works for the same employer is just about impossible. There are numerous articles that look at the merits and shortfalls of “Company towns”.

It would turn out that I wasn’t the only dependant from CFB Namao that was prevented from attending activities such as hockey or basketball or swimming. And I would imagine that this same attitude prevailed on most of the other bases in Canada.

Canadian Forces Administrative Order 19-20 formed the policy for how the Canadian Armed Forces were to deal with suspected homosexuals. CFAO 19-20 was in force until 1994.

“Disposal”……
The Canadian Armed Forces considered “homosexuals” to be garbage that needed to be disposed.

The Canadian Forces Military Social Workers that sexually abused male children were put in contact with on the bases would have been expected to deal with Canadian Forces service members as per the policy of CFAO 19-20. And yes, CFAO 19-20 didn’t apply to military dependants, but there is no way that the military social workers were going to switch off their military training when dealing with sexually abused male children.

The Criminal Code prior to 1985 had a charge called “Buggery”. Buggery is one male having anal intercourse with another male. The odd thing about buggery is that it was a charge in which both parties were considered to be equally culpable. It was implied that buggery had no victim. Usually though, the police would only prosecute the party that was over the age of 18.

Marie Dagenais

Well, I’ve written a few things about my father. So I thought maybe I’d touch on my mother.

I don’t really know her all that well.

She left in the spring of 1977. I would have been 5 at the time.

Richard would always moan and bellyache that Marie had abandoned the family and that she had run off with a guy named Gus from the PPCLI.

I know she came to visit my brother and I after we arrived on Canadian Forces Base Namao. I remember grandma telling her that she’d have to wait until my father was away. I do remember grandma telling me to not say anything to my father. I think Richard would have killed her had he found her on the base and in his PMQ visiting his children. On the day she came for the visit I sat by the entrance to the PMQ patch waiting for her car. I only remember her coming up for the one visit in the two years that we lived on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

After the Captain Father Angus McRae child sex abuse scandal on CFB Namao and my family’s subsequent relocation to CFB Greisbach. I remember my mother coming for a visit once. Again my father was away on yet another training exercise and it was my stepmother at home. My mother stopped by with her friend Karen to take me and my brother out for a dinner for my 10th birthday.
She picked me up, but Sue wouldn’t let my brother go. Marie drove towards 137th Ave and then stopped before leaving the base. We sat there for a few minutes. Then she turned the car around and dropped me off at home again.
There was a screaming match between my mother and Sue.

In 2011, when I got my hands on my social service records, this incident is mentioned. It seems that I had become quite withdrawn after this. When the social workers asked Richard if he had any idea whatsoever as to why I had become so withdrawn, he volunteered that my mother had wanted to take me and my brother out for a birthday meal, but that Sue wouldn’t let my brother go, and Marie said that if my brother couldn’t go, then she wasn’t taking me.

I wouldn’t see Marie again until the summer of 1990

It was weird how my family arrived at Edmonton in the summer of 1990.

My father, my stepmother, and my step brother moved into the PMQ on CFB Greisbach before I did, even though I drove across the states with them. During our drive across the states, I came down with a bad case of tonsilitis. As soon as we arrived in Edmonton I went straight to the Charles Campsel hospital and I spent about a week there receiving treatment for a severe tonsil infection.

My younger brother never lived in the PMQ on CFB Greisbach the second time we lived there. He wouldn’t arrive in Alberta until sometime in the fall.

One of the first people that I met after I arrived was my uncle Doug. Doug set up a meeting between my mother and I. Uncle Doug made me promise that I would never tell my father about Doug’s involvement with me meeting my mother.

I met my mother at Northgate Mall. It wasn’t an emotional meeting. She was kinda happy to see me. It wasn’t like she was overcome with emotions.

In late August of 1990, my father bought a house up in Morinville, AB

Things didn’t work out all that well between my stepmother and I. Sue is about 12 years old than me. At that point in time, she was like the older sister that I never wanted.

I stayed at the YMCA downtown Edmonton for a few weeks, but being that I was only 18 at the time, finding an apartment to rent was proving hard to do.

