Day: December 21, 2019

Interesting.

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.

You can download Tim Grubb’s report here:
https://cfbnamao.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/a0311475.pdf

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.

But yes, please tell me how children were safe and secure on the bases.

And, as it turns out, the Canadian Forces can’t properly track sexual assaults.

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.