As I’ve said previously, I honestly don’t remember anything about what occured during the visits to the rectory after the “sickly sweet grape juice”.
I remember the rectal bleeding, but I always attributed that to P.S..
On May 3rd, 2011 CFNIS investigator Sgt. Christian Cyr contacted me. He initially left a message. After checking his message, I returned his phone call.
I checked the message at 12:59 I returned the call at 13:17
It was during this phone call that Sgt. Cyr let slip the fact that Captain McRae had been arrested, charged, and convicted of child molestation.
I literally dropped my cellphone when he said this. I was in shock for a while before I picked up my phone and continued the conversation.
I told Sgt. Cyr about the visits, about how I never remembered anything after the “sickly sweet grape juice” and how the time P.S., myself, and one of the other kids P.S. was abusing vandalized the base chapel now made sense.
Sgt. Cyr had also been creative with what I had told him about the visits to the chapel. I told Sgt. Cyr that I never remembered anything after the “sickly sweet grape juice”. Sgt. Cyr wrote in his SAMPIS occurrence report that “Mr. Bees remembers going to the chapel with P.S., but that nothing ever happened”. That’s not what I said.
Later that evening I would send Sgt Cyr an email message detailing a little more about what I remembered about McRae.
I would discover much to my horror during my application for judicial review that Sgt. Cyr excluded all of the emails I sent him that evening detailing everything that I could remember about Captain McRae.
I would also discover during my judicial review that Sgt. Cyr “forgot” about asking me about Captain McRae.
From MPCC 2011-045 Interview with Sgt. Cyr
Why didn’t I raise the issue of the missing emails during the MPCC review? That’s not how it works. During an MPCC review, you are not given any access to any of the investigation documents, nor are you given access to any of the documentation that the Provost Marshal supplied to the MPCC. During an MPCC review, you are literally flying blind. I will touch on the MPCC in a future posting.
Except, even though Sgt. Cyr excluded all of my emails, he did coincidentally do a Google search for “CFB Namao Molesting Priest”, which is the exact same search string I mentioned in my email the previous day to him.
Also, the next morning were a pair of phone calls involving Sgt. Cyr. I made the first call to Sgt. Cyr at 07:20. Sgt. Cyr made a call back to me at 08:18.
Two phone calls on the morning of May 4th, 2011. One from me to Sgt. Cyr. One from Sgt. Cyr to me.
Neither of these telephone calls show up in Sgt. Cyr’s occurrence reports or log books. It’s like they just didn’t happen.
During the first call @ 07:20, Sgt. Cyr and I talked about the activities in the chapel, how the visits occurred, and what would happen after the visits.
During the second call @ 08:18, Sgt Cyr said that he did some investigation and that the chapel that I had described to him was the “new” chapel and that the original chapel which was on the base in 1980 was in a different location. Sgt. Cyr also said that there never were any living quarters attached to the chapel, that the chaplain always lived off base.
Now, so far as the chapel goes, the chapel that I indicated in the email to Sgt. Cyr was built in 1956. The chapel also had living quarters right up until 1989 when the living quarters were converted into community space. This I know as I received the blue prints for Our Lady of Loretto Chapel via an access to information request that I had submitted to DND.
Also, to further back up my claim that I had indicated the correct chapel to Sgt. Cyr, on June 25th 2001 the Assistant Judge Advocate General on CFB Edmonton faxed a copy of a map to a claims analyst. On this map the Asst. JAG indicated the RC Chapel. This was as a result of P.S. initiating his action against the Minister of National Defence in the Court of Queens Bench in Edmonton, AB.
How did Sgt. Cyr conclude that being drugged and not remembering anything happening was the same thing as nothing actually happening?
Or, did Sgt. Cyr even write that?
A few things of interest were discovered during the Fynes Public Interest Hearing.
First it was discovered that CFNIS investigators don’t really run their own investigations. The Chain of Command has a surprising amount of say during an investigation. Section 83 of the National Defence Act pretty well ensures that this will occur.
Then it was also discovered that superior officers had re-written a report that was submitted by a CFNIS investigator and that this investigator was told to apply his signature to the new report.
Finally, it was discovered during the Fynes Public Interest hearing that SAMPIS, the military police electronic record system, is not as secure as it should be. Anyone can go into SAMPIS and change or edit entries, and there will be no record of the changes made. Only the edited document remains.
Yes, Sgt. Cyr kept written notes in his notebook. But, a notebook is just that. It’s a notebook. There are no third party verifiable time stamps applied to any of the entries in the notebook. In fact, there’s nothing in his notebook to indicate when exactly his notebook was being filled in.
And this is one thing that I noticed about the notebooks of all of the CFNIS investigators. They’re immaculate. They sure don’t look like they’re being used “on the fly” to record notes and records during an investigation.
If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that it’s more than likely that the investigators with the CFNIS keep two sets of written notes. The “rough” notes contain the actual “real time” notes and records of the investigation. The “final” notes are the sanitized and approved notes that are allowed to be put into them.
When Sgt. Cyr was interviewed by the MPCC, he made a very curious statement to the MPCC. It must be remembered that all statements given to the MPCC are not taken under oath. Sgt. Cyr claimed that he flew out to Victoria, BC and met with me in person.
MPCC 2011-045(BEES) Interview of Sgt. Cyr
I’ve never met Sgt. Cyr before in my life. I’ve talked to him on the telephone a few times, but that’s it. I’ve never met him or anyone else from the Canadian Forces in Victoria. But, due to the manner in which the MPCC review works, I was completely unaware of this statement during the MPCC review and therefore I was unable to contest this statement.
When I spoke to Fred Cunningham back on November 27th, 2011 he said that the base military police tried to call in the RCMP to deal with P.S., but the the “brass” wouldn’t allow for that.
If you remember from my earlier posts, unlike what Lt. Col. Gilles Sansterre tried telling me in January of 2012, Fred Cunningham wasn’t just some schmuck telling me incorrect 2nd hand news. Warrant Officer Fred R. Cunningham was the acting section commander of the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit at CFB Edmonton, and as I would learn from CFSIU investigation report DS-120-10-80, W/O Cunningham had been not only tasked by the base security officer, Captain David Pilling, with investigating Captain McRae, W/O Cunningham had also been involved in the interrogation and arrest of Captain McRae.