So, I stayed at Marie and Art’s acreage from late September until November 1st, 1990 when I got my apartment in Edmonton.

Art was an interesting guy. Really great mechanic, and very knowledgeable. But I only really knew Art from about September of 1990 until January of 1992.

When it comes to mental instability, I don’t know which one’s worse, Marie or Richard. They both had their faults. Richard lied better than a rug. Richard had his out of control anger issues. And Richard drank like a fish. Marie on the other hand would play stupid to the point of being very annoying. And Marie is an outright racist, the likes of which I’ve never seen. In the late ’80s and into 1990 she had been working for a news magazine called the “Alberta Report”. Yes, that Alberta Report.

I could easily compile a list of the pros and cons of having lived with Marie. I think the cons would far outweigh the pros.

For instance, we had stopped at a Dairy Queen on Stoney Plain Road for burgers. We were sitting in a booth facing each other. I was facing towards the counter, she was facing towards the front doors. As we were eating, this look of utter disgust kept appearing on her face. I asked her what was wrong. She said “turn around”. So I did. There was an older East Indian couple sitting a couple of booths down eating their food. I turned back and said “I don’t get what’s wrong”. As soon as she said “those people, they don’t belong here” I knew my mother was a fucking racist. Fuck was that ever disappointing.

Things became interesting after that. When we’d talk about my grandmother, Marie would explain that grandma was a proud Indian, but that she was part of a conquered race.

I don’t remember much about Marie from our time on CFB Shearwater. I do remember coming home from playschool and having lunch while watching TV. I know she liked to do yoga like exercises. She used to lay on her back and she’d get me to stand on her feet and then she’d lift me up. I don’t ever remember her hitting me. I do remember her driving the Thunderbird a lot, which is why I had always thought that it was her car. I remember us going for visits and staying with other people. I remember Richard coming to pick us up from these visits.

In late 1991, I answered a classified ad from Brentwood Lanes in Burnaby, BC. They were looking for a “B” mechanic for their centre. Marie insisted that she come along with me on the drive. We fought like literal cats and dogs on the way down and back. I think that’s one of the reasons I decided to leave Edmonton in February of 1992. The other reason I decided to move is I fell in love with the Vancouver area as soon as I saw took a drive around the city. Edmonton was well below freezing at the time with snow and ice on the ground. Burnaby and Vancouver were in the teens with the only snow visible being on the North Shore mountains.

I left Edmonton in February of 1992. I didn’t get the job at Brentwood Lanes. But I had heard through the grape vine that Lions Gate Lanes in West Vancouver was looking for a pair of mechanics. So, I made the decision to go. I didn’t let Marie know. I drove to Vancouver. On my second night in the city, I called her up to let her know that I was in Vancouver. She exploded. Just before she abruptly hung up the phone, she said that I was an asshole just like my father and that I was never to call her again. <slam>.

It was a little rough settling in in Vancouver. The job at Lions Gate kept getting postponed. But once I was hired on in May of 1992, I got an apartment in the West End of Vancouver. I decided to call Marie up to see if she had calmed down any. There was no answer. The Acreage was on a party line telephone system so after letting the phone ring for awhile, another family answered. When I asked them if he had seen Marie or Art, he said that he hadn’t seen Marie or Art for a while and wasn’t sure where they were. I took this to be that Marie had told her neighbours to not say anything to me.

In 2013, I had to examine my father for a Federal Court of Canada matter. My father made some statements to the CFNIS which were completely at odds with the social service records that I had obtained. For instance, he “forgot” to tell the CFNIS that he was often away on training exercises and that his mother was living in his PMQ raising his children. One of the questions that I asked him related to social services. Because of the answer, I decided that I had to try to track down Marie. It took a bit of sleuthing, but I was able to track her down in October of 2013. Just over 21 years since the day she told me to never call her again.

I flew out to Calgary that Christmas to see her. She was older, but she was still as racist as she had been when I last saw her in Alberta. However, it was good being able to sit down with her and get some answers out of her.

When I arrived, she wanted to know how I found her. I explained to her that once I found Art’s son Terry it was very simple.

She asked me why I decided to find her now after all these years. I told her that I was curious about the PEI government stating that Richard was never awarded custody by the PEI government, and that for Richard to take my brother and I from one province to another, that he would have needed her permission.

I asked her why she blew up at me on the telephone back in early 1992 when I moved to Vancouer. All she said is that sometimes peope make mistakes, and that we can’t dwell on them.

She wanted to know why I moved without telling her. I told her that Alberta was in the midst of a massive recession and that I had been on welfare for 5 months and things weren’t going to get any better. I knew I could get work in Vancouver. I said that I also knew that I could fit in better in a city like Vancouver.

She asked me why I told Richard about my move without telling her. I told her that Richard didn’t know that I had moved until I got my first apartment in Vancouver in the summer of 1992. Richard was the first person that I called when I got my phone installed by B.C. Tel.

I asked her why she would never answer my phone calls when I tried calling her in the summer of 1992. She said that she and Art had sold the acreage in the spring of 1992 as the company Art had been working for needed a refrigeration / gas field compressor mechanic in Saskatchewan. Art’s son Terry owned houses across western Canada, so Art and Marie moved into one of Terry’s houses in Saskatchewan while Art worked there. The next stop was BC for a few months. And then Calgary. And then back to Edmonton. The house that Art and Marie lived in when I visited them in 2013 was another of Terry’s house. According to Marie, after selling the acreage in 1992, they never owned another house.

We started talking about other things.

She had been born in Hull Quebec in 1946. Her father had been in the Royal Canadian Navy during WWII. Both her father and her mother had epilepsy. Both died from it.

She had two brothers. Al Dagenais was born in 1944. Jean-Yves Dagenais was born in 1950.

I asked her about Al. I said that while growing up with Richard, Richard would often say that I was insane just like Al. I said that Richard would claim that Al was so insane that he’d just walk out in front of cars daring them to hit him. She laughed. No, Al wasn’t the one running out in front of cars. That was Richard. Al was usually the one dragging Richard out of the traffic.

I asked her not to laugh or get upset at what I was going to ask her. I asked her if I was the product of incest between her and Al. She gasped. No. I was not an incest baby. She wanted to know what this was about. I told her of the numerous times as a child that Richard would tell me that I wasn’t his kid, that my mother had slept with uncle Al.

She assured me that all of my respiratory issues came from Richard’s side of the family. I would discover in the summer of 2013 that CFB Shearwater had been downwind of a massive Esso refinery and that this refinery had been responsible for many a child developing respiratory issues on the base.

Marie said that she had gone to Dartmouth in 1965 to see her brother Al. This is how she met Richard. Richard and Al were inseparable at this time.

Al had forbidden Marie from dating Richard, but they continued to see each other. Marie and Richard were married in 1968.

She said that everything was okay right up until the HMCS Kootenay incident. She said that Richard was with the Sea King attached to the HMCS Kootenay. What’s wrong with this is that the Kootenay had never been fitted with a landing pad or a hangar like some of her sister ships. The Sea Kings went out with the Bonaventure and some of the other ships in the contingent. So, there’s no doubt that Richard was with the Sea Kings. Just that he wasn’t with the one attached to the Kootenay. No biggie.

She said that it was after the Kootenay that Richard’s drinking started to get out of hand. He would often get so drunk that he’d lay on the floor, naked often, and make lour howling animal noises.

I asked her if Richard had ever hit her or abused her, she said no. When I showed her copies of my conversation with Pat Longmore, Marie decidedly changed her story. Yes, there had been physical fights. Yes, Richard had drawn blood on more than one occasion. And yes, we often went to stay with “relatives” while Richard cooled down again.

Did Richard ever strike me or my brother? She said that he didn’t mean to, but sometimes he just got too angry.

I asked her if she ever remembered me being dropped off at the IWK Children’s Hospital and admitted as a “border” for a couple of weeks due to “parental issues” in the houshold. She wouldn’t believe me until I showed her my medical records. Yeah, she remembered. My father did not want to get help from the military for his issues and sometime they just exploded.