From Access to Information Request A-2016-02434 From Access to Information Request A-2016-02434From Access to Information Request A-2016-02434 This investigation was triggered by the base military police investigation of P.S. for his actions with young children on the base.
Both Fred Cunningham in 2011 and J.S. in 2015 stated that the whole investigation into Captain McRae came about because of the base military police being alerted to the fact that P.S. was having sex with young children on the base and that other parents had complained.
I have established that P.S. was born on June 20th, 1965. This was verified by an RCMP officer as well as two newspaper articles. One newspaper article was from August 1985 which said that P.S. was 20 years old. Another newspaper article from February 2015 stated that P.S. was 49 years old. If his birthday is in June of the year, both of those ages work out with 1965 being his birth year.
Under the Juvenile Delinquents Act, P.S. would have been criminally liable for any criminal code offence that he committed as of the day of his 14th birthday. Remember how desperate Sgt. Christian Cyr was to get me to believe that P.S. was only 13 when he was found buggering me in the spring of 1980? That wasn’t accidental. Anyone who hadn’t yet attained the day of their 14th birthday could not be held criminally responsible for their criminal code offences.
Why did the “brass” not want the base military police calling in the RCMP to deal with P.S.? It wasn’t because they felt sorry for P.S.. It was something much more devious and sinister.
Back when I started on this journey in 2012 I thought that it was possible that P.S. never got in trouble becuase his father had rank. And by rank I mean captain and above. As it turns out, J.S. was only a Sgt.in 1980. That wasn’t nearly high enough to get much in the way of a favour out of the chain of command.
All that J.S. being a Sgt in 1980 meant is that when P.S. beat me up behind the rec centre in the spring of 1980 and told me that his father outranked my father and that if I told anyone about what P.S. had done to me sexually that his father would have mine thrown out of the military, he wasn’t completely full of bluster. I’m sure that Sgt. J.S. could have caused problems for Cpl. Gill if he wanted too.
The Canadian Forces had a problem on their hands. And they wanted it to go away with as little public knowledge as possible.
Captain McRae was apparently the first person with an officer’s rank in the military that had been convicted of “homosexual acts” with children. Think about that for a minute. We’re not talking about some lowly corporal who had sex with the neighbour’s 13-year old daughter while he was drunk. No. We’re talking about a Captain molesting over 25 male children on a secure defence establishment.
You can bet your bottom dollar that NDHQ in Ottawa was calling the shots and was deciding what would happen.
From Access to Information Request A-2016-02434 This is on literally the 2nd page of the Captain McRae investigation file.
The Canadian Forces had three reasons in the National Defence Act that would allow them to move a courts martial “in-camera” and out of the public eye.
Section 157 of the 1970 National Defence Act which was in power until 1985
Reason 1: Public Safety. Reason 2: Defence. Reason 3: Public Morals.
None of these reasons involve protecting the identities of the children. As can be seen from this snippet of Donald Joseph Sullivan’s CMAC appeal, the courts can easily protect the identities of the victims by simply removing all identifying information.
Names of the children have been excludedNames of the children have been excluded
So, what does this have to do with the “brass” not allowing the RCMP to be called in to deal with P.S.?
P.S. sure was guilty of many sexual immoralities such as buggery, gross indecency, indecent assault, kidnapping, forcible confinement, uttering threats.
If the RCMP had arrested and charged P.S. with molesting the number of children that he did, he would have been dealt with under the Juvenile Delinquents Act. This would have posed a very significant problem for the Canadian Forces and their goal of keeping the details of Captain McRae’s crimes out of the public eye.
And yes, the Criminal Code of Canada that was in force at the time said that those who had attained their 14th birthday could be convicted of an offence. It should also be noted that the prosecution of children under the age of 14 wasn’t impossible, just the prosecution had to prove that the child was “competent to know the nature and consequences of his conduct and to appreciate that it was wrong”.
Chapter C-34 Criminal Code of Canada This is why Sgt. Cyr was so desperate in his attempts on May 3rd, 2011 to get me to believe that P.S. was 13 years old when he had been caught buggering me in the spring of 1980. P.S. was in fact just weeks away from his 15th birthday.
Section 33 of the Juvenile Delinquents Act makes it a crime for any adult to contribute to the delinquency of a minor.
The adult who was responsible for the delinquency of a minor could be fined and sentenced by the Juvenile courts. This in turn meant that any details that didn’t directly identfy P.S. could be made public. And this is specifically what DND didn’t want. The Canadian Forces and DND wanted none of this to be made public.
The Juvenile Delinquents Act only required the name and other means of identifying the child be withheld from publication.
The media could have easily published Captain McRae’s name and the fact that he had used a boy that was of 14 years of age to bring children to him to be molested so long as the name of the child was not made public and the place where the child lived was not made public. This would have been a nightmare for the Canadian Armed Forces
The Canadian Forces would have been pilloried in the eye of the public had the press learnt that a 50 something year old officer in the Canadian Armed Forces was not only committing “homosexual acts” with boys as young as 6 on the base, the public would have been equally appalled to learn that Captain McRae had been “training” P.S. in the fine art of child molestation.
And then there’s the whole question of the “working” relationship between P.S. and Captain McRae. I can clearly remember 5 different visits in which P.S. took me over to the base chapel to see Captain McRae, or ‘father’ as my grandmother would allow me to call him. These visits always occurred on days when P.S. wasn’t babysitting. P.S. would usually find me playing somewhere on base and insist that I come to the chapel with him. On one of these occasions, I had been with my father as my father worked on his motorcycle at the storage unit by the telephone exchange.
P.S. came right up to my father asked my father if my father wanted P.S. to look after me. My father told me to go with P.S. on this visit.
I just thought of something as I typed this. Is this why Richard feigned ignorance about P.S. whenever anyone asked him about what happened on CFB Namao?