I asked her about one curious note from my medical records from the IWK Children’s hospital. I read her the section in which the doctors remarked that I had very noticeable “wide set eyes”. And that my head circumference was always above the 98th percentile.

She turned her eyes down at this. Richard was apparently upset at the prospect of his first born having “issues”.

I asked her if my conception was a trap to keep Richard in the marriage. First she heard of this. She said that Richard was the one who wanted a kid.

What about my brother’s conception? Nope, not a trap either.

I asked her about the domestic assault that Richard had been arrested for in January of 1977 at our PMQ in Summerside, PEI.
Did Richard hit her?
Nope.
Turns out that Richard had assaulted his mother, my grandmother, after a heavy night of drinking and it was the Summerside police that called in the base military police.

I asked her about when she left. She said that after the plane from Richard’s squadron on CFB Summerside crashed, Richard went off the deep end and was very destructive and abusive. She said that she wanted to take my brother and I back to Nova Scotia to stay with our uncle Al while Richard sorted himself out, but that Richard found out. This resulted in the base military police coming to our PMQ and warning her that if she left the island with my brother and I that she’d be arrested and charged with child endangerment and kidnapping. She said that a short while later someone from the office of the Judge Advocate General came to the PMQ, told her that the Canadian Forces had awared Richard custody and that she was being evicted from the PMQ.

All in all, she was very similar to my father. And this probably explains why their marriage didn’t last. They were too alike. Neither of them could accept being at fault. Richard blamed Marie. Marie blamed Richard.

Richard didn’t have a temper or a drinking problem.

Marie wouldn’t admit that she had been wrong to leave her kids with a man with a temper and a drinking problem.

Some may say that I’m showing Marie favouritism.

But, let’s look at reality.

I had known Richard for a total of 17 years.

I had known Marie for a total of 7 years tops.

Both were abject failures as parents.

Richard Gill Pt. #2

I don’t know why I thought of this, I think it came about because I was out pawn shop surfing a few weeks ago and I noticed some Canon camera gear. Looked like it was part of an ’80s estate sale.
And this post has just sorta been percolating since then.

My old man had a Canon AE1. Which apparently was a fairly decent camera back in the day.

I know he had all sorts of lenses to go with the camera, specifically a really large autofocus lens. He also had a large auto winder for this camera.

The funny thing was, except for taking pictures of hockey games on TV (yeah, he did that), I don’t think he ever took pictures of either me or my brother. I know he never showed up to awards nights at cadets.

My brother and I took part in the Battle of the Atlantic sea cadet parade at Queen’s park just before I quit cadets in the spring of 1987.

I know that as far as 21 gun salutes goes, ours sounded like 3 volleys of random machine gun fire. But what were you expecting from a bunch of 13 to 18 year old kids.

And yes, these were real rifles firing blanks. I’m not sure when cadets were no longer allowed to fire real ammunition, but in my day we had the Lee-Enfield which was originally a .303, but ours had been re-bored for .22. In addition to using these rifles for parades and drill, we used them on the range for target practice.

And I know our parade skills left a lot to be desired, but again we were all kids.

Richard brought all of his camera gear and set up his tri-pod and stuff off on the sidelines. He kept grumbling after that “the stupid camera” didn’t load the film properly.

If I had to guess, the pictures probably turned out, but Richard was more than likely embarrassed that he captured such a rag-tag performance on camera. He was always like that, praise from Richard was all but non-existent, criticism on the other hand came in spades.

For such an avid photographer, he just never seemed to take pictures.

And when he did take pictures, they just didn’t seem to have any life in them.

And the more I think about it, Richard was more about having the knick-nacks than actually using the knick-knacks.

Richard had a shit load of tools, testers, and other stuff, but he rarely used them.

He had broomball gear, but yet he rarely played broomball.

He had hockey gear, but I never saw him play hockey often.

He had a private pilot’s licence, but outside of a couple times at CFB Summerside where he rented a small airplane, he never took my brother and I on flights.