When the whole Captain Father Angus McRae fiasco blew up in June of 1980, did my father realize what he had done?
This would have been quite the thing to admit, that you sent your own son over to visit with a kiddie diddler. It would have been very hard for my father to have not known about this. CFB Namao was an isolated community north of Edmonton. 25 children had been molested by McRae. An untold number of children had been molested by P.S.. P.S. getting caught molesting children is what triggered the investigation into McRae. Everyone on that base would have known something.
The visits to McRae were almost identical. We’d play board games for a short while. We might watch some TV or listen to some records. Then Captain McRae would tell P.S. to get the grape juice. That’s what he called it, “grape juice”. I always remember it as being really sickly sweet. Sickly sweet grape juice. Almost like really sweet cough medicine. I never remember anything after this. I always remember becoming “aware” at other places on the base, usually the rec centre. On one of these occasions somebody called my grandmother to come and get me. She was furious. She wanted me to tell her who the kids were that gave me the alcohol. I was terrified. If you ever saw my grandmother in one of her rages, you’d understand. She then accused me of stealing her booze. She must have counted her flats of beer and her empties a few times before she realized that I didn’t take her beer.
In a way I’m thankful for the “grape juice” or as James Paluck informed me, the “Manischewitz wine”. I can’t honestly remember anything from the visits to the chapel and what occurred after the wine. I know I had rectal bleeding back then, and I had always assumed that was from P.S.. But yeah, I’d have to be pretty fucking naive to think that nothing was occurring in the rectory attached to the chapel when I was in the presence of two prolific kiddie diddlers.
I remember a good dozen times in the year and a half that P.S. was our babysitter in which he abused me and my brother together down in the basement on our uncle Doug’s cot. P.S. wasn’t subtle in his abuse either. He could get quite physical. I guess he was taking everything that Captain McRae was doing to him out on us. He almost always molested my brother and I together as it was easier for him to keep an eye on the two of us least one of us go off and babble to someone else about what P.S. was doing. P.S. loved digital penetration. I know he attempted anal with me a few times and actually succeeded on the day we were caught in his bedroom.
I saw P.S. have intercourse with a girl younger than I was. All I really remember about her is she wore a white dress, and had blond hair in pig tails. I would have been between 7 and 8 at the time. P.S. would have been older than his 14th birthday. P.S. had her over by the curling club and the Canex. She really didn’t want to be there. I wasn’t with P.S. that day. It was summer time. I think I was heading over to the arena for who knows what reasons. They were behind the Canex building towards the arena. She screamed. I still cringe thinking about that. There were four other boys I was aware of that P.S. abused. I didn’t know them that well. One kid left the base in the summer of 1979. I don’t know where his father was posted to. One of the other boys arrived in the summer of 1979. One of the other boys were long term on that base. All I remember about this last boy is that he was in my Red Cross swimming classes at the base pool. My family was punted off that base in October of 1980. No matter how hard I try, I can’t remember their names.
And Captain McRae wasn’t the only adult that P.S. was involved with on CFB Namao. As I described to Sgt. Tenaschuk during the 2015 to 2018 portion of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754, P.S. had cornered me at one of the public swims at the base pool. P.S. directed me into the sauna. There was an older man in the sauna sitting at the far end. P.S. escorted me over and told this man what my name was. This older man smiled at me and he put his hand on my shoulder and said that I was really cute. He asked me if I knew how to give a good blow job. P.S. replied that I was a really good. P.S. then went over and stood watch at the door. All I really remember about this old guy is he was a little on the pudgy side and he had a very close shaved white beard. I gave this man the blow job he wanted. As I’m typing this, I’m actually amazed at how many blowjobs I gave out on that base.
Guy with white beard = 1; P.S. = alot; Captain McRae = only P.S. would know.
Another former dependant from CFB Namao contacted me in the summer of 2012. James had his own list of names of children that P.S. had abused.
So, it’s quite clear that we’re not talking about P.S. inappropriately touching a single kid out of “childhood curiosity and experimentation”. He had access to numerous children under the age of 10 on that base. P.S. definitely should have been prosecuted. He would have probably received the help that he so desperately needed. But, I digress.
From what both retired Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham and Sgt. J.S. have stated, there were well over 25 children from CFB Namao that were caught up in the McRae / P.S. affair. I spoke to the younger brother of a trio of boys from the same family. Two boys were in the Canadian Forces later in life. The eldest boy never joined. The eldest boy killed himself just a few years ago. The younger brother blames the sexual abuse on CFB Namao and their dealings with the military social worker when their family was posted to CFB Borden in Ontario. I’m just wondering how many other kids involved with the Captain McRae child sex scandal from CFB Namao committed suicide or had lingering problems not only from the abuse but from the manner in which the military dealt with the victims.
P.S. is the complainant. The other two would seem to be victims of McRaeThree more victims of McRae, possibly 6 but I can’t say for sure about the last 3
6 – 9 is far short of 25. But you have to realize that Captain McRae was being investigated for “Acts of Homosexuality” by the dread CFSIU. The CFSIU were responsible for enforcing CFAO 19-20
Yes, CFAO 19-20 did not apply to military dependants, but it did shape the military’s attitude towards what it believed to be homosexual acts. And homosexual acts were considered to be victimless crimes, meaning BOTH parties were just as culpable.
If you were a service member of the Canadian Armed Forces in 1980, would you want it to be known that your son was participating in “Acts of Homosexuality”? Nope, didn’t think so. So, I think a lot of serving parents wouldn’t let their kids be interviewed by the CFSIU out of fear of their sons being listed as being engaged in homosexual behaviour.
So, back to the question posed at the start of this post.
Q: Why weren’t the Queen’s Cowboys called in?
A: Fear of the public discovering that DND and the CF couldn’t protect children living on the bases in Canada.
As I was reading through the August 13th, 2019 newspaper story from the Ottawa Citizen detailing the investigation that lead to the prosecution of Donald Joseph Sullivan for sexually abusing numerous children in the 1970s I couldn’t help but think back to a comment that was made by Alberta Crown Prosecutor Jon Werbicki when he declined to allow charges to be brought against an already multi-time convicted child molester.