He had a motorcycle licence that he got in the early ’70s. Outside of a few rare rides he never rode his CB550-Four after 1984.

Richard had a ham operators licence, but never owned a ham radio.

Richard invested a lot of time and effort in learning the C+ programming language on his TRS-80 model IIIs and model IVs.

It wasn’t uncommon for Richard to sit down at his computers after supper and stay there until close 22:00. After a couple of hours of sleep, he’d be back downstairs typing away on his computers until something like 02:00 or 03:00.

I know this because sometime just after the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, my bedroom was moved into the basement. My stepbother was old enough to be on his own, so he got my old room, and I got punted down into the basement. The basement wouldn’t have been too bad, save for the fact that I didn’t have a bedroom door due to the fact that you weren’t supposed to have people living in the basements of the PMQs and by not putting a door on the bedroom, Richard was skirting that rule.

Just about every night, Richard would wake me up with the noise of his computer work. Said that it was his house and that if I didn’t like it, I could move out.

Except for selling a small database program to a church in Toronto, he never went anywhere with his computer programming.

Over the last couple of weeks, the more I thought about it the more I began to realize that Richard, outside of being a soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces, was completely lost and empty on the inside.

He hoped that his do-dads and gizmos would give him meaning. But they didn’t.

He had no goals in life. He had nothing that brought him any type of joy. And I think this is more than likely why he spent absolutely no time being involved with my brother and I.

Where this emptiness came from? I have absolutely no idea.

Sure, grandma wasn’t the ideal parent. She had a lot of emotional issues herself. She drank alot. She had a short temper. She wasn’t afraid to get carried away with corporal punishment. If you disturbed her you’d be told that “children are best to be seen and not heard” or “children are not to speak until spoken to”.

Yes, Richard’s father Arthur Herman Gill buggered off when Richard was fairly young. But Richard really didn’t seem to have any attachment to Arthur.

Uncle Doug seemed normal. Yeah, okay, we didn’t live with him. But ever time he’d come home from the oil fields and stay downstairs in the base when we lived on CFB Namao, he’d always buy my brother and I gifts and presents.

Uncle Norman seemed normal as well. In the two weeks that grandma, my brother and I spent out in Terrace, BC back in the summer of 1984, Norman would frequently take his kids and us out to the lakes and rivers around Terrace for fishing and other activities.

As soon as we moved to CFB Namao in the summer of 1978, grandma enrolled my in Beavers, Youth Bowling, hockey, basketball, and swimming.

Even when she came to live with us out on CFB Summerside after my mother left, she enrolled me in Sunday school, bible class, and various activities with the Knights of Columbus.

Did she do this out of guilt for what she hadn’t done for her kids when she was raising them in Fort McMurray, AB in the late ’40s to early ’60s?

Again, Doug and Norman seemed normal. So, I don’t think that Richard could really blame his mother for his issues.

The social services records from Alberta Social Services said that Richard couldn’t name one single activity that our family did together

And I think that is the key to understanding Richard.

He had nothing to offer, nothing to give. Something had killed him years ago.

Was it the HMCS Kootenay?

Was it the accident on the HMCS Bonaventure?

Was it the CP-140 Aurora crash on CFB Summerside in 1977 when he was attached to the Aurora Sqn?

Was it something else altogether?

I think that by collecting things and knick-knacks and do-dads he was trying to fill the empty holes inside.

And it would appear that my brother and I were also filler material meant to fill voids. He fathered us. And that was about it.

Unfortunately, children make very shitty filler compound.

Richard would often get upset at me for not raising my brother properly. But, I don’t think that’s how that is supposed to work. It’s not my name on my brother’s birth certificate.

I think Richard’s aloofness was best summed up by the Alberta Social Service records when he first stated to Alberta Social Services that he had no idea that both of his sons were having emotional issues. He then stated that his mother was hiding these issues from him. Finally he blamed his mother for these issues.

Where his emptiness came from, I don’t think anyone will ever know. That’s one of the many secrets that he took to the grave.