The person that I made allegations against in March of 2011 wasn’t someone without any form of criminal record. P.S. had been arrested, prosecuted and convicted in Manitoba in 1984 for molesting an 8 year old boy. P.S. was then arrested and charged in the spring of 1985 for molesting a 9 year old boy on Canadian Forces Base Namao. P.S. was arrested and charged a short while later for molesting a 13 year old newspaper boy in Edmonton, AB. P.S. was convicted in August of 1985 for the crimes committed against both the 9 year old and the 13 year old.
For legal reasons, I have to blank out the name of my abuser.
P.S. had numerous convictions from 1985 until 2000 for various crimes including sexual assaults. His records are easily available though CPIC
excerpt from the MPCC review of GO 2011-5754
As I said, it wasn’t like I made allegations against some random rube off the street.
Alberta Crown Prosecutor Jon Werbicki actually said in his Crown Legal Review that he had submitted back to Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock on Tuesday November 1st @ 13:43 “The fact that no complaint was made to any party or a person in authority after <P.S.> moved away is very significant”.
As I’ve stated elsewhere, my father at the time practically lived in a bottle of rum. A psychologist hired by Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke in October of 1980 to evaluate my family found that I was terrified of my father. This same psychologist also found that my father accepted no responsibility for his family; blamed others, including his own mother, for problems with the family; expected others to solve his problems for him. My grandmother, who lived with us until the summer of 1981, wasn’t much better. She drank. A lot. She also had a temper that rivaled my father’s. My stepmother blamed my grandmother’s drinking for enabling my father’s drinking. This may be true to a point as my father started to dry out after his mother left our house. However I don’t believe my grandmother’s drinking caused my father’s drinking. They both drank for very different reasons.
All of the issues with my family were laid out very succinctly in my foster care records which were given to the CFNIS in August of 2011, but which the CFNIS declined to include in their investigation. My foster care records did not offer any support to the narrative that the CFNIS were running with during this investigation, so they dropped it. However, the Alberta Crown was made aware of these reports, and still chose to stand by Werbicki’s determination that it was very significant that I didn’t tell anyone back then about the abuse.
When I made my complaint against Earl Ray Stevens, not once did the Ontario Crown chastize me for not having told anyone back when the assaults were happening. The Ontario Crown seems to realize that sexually abused children often keep their mouths shut.
The one thing the Ontario crown was concerned about was the possibility of Earl Ray Steven’s defence raising the issue of consent. When I was being abused by Earl, I was over the age of consent.
Donald Joseph Sullivan, in his position as a Scout Leader, abused numerous children during the 1970s. According to the Ottawa Citizen, he somehow escaped prosecution as an adult during the 1970s for the crimes he committed as a Scout Leader.
According to the Ottawa Citizen, in June of 2018 the Ottawa Police launched an investigation into Donald Joseph Sullivan for crimes that he had committed during the 1970s.
At no time did the Ontario Crown chastise the victims for not telling a “party or a person” of the abuse after Sullivan left Ontario and joined the Canadian Armed Forces where he’d end up molesting more children.
And one other interesting thing. The Ottawa Police went looking for more victims.
During my March 31st 2011 interview with CFNIS investigator Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock, I told Mr. Hancock that in addition to my brother and I, that I was aware of 4 other children that P.S. had molested. The CFNIS in 2011 deemed that it wasn’t relevant to look for more victims. I would learn in 2018 that even though other victims had come forward, such as P.G., the CFNIS brass decided that the existence of other victims would not be disclosed to the Crown as these other victims didn’t directly witness my abuse.
It’s almost as if the CFNIS are doing everything in their power to control the decision of the Crown.
Now, it must be pointed out that my father did in fact know about P.S.. Anytime anything went wrong in our house, I was blamed by my father for what I had allowed the babysitter to do. Captain Terry Totzke, the Canadian Forces military social worker that I was placed in the care of as a result of the “homosexual tendencies” I exhibited by having sexual relations with P.S. on CFB Namao obviously knew about the abuse.
Should I cut Jon Werbicki some slack?
The simple answer is no, and I don’t really care how upset his boss Orest Yereniuk becomes.
It’s common knowledge that the Canadian Forces Military Police and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service have a less than stellar record when it comes to serious criminal investigations. The Fynes Public Interest Hearing and the Final Report of the External Review Authority speak to this. For the Alberta Crown to feign ignorance about the incompetence of the CFNIS beggars belief.
Even former Minister of National Defence and current Alberta premier decried the “incompetence” of the military police. And this was for an CFNIS investigation which shared numerous investigators and senior officers with the investigation into my complaints against P.S..
The incompetence of the Canadian Forces Military Police was well documented during the Somalia Inquiry.
Basically, the CFNIS would have trouble investigating their way out of a wide open field.
If I was a provincial Crown Prosecutor, I’d want anything brought to me by the CFMPG, the CFMP, or the CFNIS to be vetted and double checked by an outside civilian police agency.
And the way I look at it, if the Crown of any province is willing to put blind faith into any police agency no matter how questionable the record of the police agency is then the Crown deserves to wear its horrific and hurtful decisions.
Is there anything else that would cause the Alberta Crown to decline to press charges?
Mr. P.S. lives in Fort Erie, Ontario. I live in the lower mainland of British Columbia, the crimes occurred on a military base in Alberta. Guess who’s picking up the costs for this?
On top of this, P.S. would have to be prosecuted under the Juvenile Delinquents Act. Which means that he’d get bugger all for a sentence, but at least all of the victims of P.S. would be eligible to claim for damages.
And also, there’s the fact Alberta’s legendary tightness of the purse-strings created a court system that was so under funded for so long that a case like mine would have lingered at the bottom of the priority list.
And then of course, the recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling that says that a trial must occur within 18 months for a provincial court trial and 30 months for a more serious case heard in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench means that the Alberta Crown would be even less inclined to prosecute an older case like mine, often citing irrelevant b.s. as an excuse as opposed to just coming right out and saying that the cost isn’t worth it.
And what this creates is a warped justice system where people who were sexually abused as children in Ontario can receive justice, and people who were sexually abused as children in Alberta get told to not worry their pretty little heads.
Both Captain Father Angus McRae and Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan were involved with the Catholic church. And both were molesting children. And both had their matters dealt with by military courts martial, and both were sentenced by their respective courts martial panels, and both had their sentences drastically cut by the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada.
And then of course there’s the curious matter of retired Canadian Armed Forces officer Brigadier General Roger Bazin. Bazin was involved with a cash pay off to a teen that he had inappropriate sexual relations with after Bazin had retired from the Canadian Forces. Then in 2010, Bazin is arrested and charged with committing sexual acts involving a child from Canadian Forces base Borden when Bazin was a chaplain on the base with the rank of Captain.
I came to know about the Sullivan matter back in July of 2012 when I had some communications with a person familiar with the military justice system.
As I said previously, I had Googled Sullivan’s name back in 2012, and I came up with no hits.
I recently was looking over the Sullivan files again as I have another reporter interested in the story of how DND and the CF used their flawed and separate justice system to hide child sexual abuse on the bases in Canada.
When I re-read this file I decided to Google Donald’s name again. This is how I learnt about Donald’s conviction and sentencing in August and September of 2019.
And yes, it has since been confirmed that Scout Leader Sullivan and Canadian Forces Corporal Sullivan are the same person.
From my collection of CMAC files, I know that Private Brian Thomas Clabby committed four counts of Gross Indecency and abduction while he was stationed at CFB Lahr in Germany.
Corporal Joseph David Thomas committed two acts of gross indecency on October 4th and 5th of 1985 in Germany and one indecent act between the months of October 1983 and June 1984 when he had sexual relations with a female under the age of 14 in Nanaimo, BC . Note that he wasn’t charged with “rape” for having sex with a female. He was charged with an “indecent” act. This allowed the Canadian Forces to keep this matter out of the civilian courts.
How many other cases similar to these are there?
If I were to postulate, I’d say hundreds, if not thousands.
One of the problems with the Canadian Forces which was mentioned both in a report that looked at spousal abuse within the military community and a Macleans magazine article entitled “CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy”, is that the military had a penchant for moving the trouble makers around from one base to another in the hopes that the problem would go away with a change in the scenery.
Another problem that the Canadian Forces had back in my day is that charges could be plead into other charges, and as Madame Marie Deschamps stated in her final report, only upon careful review of the charge sheet would one be able to determine that the original charges were related to sexual assaults.
In all of the bases that McRae was posted to, how many kids did he diddle there?
How many kids did Sullivan really molest?
How many kids did Sullivan, McRae, and even Bazin molest that never reported their abuse because the children were posted off to another base when their serving parent was reassigned?
How many children of junior rank members were molested by officers and in turn kept their mouths shut because they knew that a Captain or a Colonel far outranked a Corporal?
If you were a kid just arriving at a new base, and you wanted to fit in, you sure as hell weren’t going to tell anyone what the creepy perv at the previous base had done to you. And then after awhile, you don’t say anything out of fear of being blamed for the perv molesting other kids because you didn’t say anything.
In 1973, Captain Angus McRae was investigated for committing “acts of homosexuality” at CFB Kingston.
In 1980 Captain Angus McRae was investigated again for committing “acts of homosexuality”, but this time he was convicted. Much like in the Sullivan matter though, McRae appealed his sentence to the CMAC and had his sentence grossly reduced.
So, it’s clearly obvious that the Canadian Armed Forces considered male on male child sexual abuse to be “acts of homosexuality”.
There were other sketchy service members in the past.
Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk comes to mind. Three weeks before Lynne Harper was murdered in 1959, Sgt. Alexander E. Kalichuk was arrested and charged by the Ontario Provincial Police for trying to lure three young girls into his car. The charges were dismissed, but the judge gave Kalichuk a warning regarding his behaviour.
Around the date of Lynne Harper’s disappearance, Kalichuk’s probation officer advised RCAF officials that Kalichuk was involved in another incident of indecent exposure.
And as it turns out, Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk was also a suspect in the disappearance and death of 5-year-old Susan Cadieux from London, Ontario.
Former Canadian Armed Forces officer and base commander, Colonel Russell Williams liked them on the young side. What wasn’t made too well known during his trial is that most of the underwear that he stole belonged to adolescent girls. And as if that wasn’t enough, he also had a sizable kiddie porn collection on his computer.
And don’t forget, but there’s the report from former Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, Colonel Tim Grubb, that indicated that the Canadian Forces has a noticeably higher incidence of child sexual crimes than the civilian world. The Canadian Forces tried to downplay this by claiming that the higher incidence rate is due to a higher rate of reporting.
Here’s the interesting story of Sergeant David Rodwell who was chatting in an internet forum geared towards persons interested incest with someone he believed was a mother with a 3 year-old daughter. Problem was the person Mr. Rodwell was chatting with was a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Rodwell made arrangements to go to the states to have sex with this 3-year-old.
And it shouldn’t go without mention, but the Canadian Forces do seem to have is a much higher “unfounded” rate when it comes to sexual assault investigations.
For the Canadian Forces, time is its best friend.
All DND and the CF have to do is to wait out for another 20 or 30 years for all of us who grew up on the bases during the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s’, and ’80s to die off.
Years ago, when I started one this journey, I tried to get a grasp on the very opaque military justice system in this country. I downloaded a bunch of Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada decisions from the WestlawNext library.
The cases I had picked weren’t arbitrary. I was given the names of very specific cases to look for.
One of the Court Martial Appeal Court cases I downloaded was for a man named Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan. In 1986 Mr. Sullivan was appealing the guilty finding of both of his 1985 courts martial.
Mr. Sullivan had been charged and prosecuted by the military justice system for committing acts of Gross Indecency with teenage boys on CFB Gagetown.
The CMAC ruling explained why the military could legally conduct a courts martial for certain sexal assaults against children, while not being to conduct a courts martial for other sexual assaults against children.
Basically, the Canadian Forces were relying on the “age of consent” laws in Canada. The Canadian Forces seemed to prosecute cases of child sexual abuse when the victims were over the age of 14. When the victims were under the age of 14 it appears that the military would simply drop the charges and proceed with other “serious” charges against the service member.
This explains why the “brass” dropped all of the charges against Captain McRae except for the charges relating to P.S., whom was the only boy over the age of 14 in the entire Captain McRae child sexual abuse fiasco.
By prosecuting Captain McRae and Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan for comitting sexual acts with children over the age of 14, the military could portray these as homosexual acts that the teenage boys would have obviously consented to, therefore the crimes were not as serious as if the boys involved had not consented.
Anyways, when I first received the transcript of the CMAC decision for Corporal Sullivan’s appeal, I conducted a few Google searches for Donald Joseph Sullivan. Nothing ever came of these searches.
Just recently I was going through these WestlawNext files when I came across Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan’s file. I decided to Google Mr. Sullivan’s name again.
Well, this time I got a hit.
There was a Donald Joseph Sullivan in an Ottawa court on August 13th, 2019.
He had been charged with sexually abusing numerous children while he had been a Scout Leader during the ’70s.
According to the news story, this wasn’t the first time in recent times that Mr. Sullivan was in front of a judge to answer for his crimes against children.
In 2005, Mr. Sullivan went to jail for 9 months for two counts of sexual interference.
According to the newspaper story, in the ’70s the police investigated him, but charges were never proceeded with at the time.
Right now I’m just waiting for verification that Scout Leader Donald Joseph Sullivan and Canadian Armed Forces Corporal Donal Joseph Sullivan are one and the same.
What are the odds?
And without criminal charges, would anything have prevented Mr. Sullivan from joinging the Canadian Armed Forces?
And if these two Donald Joseph Sullivans are one and the same, this opens up a whole Pandora’s box of questions.
Below is a copy of a letter that I just sent off to a member of the Canadian media after having read their story about the growing calls for the Catholic church and the various Archdiocese in Canada to release the names of the Catholic clergy that the church knew or suspected of having molested children in the various Archdiocese across Canada.
I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there were more members of the catholic clergy on base abusing their rank and going after the children of junior rank and NCOs knowing full well that their word as a captain carried far more weight than the word of a private or a corporal.
Hello Media,
Do the names Angus McRae, Roger Bazin, or Donald Joseph Sullivan ring a bell? No? I don’t blame you for not knowing them.
McRae and Bazin were both officers in the Canadian Armed Forces. Captain Angus McRae and Brigadier General Roger Bazin to be exact. Sullivan was a corporal.
There connection is that they were all involved with the Catholic Clergy on the bases.
Captain McRae was investigated for “acts of homosexuality” in 1973 while he was at the Royal Military College in Kingston. RMC Kingston is attached to CFB Kingston. Captain McRae ended up at CFS Holberg where apparently he had an interaction with a teenage boy on Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island. In May of 1980, Captain McRae was investigated by the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit on the suspicion of having molested over 25 children who were living in military housing on Canadian Forces Base Namao. Due to certain flaws that existed in the National Defence Act prior to December 1998, the number of charges brought against Captain McRae were severely reduced and he was dealt with by courts martial instead of facing a civilian judge. Major Roger Bazin was flown out from Ottawa to assist Captain McRae with his personal matters. In February 2010, retired Canadian Armed Forces officer Brigadier General Roger Bazin was arrested and charged with having sexually abused a young boy who was living on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1974. Brigadier General Roger Bazin was a captain in 1974.
Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan was given a courts martial for committing acts of gross indecency with numerous boys on CFB Gagetown. In 1986, Cpl Sullivan appealed his court martial sentence. From the Court Martial Appeals Court decision.
2 The facts are not in dispute. All of the charges involved teenaged boys. At the time of the offences four of those boys werefourteen or fifteen years of age and one was eighteen years of age. The appellant had met the boys through his position as aninstructor of altar boys at the Base Roman Catholic Chapel and through his position as a counsellor in social youth organizationsin a town nearby the Base. The four younger boys were children of service personnel stationed on the Base. The offences tookplace at the accused’s quarters on the Base where the boys visited with the accused regularly.
3 As to the first count, the facts were that the appellant and the boy had been acquainted for two years and during thattime the boy would go to the appellant’s residence twice each week. On the particular occasion, after the boy arrived at theappellant’s residence, he was given alcoholic beverages and was shown a pornographic movie. At the appellant’s suggestion theboy changed into his gym shorts and subsequently removed all of his clothing after which the appellant encouraged the boy tomasturbate and then the appellant masturbated the boy and performed fellatio on him.
Reading further on in the decision, one can see the logic by which the Canadian Armed Forces was able to try child sexual assaults via military tribunal.
8 Counsel for the appellant contends that while the court may have jurisdiction to try the appellant, in the circumstances itshould not have done so having regard to recent changes in the National Defence Act with respect to jurisdiction which are theresult of amendments made to the Criminal Code of Canada. The reference was, of course, to changes in s. 60 of the NationalDefence Act which takes away the jurisdiction of a Court Martial to try cases of sexual assault if committed in Canada. Thesection provides:
60. A service tribunal shall not try any person charged with any of the following offences committed in Canada:
(a) murder;
(b) manslaughter;
(c) sexual assault;
(d) sexual assault with a weapon, threats to a third party or causing bodily harm;
(e) aggravated sexual assault; or
(f) an offence under ss. 249 to 250.2 of the Criminal Code.
Prior to this change the relevant limitation had been to charges of rape. Sexual assault includes the former offence of rape, theformer offence of indecent assault against females and against males by either a male or a female. But the offence of grossindecency is not an included offence in sexual assault nor is sexual assault an included offence in gross indecency. An importantdistinction between the two offences is that the absence of the consent by the victim to the act is an element of the offenceof sexual assault but is not an element of the offence of gross indecency. Counsel submits that the change which prohibitsprosecution of a broad range of sexual offences should be regarded by us as a policy against prosecution by a service tribunalof other offences of a sexual nature in favour of prosecution in the criminal courts of the land. The short answer to this is thatParliament has not disturbed the jurisdiction to prosecute some acts of gross indecency. The jurisdiction in relation to theseacts remains as it was, so that charges of gross indecency may be tried by court martial if the crime was committed in Canada.
14 While Parliament has taken away the jurisdiction of the military court to try some offences against the person, it has notdisturbed the jurisdiction to try other offences which have a real military nexus or service connection.
15 In this case the offences were committed by Sullivan who was a serviceman and they were committed in service quarterson the base against the children of service personnel who lived there. The case had all of the elements present in Belford. Itoffended morale and discipline and struck deeply at the integrity of the military establishment. In my opinion, there was indeeda real military nexus or service connection within the meaning of the cases referred to. This ground of appeal fails.
As a side note, there’s a reason why the military loved to place special emphasis on the age of fourteen. At the time, fourteen was the age of consent. If the military had charged Sullivan with molesting anyone under the age of 14, that not only changed the optics of the crime in the eyes of the public, but that also means the military loses the ability to prosecute via service tribunal as no one under the age of consent can consent to sexual relations. This is why in the case of Canadian Forces officer Captain McRae, the military reduced all of the charges against McRae to only the charges related to a teenaged boy with the initials of P.S.. P.S. was 14 when McRae was charged. P.S. was the only boy over 14. The rest of the children McRae was known to have abused were ages 5 to 13. So, this brings up the question. How many other military chaplains were convicted of child molestation and quietly dealt with in house by the Canadian Forces disciplinary system.
It should be noted that after Angus McRae was booted from the military, he ended up going for treatment at Southdown. After that Angus McRae ended up in Scarborough Ontario where he was arrested and charged with molesting two brothers. Angus McRae was initially going to plead innocent, but changed his plea when the Crown informed him that they had complaints from 10 other children.
In 2005 Roger Bazin paid the family of an Ontario teen $24,000 to settle out of court with the family. It was alleged that Bazin had sexual relations with the family’s teenaged son.
As an officer in the Chaplaincy Branch, Bazin would have been involved with the prosecutions of other kiddie diddling members of the catholic clergy on the bases in Canada.
And as Anus McRae illustrates, the Canadian Forces simply moved their troubled clergy from one base to another. The Canadian Armed Forces KNEW they had a problem with the Catholic clergy on the bases in Canada.
The chapels on base all had rectories. These rectories were all systematically removed in the late ‘80s.
Plea bargains are nothing new in the criminal justice system. The Crown makes deals all of the time. Plea guilty for a lesser charge, avoid the possibility of a substantial prison sentence, and get a shorter sentence, if any.
Sometimes plea deals work really good in the case of a defendant. Take Karla Homolka and the Crown’s “deal with the devil” for example. Sure, it got Paul Bernardo put away for life, but as it turned out Karla wasn’t innocent either.
The following paragraphs are taken from the Final Report of the External Review Authority.
“As with sexual harassment, there is very poor collection of data regarding incidents of sexual assault in the CAF. Since sexual assaults go widely unreported, the data does not in any way reflect the actual rate of occurrence. Even where complaints are laid, the fact of a sexual assault will often be buried in the court record. For example, if the accused pleads guilty to an alcohol related charge, or to conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline, only a careful review of the sentence will, in some cases, indicate that the conduct or underlying issue involved acts of a sexual nature.
Tracking the occurrence and outcome of incidents of sexual assault is essential to determine if the CAF’s policies are functioning to improve the conduct of its members, both on an individual and systemic basis. Yet in the case of sexual assault in the CAF, the relevant data is missing. While it is true that data on sexual assault is difficult to gather, the CAF needs to understand how incidents are impacting its members, and victims are entitled to make an informed decision about whether or not to disclose a complaint. The ERA heard from participants that a number of data banks are in place in the CAF that could be used to improve data collection. For example, if appropriate coding systems were in place, the CFHIS, which is currently used to report injuries, could be refined to also reflect the causes of the injuries—including sexual assaults. Unfortunately, this is not taking place and the failure to keep data on complaints of sexual assault significantly weakens the accountability of the chain of command and impedes the CAF’s ability to prevent future sexual assaults from occurring.”
It’s no secret that the Canadian Armed Forces Military Police Group has problems tracking sexual assaults. My opinion is that this is not accidental. This lack of proper tracking actually serves the needs of the Canadian Forces Chain of Command. If there’s no data, then there’s obviously no problem, eh?
And if the Canadian Forces are having this much difficulty tracking adult sexual assaults, just imagine how much difficulty they are having tracking sexual assaults involving children living in the defence community.
The ex-JAG lawyer that I spoke with a few weeks ago was under the impression that ALL sexual assaults involving children were always prosecuted through the civilian courts. When I sent him a copy of CFSIU DS-120-10-80 it was apparent by his response to me that he was caught off guard.
Back on February 9th 2015 I had a brief telephone conversation with Lt. Col. David Antonyshyn of the Office of the Judge Advocate General. Mr. Antonyshyn was of the opinion that domestic matters within the PMQs were always handed off to the outside civilian justice system.
Even Lt. Gen. Christine Whitecross told the Standing Committee on National Defence that matters involving child sexual abuse are always handed off to the outside civilian authorities.
But, it would appear that this is not always the case.
And Captain Father Angus McRae wasn’t the only member of the Canadian Armed Forces to have been given a courts martial for sexual crimes against children. I have a couple of CMAC findings in which Canadian Forces personnel who were subject to a courts martial, later appealed their sentences.
The Canadian Forces military justice system was an absolute mess prior to 1998. Commanding officers had far too much sway. Base commanders ruled like kings. The military police and the CFSIU were only independent of the chain of command in fairy tale stories.
So, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there were a significant amount of child sexual abuse cases prosecuted “in-house” by way of courts martial. And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there were a significant amount of child sexual abuse cases plead down to “disgraceful conduct” or “conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline”.
Disgraceful conduct covers Section 92 to Section 98 of the National Defence Act. Section 97 “Drunkenness” has often been used to “excuse” the bad behaviour of service personnel who obviously only committed their offence because they had one too many drinks due to “stress”.
“Conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline” covers Sections 72 to 128 of the National Defence Act. Basically this allows for a person to be dismissed with disgrace from Her Majesty’s service for being drunk or insubordinate.
By allowing a member of the Canadian Forces to cop a plea to “disgraceful conduct” or “conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline” the Canadian Forces get to sweep the matter under the rug, and sweep the offender out the door where the offender now becomes someone else’s problem.
After my informal conversation with the ex-JAG lawyer a few days ago, I came to the realization that much like the Army Cadets from the grenade incident in 1974 at Canadian Force Base Valcartier, and the multitude of gays and lesbians that were booted out of the military in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and 80s’, civilian persons who were sexually abused on military bases prior to 1998 are also stuck in a “legal void”.
The Canadian Armed Forces had the “legal” mandate to discharge homosexuals from its ranks prior to the abolition of Canadian Forces Administrative Order CFAO 19-20. Of course, ethical and legal are two different animals. The Canadian Armed Forces could have easily quashed the class action lawsuit brought against it by those who were ensnared by CFAO 19-20. But the Canadian Forces and the Federal Government chose not to, more than likely out of fear of a negative public reaction.
In 1974, an officer with the Canadian Armed Forces was conducting range safety training with a group of 200 teenage boys. This officer, through negligence, allowed a live hand grenade to be brought into the impromptu class room. This officer of the Canadian Armed Forces allowed the pin to be pulled from the grenade. 6 young boys died immediately, with more than 50 sustaining life altering injuries. In 2011, the Minister of National Defence requested the Canadian Forces Ombudsman look into the matter. The Ombudsman was appalled by the fact that the Officers with the Canadian Armed Forces who were wholly responsible for the deaths and injuries that day were allowed to collect compensation from the Department of National Defence, yet the young boys were all barred from receiving any manner of benefits or compensation as they were not members of the Regular or Reserve Forces. Sure, some parents had the fortitude to sue the Government of Canada. But most of the parents lacked the financial resources to take on the Department of Justice and The Department of National Defence. The Department of National Defence quickly settled with the former cadets.
That brings up my recent conversation with an ex-JAG lawyer. He cited a number of legal reasons as to why DND and the CF could never be sued in a court of law by me personnally for the injuries that I suffered as a result of the abuse from Captain Father Angus McRae and P.S., as well as the emotional trauma I endured at the hands of the military social worker.
Now, I will be honest. This is not the first time a class action has entered my mind. A few things have held me back. First, finding class action lawyers with military law experience. Second, finding other victims of military child sexual abuse. Third, money.
I now realize that I don’t have to find a class action lawer with military law experience. I can retain any law firm I wish that specializes in class actions. I just have to retain an ex-JAG to act as a legal adivser for the class action firm.
Also, I don’t have to worry about finding the other victims. That’s what web, print, television, and radio advertising are for. Definitely won’t be cheap, but it will work a lot faster than my blog or the Facebook base brat groups. The Facebook groups contain only a very small portion of the true number of persons who lived on defence establishments as children. There is a manager at my place of work who was a military dependant. They only found out about my being a former military dependant when they over heard me talking to someone about my father having been in the Canadian Forces. This manager runs one of the other departments. They too were sexually abused on one of the bases they lived on. They don’t know what happened to their abused as the manager and her family moved to another base. This manager is ashamed of having been a military dependant and wishes that no one knows about this and they feel quite serious that their ability to manage wold be called into question.
So I know there are a lot more former military dependants out there in the general population than are on the Facebook groups.
That brings me to the money.
I’ve never used a platform like GoFundMe previously, and I’m still not 100% certain of all of the aspects of raising funds in this manner. But I do believe that raising funds in this manner will allow for a class action to be brought against the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence a lot quicker than by relying on me to fund this on my own.
What happens with the funds if I’m not successful? Any money collected but not spent will be given to various children aid societies across Canada. I know that my family wasn’t the only social service magnet hopping from base to base across Canada.
Will $50k be enough?
Most ex-JAGs that I’ve spoken with in the past have asked for retainers between $5k to $20k with the majority being in between $10k to $15k. Most of these ex-JAGs bill over $600.00/hr. So yeah, I expect the ex-JAG to consume the lion’s portion of the funds raised. That said, I believe these funds spent will be a worthwhile investment as the ex-JAG should be able to walk the class-action law firm through all of the grey areas in the National Defence Act and the Queen’s Regulations and Orders that allowed the Canadian Forces to conduct tribunals for crimes that rightfully should have been put before a civilian court.
Don’t forget but as illustrated by the recent ex-JAG, the Canadian Forces were NOT supposed to be conducting service tribunals for members charged with sexual assaults against children. I now have proof that the Canadian Forces were conducting service tribunals for sexual assaults against children. This is a game changer.
Most class action law firms are more than willing to work on a contingency basis, meaning they ask for very little up front, and instead collect their fees at the end. This of course drives the law firm to try to collect a large settlement.
I fully expect the advertising portion to eat up the remaining balance of the funds raised.
How many victims are there?
I honestly don’t know.
The most accurate number I can guesstimate comes from numbers I received from DND. According to DND housing records, there were 20,500 PMQs and 19,500 children living on the bases in Canada in 1997. At the time there were only 31 bases. Less than 10 years prior there were over 80 bases and stations in Canada. By extrapolation I can say with confidence that there were at least 50,000 children living on the bases in Canada each and every year prior to 1987.
According to civilian stats, 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 20 boys will be sexually assaulted before their 18th birthday.
That’s 16,500 girls and 2,500 boys.
However, recent studies have shown that the rate of sexual assault amongst male children is typically even higher with a rate of 1 in 10 to 1 in 6.
I invite you to make a donation to the cause. Remember, most brats had a good life on the bases, but for those ones who fell through the cracks, they had absolutely nothing in the way of safety nets.
Child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces 