January 2020 – Child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces

I Missed it……

The Military Police Complaints Commission has recently been in contact with me regarding documents and other forms of information that I have in my possession from the 2015 through 2018 portion of the CFNIS investigation into the acts of P.S. on CFB Namao from 1978 until 1980.

In preparation for sending the pertinent information to the MPCC, I’ve been reviewing the documents. And I realized something. The second investigation was designed to fail from the word go.

In the summer of 2015, after I had spoken to J.S. and then subsequently his son P.S., I wrote a letter to the Chief of Defence Staff and I sent a courtesy copy to Bob Paulson who at the time was the commissioner of the RCMP. Within a few weeks I was contacted by RCMP Major Crimes Investigator Akrum Ghadban. Mr. Ghadban was on secondment to the CFNIS and was responsible for reviewing major cases. Mr. Ghadban said that he had reviewed the 2011 CFNIS investigation and that he had concerns about the investigation and that he was going to instruct the CFNIS on areas that he thought they could improve.

This led to a new interview being conducted between myself, RCMP Inspector Ghadban, and Sgt. Tenaschuk of the CFNIS. This interview took place on September 22nd, 2015 at the RCMP detachment at the University of British Columbia.

Just prior to the interview, Inspector Ghadban met with me. He said that he had concerns about aspects of the 2011 CFNIS investigation. He said that the 2011 investigation was not up to “contemporary policing standards”.

During the interview, Inspector Ghadban said that he was going to instruct the CFNIS to concentrate on four specific areas of the investigation.

First is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to track down and locate P.S.’s younger brother who also has the initials of P.S.. For clarity I will call P.S.’s younger brother P.S.2.

Second is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to track down Doug Schwirtz who in 1980 would have been around 9 years old and lived at PMQ 13 on 12th street and had potentially seen the kids on the front lawn of the S. PMQ attack me when I came out of P.S.’s PMQ after P.S. had been discovered buggering me in his bedroom.

Third is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to talk to retired Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham to find out what Cunningham knew about the 1980 investigation into Captain McRae. After all, both J.S. and Fred Cunningham indicated that the investigation into Captain McRae was commenced due to the complaints of numerous parents on CFB Namao about the interaction of P.S. with their young children.

Fourth is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to ascertain that I did in fact mention during my initial interview with the CFNIS in March of 2011 that I had tried reporting P.S. to the military police in 1984 and in 1990. This was specifially to counter Alberta Crown Prosecutor Jon Werbicki’s concern that I hadn’t tried reporting these crimes to anyone before.

True to CFNIS form, when Sgt. Tenaschuk tried locating P.S.2 he contacted the family again. The same very protective family that closed ranks around P.S. during the 2011 CFNIS investigation. When Tenaschuk contacted these family members, they all claimed that P.S.2. lived out on the West Coast and that they had lost contact with him years ago and they didn’t know how to get hold of him. As it turns out P.S.2. lives in London, Ontario which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Fort Erie, Ontario where his father J.S. and his older brother P.S. both live.

Tenaschuk tracked down Doug Schwirtz. I have no idea what questions Doug was asked. According to Sgt. Tenaschuk, Doug remembers absolutely nothing from back then.

I have no idea of what Sgt. Tenaschuk did so far as trying to locate records of me having tried to report P.S. to the military police in 1984 and 1990.

Sgt. Tenaschuk then contacted Fred Cunningham. According to Sgt. Tenaschuk he asked Fred Cunningham what he remembered about our telephone call on November 27th, 2011. Fred said that he couldn’t remember anything.

So, here’s what caught my eye. Tenaschuk wasn’t asked to talk to Fred Cunningham about our telephone call on March 27th, 2011. Sgt. Tenaschuk was instructed to talk to Fred Cunningham about the 1980 investigation into Captain McRae.

Sgt. Tenaschuk avoided asking Cunningham about the 1980 investigation, such as why did the base military police interrogate P.S. in his family’s PMQ in May of 1980? Why had Fred Cunningham been tasked with investigating Captain Father Angus McRae?

What did Fred Cunningham remember on November 27th, 2011? Quite a lot. What Fred Cunningham told me that day has been verified by Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit file DS 120-10-80 and by two separate Canadian Forces Fire Marshal reports.

During our brief phone call on November 27th, 2011 Fred identified another boy, younger than P.S. named F.A., as a “prolific pyromaniac”.

And what a pyromaniac he was. The Canadian Forces Fire Marshal identified F.A. as having been responsible for two separate house fires on CFB Namao. One of the Fire Marshal reports even goes on to identify this boy named F.A. as having been friends with P.S. and that P.S. had been at F.A.’s house earlier in the day prior to one of the fires and that both F.A. and P.S. had been playing with fire on the stove in the F.A. household.

The Fire Marshal’s report also indicated that this boy named F.A. wasn’t attending school as he had just recently been released from psychiatric care.

It was also noted in the most recent Fire Marshal report that F.A. seemed to like to play the role of the “hero” by “discovering” the fire and alerting people to the fire.

According to Fred Cunningham, when the charges stemming from F.A.’s complaint against Captain McRae were dropped by the “brass”, the boy named F.A. thought that P.S. had stabbed him in the back. Fred Cunningham said that the boy named F.A. had no idea that it was the “brass” that dropped all of the charges against McRae except for the charges related to P.S..

Fred Cunningham said that there had been a massive falling out between F.A. and P.S.

I asked Fred if this pyromaniac named F.A. had anything to do with the June 23rd, 1980 house fire at P.S.’s family’s PMQ.

Fred Cunningham said is that he wasn’t going to speak to that.

As I have the CF Fire Marshal’s report for the June 23rd, 1980 fire at the S. PQM, I know that Colonel Dan Munro’s signature was the final signature on the Fire Marshal’s investigation report for June 23rd, 1980 fire. In the Fire Marshal’s report, Colonel Dan Munro declines the need for further review of the cause of the fire.

I also learnt that someone did actually die in that fire. An Edmonton area civilian gas fitter employed on base by the Canadian Forces named Sam Stelter died as a result of trying to shut off the gas to prevent a major fire. Sam died of a heart attack in the basement of the S. family PMQ.

The Alberta Fire Marshal ruled that the house fire was due to a defective brass gas line behind the stove. I’ve often wondered since November 27th, 2011 just how hard it would have been for someone to have given that already defective gas line a simple tug. Someone with a grudge against a resident of the house. Another opportunity for someone to play the hero maybe?

Pure speculation I know.

Colonel Dan Munro was also Captain Father Angus McRae’s commanding officer.

Was Colonel Dan Munro the “brass” that dropped all of the charges against Captain McRae except for those relating to P.S.? Or was it someone higher up the chain of command?

In 2018, Sgt. Tenaschuk said that he wouldn’t be able to talk to Colonel Munro due to the 3-year time bar that existed in the National Defence Act prior to 1998.

It should be noted that the term “brass”never referes to a non-commissioned officer. If you were in the military, you would never call a Master Warrant Officer “the brass”. And you would almost certainly not call a junior rank officer “the brass”. It’s generally not until you get into the senior officer ranks that you start referring to officers as “the brass”. Colonel is the highest rank senior officer.

Above Colonel are the General / Flag officers. These you can call “the brass” as well.

Tenaschuk spooks the S. clan by contacting them and asking them for contact information for P.S.2 becuase he wants to talk to P.S.2 about what P.S. did in 1980. That family is extremely protective of P.S.. They view P.S. as the sole victim of Captain McRae. They obviously view the children that P.S. was abusing as being of no consequence. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the S. clan blame all the children that P.S. abused on CFB Namao as being the driving force behind P.S. attempting suicide in January of 2000. See, we’re not victims, we’re ruthless cold hearted killers who won’t leave poor misunderstood P.S. alone.

During the 2015 through 2018 CFNIS investigation, I provided the CFNIS with the names of other victims of P.S.. The CFNIS took their statements, and kept them separate from my investigation. According to Tenaschuk, this was a decision by his superiors.

The Crime Stoppers appeal that was run in November of 2016 provided “numerous” tips with others coming forward with complaints about P.S.. None of this information was forwarded to the Alberta Crown in 2018.

Sure, my father died in January of 2017, but the CFNIS had a whole year and a bit to interview him again. The statement that he gave to the CFNIS in 2011 does not reflect the reality of my family as it was back in the late ’70s and early ’80s. More specifically my father’s statement to the CFNIS is 100% at odds with the answers he gave me when I examined him for Federal Court in 2013. I provided Sgt. Tenaschuk with the pertinent sections of my foster care / Alberta Social Service records as well as a copy of my father’s answers to my written examination. From what I’ve seen that was provided to the Alberta Crown in 2018, Sgt. Tenaschuk made no mention at all that he had any concerns about the validity of my father’s statement to the CFNIS in 2011. My father’s statement would have had a very negative effect on the Crown’s decision.

In 2018, in the same letter that Sgt. Tenaschuk informs me that he can’t talk to Colonel Dan Munro due to the 3-year time bar, Tenaschuk informs me that the P.S. “investigation is still with the Crown Prosecutor” and that he viwed this as a “positive note”.

Weeks later the 2015 through 2018 investigation goes down in flames.

Sgt. Tenaschuk informed me in 2018 that the Alberta Crown was declining to recommend charges as it wasn’t in the public interest.

In late 2018 an agency of the Alberta government reviews the 2015 through 2018 portion of the CFNIS investigation and can’t find any evidence that any type of criminal code offence occured.

From the documents that I’ve seen from another agency of the Alberta government, Sgt. Tenaschuk basically resubmitted Sgt. Hancock’s 2011 Crown Briefing.

I don’t think that it was Sgt. Tenaschuk’s decision. Someone within the chain of command within the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal ensured that the 2015 through 2018 portion of CFNIS GO 2011-5754 stayed concerned only with the four exact concerns that RCMP Inspector Akrum Ghadban had raised. This meant that the CFNIS excluded just about anything else that had been brought to their attention. Other victims, potential witnesses, details about the 1980 investigation, these were all excluded from the 2015 – 2018 investigation.

This explains why the Sgt. Tenaschuk bascially re-submitted Sgt. Hancock’s investigation to the Alberta Crown. Excluding all of the new evidence ensured that the Alberta Crown was just going to give the same answer they gave to the flawed 2011 investigation.

This means that the 2015 through 2018 portion of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754 was just yet another dog and pony show that was never meant to wake up long dead ghosts.

It will be very interesting to see where the current MPCC review goes. It’s abundantly clear that the Canadian Forces do not want to revisit anything from 1980. And considering how narrow and restricted the review process is, I have no doubt that the MPCC will have absolutely no choice but to find in favour of the CFNIS just like the last time.

And unless the powers of the MPCC have been improved since my last go round, the Provost Marshal holds all of the cards.

Two dog and pony shows for the price of one.

Liability.

What could possibly be the reason that the CFNIS has been unable to bring charges against P.S. ?

Liability.

As I mentioned previously, if P.S. were to be criminally charged he would have to be charged under the Juvenile Delinquents Act (JDA).

The JDA didn’t really allow for any type of prison sentence for youths between the age of 14 through 18 as the JDA was more concerned with rehabilitation of the youth.

And as I’ve since learnt, children between the ages of 7 to 14 could be charged for criminal code offences, but to do so the Crown would have had to prove that the child knew right from wrong and understood the outcome of their actions.

P.S. has already had numerous convictions in his adult life for child sexual assaults. By facing more charges it’s not like he’s going to suffer any further loss of liberties or freedoms or further harm to his reputation.

The problem for the Canadian Forces is thus:

Captain McRae was found guilty by means of a courts martial for molesting P.S. on a defence establishment.

The Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence at the time were responsible for all aspects of security and access control to the Defence Establishment.

Captain McRae at the time of the abuse was a member of the Regular Forces and was subject to the Code of Service Discipline around the clock whether he was on-duty or off-duty.

If the CFNIS were to get serious about locating all of the children from CFB Namao who were sexually abused by P.S., how many children would they find? Would the Alberta crown still turn a blind eye if it became aware that P.S. had molested over a dozen children on his own?

We know that P.S. was abused by Captain McRae. Was P.S. abusing the children he was babysitting as a direct result of the abuse he was suffering at the hands of Captain McRae?

It is also conceivable that P.S. was either requested or coerced by Captain McRae into bringing younger children over to the chapel to be molested by Captain McRae and possibly P.S.

If P.S. had been charged and brought in for questioning and in his defence he made statements to the effect that Captain McRae had forced him to bring young children over to the base chapel to be abused, that opens up a whole new can of worms for the military, especially if it came out the the military police or the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit in 1980 were aware, or should have reasonably been aware that Captain McRae was forcing or inducing P.S. to bring children over to the chapel for Captain McRae’s pleasure.

I did raise the possibility of interference in the CFNIS investigation due to the potential for civil liability during my Judicial Review. And yes, the Justice did say that this wasn’t a valid assumption as I had no idea who the P.S. was in the Court of Queen’s Bench action against the Minister of National Defence.

However, as of July 2015, I have verification from P.S. himself that P.S. is the person who filed the $4.3 million dollar action against the Canadian Forces. P.S. would only confirm the action was his, but he would not speak to the settlement.

If P.S. was found in a court of law to have molested myself, my brother, P.G., D.O., S.O., M.O., J.P., and the other numerous John and Janes Does, would this establish a direct link between the victims of P.S. and the Department of National Defence by way of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae?

With the laying of charges against P.S., linking the abuse we suffered at the hands of P.S. on CFB Namao to the actions of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae would be a very trivial matter in much the same sense that P.S. was able to link the abuse he suffered on CFB Namao to the Minister of National Defence.

Right now, the Minister of National Defence and the Provost Marshal have more reasons than not to scuttle any investigation into P.S.

In November of 2008 the Canadian Forces Director of Civil Claims and Liabilities accepted General Legal Liability for the Personal Damages that P.S. had suffered as a result of his abuse on CFB Namao at the hands of Captain McRae.

If P.S. had been charged by the CFNIS for molesting children on CFB Namao, would P.S. have plead innocent due to the duress that Captain McRae had placed him under due to the sexual abuse that McRae was inflicting upon P.S.?

This would have opened up the path for civil actions to be brought against the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence, and the Minister of National Defence by the victims of both P.S. and of Captain McRae.

Remember, in civil court you only have to prove your argument based on probability.

If P.S. had never been abused by Captain McRae, would the victims of P.S. have ever suffered sexual abuse on that base?

The children that lived on CFB Namao were there at the pleasure of the Canadian Forces. Everyone on that base who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline were employees of the Canadian Forces.

If we were abused by P.S. and as a result of the attitudes in the Canadian Forces that resulted from military policy CFAO 19-20 and the Canadian Forces tried to cure us of our apparent “homosexuality” by the use of conversion therapy, is the Canadian Forces further liable? Don’t forget, the social workers that we were paired up with were regular force members of the Canadian Forces who were subject to the Code of Service Discipline.

Without charges being brought against P.S., the Department of Justice could argue in civilian court that we had never been abused, that we were either just lying, or that we were confused.

The Department of Justice could further argue in court that only P.S. was sexually abused on CFB Namao as he is the only person that Captain McRae was ever charged with molesting. And surely if other children were being sexualy abused by Captain McRae, then the military police and the CFSIU would have obviously heard about that, right?

Neat how that works out, eh?

And then there’s the other problem.

The Catholic Clergy within the defence community.

The Canadian Forces deemed male-on-male child sexual abuse to be “acts of homosexuality”.

Captain McRae had been investigated for “acts of homosexuality” in 1973. That’s seven years prior to his conviction in 1980.

If it were found out that the Canadian Forces were moving the kiddie-diddling clergy around just like the civilian churches were doing from the ’50s to the ’90s, what repercussions would that have for the military’s public image, not to mention the odds of a successful civil action against the Canadian Forces?

The Department of Justice on behalf of the Canadian Armed Forces wouldn’t be able to argue that the Canadian Forces had no idea of what Captain McRae was capable of before they posted Captain McRae to CFB Namao. The Canadian Forces investigated McRae for “acts of homosexuality” in 1973 at RMC Kingston. Subsequently the Canadian Forces investigated and prosecuted Captain McRae for Acts of Homosexuality on CFB Namao in May of 1980.

Captain McRae’s court martial isn’t the only one that I’ve seen where the military refered to male-on-male sexual abuse involving persons under the age of 18 as “acts of homosexuality”.

If a pattern emerged which indicated that the Canadian Forces were moving known kiddie-diddlers around from one base to the next in the hopes that the problem would go away, would this make the Canadian Forces even more susceptible to civil actions from former military dependants whom were sexually abused in the walled-off company towns that the Department of National Defence ran across the country?

Respect the Federal Privacy Act my ass.
More like help the Canadian Forces avoid compensation lawsuits.

The Canadian Armed Forces obviously were concerned enough about the lawsuits being brought against the Catholic Archdiocese in Canada to change their rules to the point that they made it much more difficult for a victim of Canadian Forces military clergy to prove that they were a member of the Catholic church.

I was baptized at the base chapel on CFB Shearwater in Nova Scotia. The Military Ordinariate has never responded to my two requests.

And this isn’t by accident either. If I can’t prove that I was baptized, then why would I have any involvement with the church? When grandma came to live with us at CFB Summerside, she enrolled me in Sunday Bible school. While we were stationed at CFB Namao, Grandma took my brother and I to Sunday service every Sunday. I had my first communion at the base chapel on CFB Namao. I remember going into the confessional for the first time and talking to father McRae through the funny little window. McRae said one of his jokes and made me laugh. Even when we got punted down to CFB Greisbach, Grandma took my brother and I to Sunday service at the base chapel. After Grandma moved out, Sue promised my brother and I that we’d never have to go to church again. I don’t think my father was very religious at all. I can’t speak for my mother. And I really don’t think Sue was that much into religion.

How could the CFNIS have known anything about P.S. in 2011 when the abuse occurred back in 1978 through 1980? That’s the thing though. Sgt. Hancock knew about P.S. when Hancock interviewed me in March of 2011. Sgt. Christian Cyr knew about P.S. when Cyr talked to me on May 3rd, 2011.

A basic CPIC records check would have told the CFNIS quite a bit about P.S., but I don’t think this was the case in my matter.

In the information age, it would be very easy for the Canadian Forces to run some sort of database that sends alerts or flags when specific names are entered into their systems. A name like P.S. when entered into their CFNIS could be set to trigger alerts that tell the CFNIS to consult with the Judge Advocate General for example, or to contact a specific lawyer at the Department of Justice.

I don’t think that P.S. was bullshitting when he said to Sgt. Tenaschuk on August 11th, 2011 that “anything he had been involved in as a youth has already been handled by the military”. I think that by way of the out of court settlement reached with P.S. that the Minister of National Defence has agreed to handle things for P.S..

When I made friends with an RCMP Officer back in 2012, I gave this RCMP officer a copy of the Edmonton Journal newspaper article from 1985 which indicated that P.S. had been arrested and convicted in 1984 for molesting a boy in Manitoba, and that he had also been arrested and convicted in 1985 for molesting two boys, one on CFB Namao and one in the City of Edmonton. The RCMP constable ran P.S.’s name through CPIC. The RCMP officer wouldn’t say much more than that P.S. was on a sex offender’s registry, and that P.S. had numerous more charges and convictions between 1985 and the year 2000 for child sexual assaults, assault, and robbery.

P.S. tried to commit suicide in January of 2000.

This got me thinking. What if those child sexual assault charges weren’t new charges? What if the majority of charges related to Sexual Assault that P.S. faced between 1985 and the year 2000 were related to children from Canadian Forces Base Namao?

What if P.S. tried to kill himself because he realized that there were potentially so many children from CFB Namao that could possibly bring charges against him that he would never be free of the constant and ongoing investigations and charges?

Mr. P.S. lived on CFB Petawawa from the summer of 1980 until about 1985 when his father was posted back to CFB Edmonton. How many kids did he diddle on CFB Petawawa?

What if the Minister of National Defence, in agreeing to settle P.S.’s action out of court, also agreed that the military police would no longer bring charges against P.S. for assaults that P.S. had committed on CFB Namao?

Immunity Agreements are not unheard of. Procedures exist at both the Federal and Provincial levels.

Maybe it wasn’t an immunity agreement.

After all, members of the CFNIS are subject to section 83 of the National Defence Act and must obey the lawful commands of their superiors.

As was found during the Fynes Public Interest Hearing, investigators with the CFNIS do not run their own investigations. CFNIS investigations are directed and overseen by the chain of command.

Maybe it was just a good old fashioned order from somewhere up the chain of command that P.S. was not to ever be charged again for crimes that he committed on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

Maybe this was why the CFNIS were so eager to grab this case.

The CFNIS had absolutely no problem handing my complaint against Earl Ray Stevens over to the Toronto Police Service. The TPS was successful in bringing six charges of sexual assault against Mr. Stevens in a matter of weeks.

Why?

Mr. Stevens at the time he was molesting me was not an employee of the Canadian Armed Forces. The Canadian Armed Forces bear absolutely no responsibility for the actions of Earl Ray Stevens. If I wanted to sue Mr. Stevens, I would have to go after Mr. Stevens himself.

This is why the CFNIS were more than happy to let the TPS get involved and let the TPS bring charges against Earl. It was no skin off their teeth.

The Military Police Complaints Commission

It should be no secret that I’ve already filed a complaint with the Military Police Complaints Commission, which I’ll refer to as the MPCC from here on in. This complaint is for the 2015 through 2018 portion of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754.

From a job posting located at
buyandsell.gc.ca
buyandsell.gc.ca is a Government of Canada website run by Public Works and Government Services Canada

Yes, the MPCC is supposed to be an “arm’s length” agency, but bear in mind that all employees of the MPCC are government employees who may wish to move upwards in the governmental hierarchy, and who will more often than not act in such a manner as to not jeopardize their ascension up the ranks.

The Military Police Complaints Commission is charged with reviewing military police investigations. Generally the MPCC may conduct two styles of investigation. The MPCC may conduct a “Review” or the MPCC may conduct a “Public Interest Hearing”.
For now I’ll talk about a “review” and in a subsequent posting I’ll talk about a “Public Interest Hearing”

An MPCC REVIEW

The first style of investigation the MPCC may conduct is a “Review”.

Due to the design of the review process, findings against the military police are very rare.

During a “Review” the MPCC can only review the documents supplied to it by the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal.

During a review, the MPCC cannot administer oaths. There is no risk of penalty for uttering false statements to the MPCC.

During a review, the MPCC cannot subpoena documents or witnesses. This means that during a review, the MPCC can only take what the Provost Marshal has decided to give to the MPCC. Also, because witnesses cannot be forced to talk to the MPCC during a review the MPCC may find itself unable to interview key personnel.

During a review, the complainant cannot cross examine the witnesses.

During a “Review”, the MPCC does not “test” the evidence to see if it was possible to come to a different conclusion, thereby calling into question the investigative ability of the investigator or the supervisory ability of the investigator’s chain of command. All the MPCC does during a review is a basic check list.

Did Mr. Bees make a complaint?

Was the complaint investigated?

Did the investigator reach a conclusion that was within a range of resonable conclusions?

The Provost Marshal knows exactly what your complaint is about as you have to first submit your complaint to the Provost Marshal.

It can be seen then that the Provost Marshal can submit favourable documents to the MPCC that paint the CFNIS in a very favourable light. You as the complainant will have absolutely no access to any of these documents until AFTER the MPCC have rendered their final decision.

The biggest flaw with this is that any evidence that you intend to introduce at the Federal Court level in an application for Judicial Review is considered “New Evidence” and will be struck from the Judicial Review.

It’s almost as if the Canadian Forces created the MPCC and the review process to be defective by design.

Yes, Parliament would have crafted the legislation which created the MPCC, however, the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Forces, the Provost Marshal, and the Judge Advocate General would have had their input into the design of the MPCC. There would have been no representation from parties from which complaints could be expected to be received.

In the summer of 2015, MPCC chairman Glenn Stannard told the Globe and Mail during an interview that the MPCC has never been given the documents required to truly understand how the Canadian Forces Military Police and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service operate. Mr. Stannard said during this interview that without those documents, the MPCC doesn’t even know what it should be requesting from the Provost Marshal.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/outgoing-military-complaints-chair-stresses-need-to-fix-ottawas-oversight/article23676643/

From the Globe and Mail
March 27th, 2015
by Gloria Galloway

Not very reassuring, now is it?

Yeah, and about the findings of the MPCC. The Canadian Forces Provost Marshal can still tell the MPCC to go piss up a rope if it doesn’t like the findings of a review. Reviews are non-binding and have no legal weight.

During a review, the MPCC cannot subpoena witnesses, the MPCC cannot subpoena documents, and the MPCC cannot administer oaths. The fact that statements given to the MPCC are not taken under oath means that there is no threat of consequences for perjury.

During an MPCC review, participation is voluntary.

Access to Investigation Paperwork

It would seem that it would make common sense for a complainant to have access to the paperwork from their investigation. This is apparently not how it works in Canada. Very few police review boards require that the complainant have access to documents that would be critical for the success of a complaint.

During an MPCC review, the complainant is not given access to the investigation documents, nor is the complainant given access to copies of the documents that the Provost Marshal submitted to the MPCC.

Yes, one could submit an Access to Information Request for copies of the documents and files related to a CFNIS investigation. I did. I submitted an ATI back in July of 2018.

As of today December 29th, 2019 this request has not been fulfilled.

Still awaiting an investigator.
apparently there is a considerable backlog at the Office of the Information Commissioner

Why is access to the CFNIS investigation documents necessary?

It allows the complainant to counter statements in the CFNIS investigation and prove errors committed during the investigation.

Did Sgt. Cyr fly down to Victoria, BC and meet with me personally to discuss this investigation as he told the MPCC investigators? No he didn’t.

Did “some lady from across the street” keep an eye on my brother and I from time to time? No.

Was I expelled from school in the spring of 1983 or was I kept at home to avoid being apprehended by Alberta Social Services for my father’s non-compliance with the family counselling program? It was the latter, which was all contained in the social service documents.

Did Sgt. Cyr properly record into his occurrence reports the details of our conversation on May 3rd, 2011. No he did not. Me telling him that I can remember P.S. taking me on 5 different visits to the chapel but that I can’t remember anything after being given “sickly sweet grape juice” is definitely not that same as “Mr. Bees stated that he remembered going to the church with P.S. but that nothing ever happened”. In fact being given the part about the “sickly sweet grape juice” isn’t in his occurrence report.

When Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock submitted his case summary to the Alberta Crown, why did Sgt. Hancock see fit to remove “anything he had been involved in as a youth has already been handled by the military” from the record of P.S.’s phone call to Sgt. Hancock in August of 2011. Why didn’t the MPCC pick up on this detail?

All of these issues I could have easily raised with the MPCC during my interview had I been given access to the CFNIS investigation paperwork. But I wasn’t. And as such when I went before the Federal Court with my application for judicial review, all of the copies of telephone bills and copies of emails between myself and Sgt. Cyr were struck from the proceedings as being “new evidence”.

The MPCC Investigators

The investigators conducting the MPCC review are retired police officers, which means that there is a serious bias from the get go. The thin blue line is not an urban legend. It’s a well known phenomenon that exists within police culture.

https://buyandsell.gc.ca/cds/public/2019/07/25/0d38f34724b285f00295da165d24b5ac/2019-07-15_-_revised_sow_en_annex_a.pdf
From the Government of Canada website

In my teens I worked for three Metropolitan Toronto Police officers that owned a amusement machine company as a side business. From dealing with these three I learnt quickly that police see themselves as being different from the civilians they protect. It’s bound to happen in organizations like the police.

Out here in Vancouver during the late ’90s we had a serial killer that was preying on women from the Downtown East Side. The serial killer was Robert Pickton.

As Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal concluded, the police didn’t really put any effort into protecting the women of the DTES because the police, both the RCMP and the VPD, viewed these women as “throwaways – unstable, unreliable.”

Wally Oppal was never a police officer. Wally Oppal had been a judge for most of his life. He then became the Attorney General for the province of BC. He was never tainted by the thin blue line. Which explains why he had no qualms about letting both the VPD and the RCMP wear the shame of the Pickton fiasco.

A few year ago, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP looked at the desirability of police investigating police.

The document may be found here:
https://www.crcc-ccetp.gc.ca/en/police-investigating-police-critical-analysis-literature

A copy may be downloaded from here:
https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/police-investigating-police_-a-critical-analysis-of-the-literature-_-civilian-review-and-complaints-commission-for-the-rcmp.pdf

Here are some excerpts from that document:

I was interviewed by the MPCC on July 19th, 2012. I left the interview stunned and nauseated. I was so stunned in fact that I went for a walk and just kept walking. I didn’t stop walking until just after midnight. The two investigators didn’t really listen to what I had to say, they already had their mind made up that the CFNIS investigators had gone above and beyond their requirements and conducted a stellar investigation.

Even back in 2012, I was still able to amass sufficient documentation to show that the 2011 CFNIS investigation left a lot to be desired.

The investigators with the MPCC referred to my documents as if they were trivial in nature and of dubious quality. The investigators with the MPCC even outright ignored the Social Service observations of my father.

Take for example where the MPCC investigators noted that my father told the CFNIS investigators that my grandmother only looked after my brother and I until her husband died. The CFNIS recorded my father’s statement in such a manner that it made it sound as if my grandmother only looked after my brother and I for a very brief point in time on CFB Namao and that “some lady from across the street would keep an eye on my brother and I from time to time”. My grandmother raised my brother and I from the spring of 1977 until about the spring of 1981. Her husband, Andy Anderson, didn’t die until sometime around 1985. Except for a very brief period of time in the spring of 1978 our grandmother was our primary care giver and raised my brother and I for just over four years.

In 2006, when I talked to my father about what had happened on CFB Namao, my father named the babysitter himself. I didn’t have to tell my father the babysitter’s name. My father blamed my grandmother for hiring the babysitter even going so far as saying that he warned my grandmother not to hire him. He also said that I should have told someone what the babysitter was doing and that it was partially my fault that it went on for so long and that I had no business allowing the babysitter to mess with my younger brother.

During my interview with the MPCC investigators, I made sure that the MPCC investigators understood the significance of my family’s social service records, especially the part where the psychologist hired by the Canadian Forces to interview my father determined that my father accepted no responsibility for his family, blamed others for problems with his family, expected others to solve the problems with his family. In turn the MPCC only recorded in their findings that my social service records indicated that I was depressed as a child.

There were other records that indicated that grandma was still living with us in 1981 and there were records that indicated that my father blamed grandma for issues that my brother and I were having.

Alberta Social Services indicate two key findings about my father. First, my father often told conflicting stories from one meeting to the next. Second, my father was found to tell people that he perceived to be in positions of authority what he thought they wanted to hear.

When I introduced my family’s social service records into Federal Court to dispute the observation of the CFNIS, this evidence was struck because it was “new evidence” that had not been before the MPCC during the review.

I believe that the inability of the two investigators assigned to the previous MPCC review to listen to what was being said was due to their police culture bias.

In my next blog entry I will discuss the “Public Interest Hearing” and how the Provost Marshal and the CFNIS are at a complete disadvantage.

How embarrassing it must have been.

I can only imagine how terrified the brass within the Canadian Armed Forces were at the prospect of the Canadian public discovering that the military couldn’t protect children living on secure military establishments.

This was contained within the Department of Justice paperwork from when the DOJ represented the Mininster of National Defence in P.S. vs. The Mininster of National Defence.
Page 315 of Access to Information Request A-2016-01717

Just imagine for a minute that you’re Colonel Dan Munro, and that you’re the base commander of Canadian Forces Base Namao. Imagine that you have been informed by the base military police that a military dependant living on the base has just implicated your direct subordinate in a child sexual abuse scandal.

Imagine that you have to instruct your other subordinate, Captain David Pilling, to instruct Acting Section Commander Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham, to investigate your direct subordinate, Captain Father Angus McRae, for having committed “acts of homosexuality” with teenage boys on the the base that you command. These are the children of the men and women ultimately under your command.

I wonder if Munro went over to the Lamplighter Pub to down a few good stiff ones first before he made that dreaded phone call to Ottawa.

Now imagine that you’re in Ottawa, and you’re on the other end of that phone call. Can you imagine what it was like inside the hallowed halls of the Major-General George R Pearkes building in Ottawa to discover than an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces was molesting children on a defence establishment. And not just one or two children, we’re talking 25 children.

This must have activated the damage control machinery at National Defence Head Quarters. Captain Jim Grey seems to have been the media spokesperson designated to deal with the media on this matter.

I can only wonder what the Chaplaincy branch was doing. After all, as it turns out, the Catholic church was well aware of what its priests were up to during the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. And if the Catholic church was aware, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Canadian Forces Chaplaincy branch was well aware. This probably explains why DND removed all of the rectories from the base chapels in the late ’80s.

The first thing DND did back then was to “throw a wall of secrecy” around the entire Captain McRae matter. This was unusual because court martial hearings were supposed to be open to the public. Sure, the court martial occurred on a defence establishment, and DND could control access to the court martial by controlling access to the defence establishment. But the public were supposed to be admitted to the court martial. Yes, P.S. was a juvenile, but there were ways that his identity could have been shielded from the public and the media. This was a common occurrence during public trials which involved children.

ALL courts martial SHALL be public and the public SHALL be admitted.
Unless of course you want to hide something so hideous and unspeakable.
Then by all means throw a “Wall of Secrecy” around the tribunal and seal all the evidence.

This wouldn’t be the only time that DND and the CF hauled out the P.R. machinery in relation to this matter.

In January of 2000, P.S. tried to commit suicide. It was after this that P.S. realized that the abuse he suffered at the hands of Captain McRae might have been at the root of all of the legal problems that P.S. was enduring up to that point in time.

By “realizing” in 2000 that the abuse he “endured” at the hands of Captain McRae had effects on him, P.S. managed to reset the hands of the clock for the Crown Liability and Proceeding Act 6 year time period.

P.S. contacted a lawyer in Edmonton, AB. This is because you have to sue in the jurisdiction that the crimes occurred in. This alone probably explains why more military dependants haven’t ever tried to sue their abusers.

In March of 2001, Mr. R.P. Lee, on behalf of P.S. initiated a $4.3 million dollar action against the Minister of National Defence et. al. in the Alberta Court of Queens Bench.

P.S. initiated his claim in March of 2001.
Normally the Crown Civil Liabilities Act should have prevented this.
But P.S. “realized” in 2000 that the abuse he endured at McRae’s hands affected him.
This “restarted” the 6 year time limit for civil claims against the Crown.

The Department of Justice automatically springs into action whenever and type of action is taken against any department of the Federal Government.

This means that the Government of Canada is able to use tax payer money to bury people like me. The only reason P.S. was successful in his action against the Minister of National Defence et. al., is that he was anointed as the sole victim of Captain McRae by both the base military police and the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit in the spring of 1980.

The pages below come from the paperwork from the Department of Justice. It should be noted that almost all of the paperwork in the DOJ file is redacted. Out of close to 6,000 pages released, I think that less than 200 pages were un-redacted.

The first thing that the Canadian Forces Director Public Affairs Planning and Operations did was to remove the names of the Criminal Code offences from the press release. Why would they do this? Simple. To sanitize the crimes and to minimize triggering anyone else coming forward.

Here is the original draft of the press release before the “Director Public Affairs Planning and Operations” got a hold of it.

Unless you love reading through the various acts, you would never know what sections 155, 156, and 157 were, would you? Most people without a legal background would have easily understood that buggery meant anal intercourse, or more specifically that a 50 something year old Captain in the Canadian Forces placed his penis inside the rectum of a 14 year old boy. Gross indecency and indecent assault may not have been well known, but there were more than likely enough Canadians who would have known that basically Captain McRae was giving and receiving oral sex to and from a 14 year old boy.

Where as, if you strip away the descriptions of the offences and just tell Canadians that Angus McRae committed the indictable offences of 155, 156, and 157, then it doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

Why did they remove “Buggery, Gross Indecency, and Indecent Assault” from the press release?

So, here is the “cleaned up” version that was released to the Canadian Media. Did you happen to notice that the Canadian Armed Forces give no indication of the age of the victim? For that matter, they also don’t mention the age of Captain Father Angus McRae. Nor do they mention that Captain McRae outranked each and every parent of the children he had abused. And unlike during the original CFSIU investigation in 1980, this press release makes no mention that Captain McRae was convicted for committing homosexual acts with teenage boys.

We know from the findings of the External Review which was conducted by Madame Marie Deschamps that the Canadian Forces never really took sexual assaults seriously, let alone accusations of sexual assault. So I have to chuckle at the insistence in the press release that the military “takes all allegations of sexual assault very seriously”.

They forget to mention that Captain McRae was sentenced to four years in prison, but that his sentence kept getting cut down to the point he actually served less than ten months total.

The Canadian Forces also forgot to mention that Captain McRae had gone on to molest more children after he left the Canadian Forces.

Oh well.

How could the Canadian Forces court martial for child sexual abuse.

I’m going to talk a little bit about the flaws in the National Defence Act that existed prior to 1985.
Specifically how the National Defence Act played with the average Canadian’s lack of understanding about the criminal code.

I’ve frequently been told that I’m wrong. I’ve been told that the Canadian Armed Forces could never court martial a service member for sexual assaults committed against a child. I’ve been told that the military couldn’t conduct a service tribunal for the crimes of “Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape” prior to 1985.

1970 Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter N-4
National Defence Act
Section 60

Well, there’s a problem with that. The problem is that rape was never a crime that could apply to males. Rape was a crime that could only apply to females:

1970 Revised Statutes of Canada
Criminal Code of Canada
Section 143 – Rape.

There you have it.
Rape is when a male has “sexual intercourse” with a female person who is not his wife. That automatically rules out males having sex with other males. It is also worth mentioning that when underage females were involved, the preferred charges were often Section 149 “Indecent Assault on a female”, or Section 146 “Sexual Intercourse with female under 14”.

What this means is that so long as the charge was not “Rape”, the military could conduct a service tribunal. This means that the Canadian Armed Forces could conduct a service tribunal for the offences indicated in sections 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, and 157 of the 1970 Criminal Code of Canada. And this criminal code was in place up to 1985. That means that the Canadian Forces had from 1950 until 1985 to conduct service tribunals for sexual crimes against children.

1970 Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter N-4
National Defence Act
Section 120 gave the military the right to conduct service tribunals for Criminal Code matters

How many of these service tribunals did the Canadian Forces conduct?
Your guess is as good as mine.
It would appear that the record keeping system for criminal convictions prior to 1998 leaves a lot to be desired.

How many of these charges actually made it to a service tribunal?
Again, your guess is as good as mine as prior to November 1997, the commanding officer of the accused could dismiss any charge that had been brought against their subordinate.

1970 Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter N-4
National Defence Act
Sections 139 and 140
Commanding officers could dismiss service offence charges brought against their subordinate.
Service offence charges also include all Criminal Code matters.

How many of these offences couldn’t be prosecuted due to the arbitrary 3-year time bar that the National Defence Act placed upon service offences?
Remember, section 120 of the National Defence Act made Criminal Code matters into Service Offences, so the 3 -year time bar did place a “statute of limitations” on Criminal Code matters that did not have a “statute of limitations”.
Again, we’ll probably never know. The Minister of National Defence could call an inquiry if he so chose to. But I really don’t think the Minister of National Defence really wants to open that Pandora’s box.

1970 Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter N-4
National Defence Act
3-year “statute of limitations” on all service offences which include all criminal code matters.

What’s also not clear to me is when someone comes forward with a complaint of child sexual abuse from back in the ’70s for example and claims that they were molested on base by a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Section 55(1) of the 1970 National Defence Act defines persons subject to the Code of Service Discipline. Section 55(2) states that a person who committed a crime while they were subject to the Code of Service Discipline continues to be liable for having committed a service offence even after they’ve left the military. Does this mean that the rules of the National Defence Act that were in place at the time also apply. Does that mean that Section 59 of the National Defence Act prevents the prosecution of historical child sexual assault matters?

1970 Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter N-4
National Defence Act
Continuing Liability for service offences which include all Criminal Code matters.

Charges other than rape.

Sex with an underage female:

1970 Revised Statutes of Canada
*Criminal Code of Canada*
Section 146 – Underage

Section 146 is clearly not “Rape”. I believe that this would be called the “jail bait law”. I can only wonder how many times the Canadian Forces conducted a service tribunal for this crime. Notice that this is the charge for having “Sexual Intercourse” with a female child under the age of 14. This covers any age under the age of 14.

1970 Revised Statutes of Canada
*Criminal Code of Canada*
Section 146 (2).
“Of previously Chaste character” – code speak for “slut shaming”

Section 146(2) is what we’d call “slut shaming” in the modern day. Basically what Criminal Code s. 146(2) is stating is that if a man has sex with a virgin between the ages of 14 and 16, he has committed an indictable offence and can be sent to prison for up to 5 years. This also seems to imply that if the girl isn’t a virgin, then he hasn’t committed a crime at all.

1970 Revised Statutes of Canada
*Criminal Code of Canada*
Section 146 (3)
WTF?

Section 146(3) further states that the prosecutor has to show that the accused is MORE to blame than the girl otherwise the court can find the accused not guilty. I can see a lot of commanding officers using Section 146(3) in determining to not allow charges to proceed against their subordinate.

*Criminal Code of Canada*
Here’s an interesting charge that also is not rape.
As this is not rape, the Canadian Forces could conduct a service tribunal for this offence.

Section 148 of the 1970 Criminal Code is interesting. What exactly defines an idiot, imbecile, or for that matter “feeble-minded”?

1970 Revised Statutes of Canada
*Criminal Code of Canada*
Section 149
Indecent Assault on Female

Banging your daughter gets you up to 14 years and a whipping.

Banging your step-daughter / foster-daughter or a female ward gets you at most two years with no whipping.

From my experience, there were a lot of stepfamilies on base. How many times acts contrary to section 153 were committed on base is again anyone’s guess.

Buggery could also apply to hetrosexuals as well.
Buggery is the old-timey word for anal intercourse.
Section 158 allowed for a husband and wife to engage in buggery.
Section 158 also allowed any 2 persons whom were both over the age of 21 to engage in buggery.
The off thing with buggery is that there really wasn’t a victim, both parties were guilty.

Regina vs. Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan.

or how the CMAC straight up said that the Canadian Forces could conduct service tribunals for some forms of gross indecency.

Donald Joseph Sullivan was recently just convicted for crimes against numerous children that he committed during the 1970s when he was a boy scout leader in Ottawa area of Ontario. For some reason, the police never busted his ass in the ’70s. Donald disappeared from the Ottawa area and fell off the radar of the police for some reason.

The reason that Donald Joseph Sullivan fell of the radar of the Ottawa police in the ’70s is that he joined the Canadian Armed Forces. Donald went on to have some involvement with the Catholic church on CFB Gagetown, and that’s where he met most of his teenaged victims.

1986 Court Martial Appeal Court ruling
Regina vs. Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan.

The above section is from the Court Martial Appeal Court ruling when Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan appealed his courts martial sentence for molesting four boys all over the age of consent on Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, in New Brunswick. One of Mr. Sullivan’s arguements was whether or not the Canadian Forces had the right to conduct a service tribunal for the crimes of “Gross Indecency”.

The finding of the CMAC explains how the Canadian Forces could conduct a service tribunal for sexual crimes involving children

Gross Indecency is an interesting charge. There is no clear definition of what Gross Indecency is other than it typically referred to any type of sexual relations between two males that did not involve Buggery. Rarely was the charge of Gross Indecency ever used in any type of heterosexual encounter.
Gross Indecency included:
Masturbation of the other person;
Oral Sex;
Kissing;
Fondling.

The Age of Consent.

As the CMAC ruling in the Regina vs. Donald Joseph Sullivan matter shows, the appearance of consent determined whether or not the Canadian Armed Forces could conduct a service tribunal for sexual assaults against children.

Consent.

As section 140 of the Criminal Code of Canada stated, a person under the age of 14 cannot consent to sexual relations.
Section 146 is “Sexual intercourse with female under fourteen”;
Section 149 is “Indecent Assault on Female”;
Section 156 is “Indecent Assault on Male”

What is “Indecent Assault”? Believe it or not, but just like Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault isn’t clearly defined in the Criminal Code. Best examples I can think of would be touching someone’s genitals without their consent, rubbing against someone for sexual gratification, groping someone for sexual gratification, of just plain touching anyone anywhere on their body in a sexual manner.

One thing that I’ve learnt from the Captain Father Angus McRae matter is that the “brass” reduced the number of charges brought against Captain McRae to only the charges involving P.S. who was apparently the only victim at the time who was over the age of 14 at the time of the CFSIU investigation of Captain McRae. The other victims of Captain McRae, F.A., and S.O., were 13 years of age when McRae was investigated by Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham of the CFSIU.

The CMAC ruling in the Donald Joseph Sullivan matter makes it very clear as to why the Canadian Forces would have dropped all of the charges against Captain McRae except for the charges related to P.S..

If the Canadian Forces had insisted on charging Captain McRae with crimes that he had committed against children under the age of 14, the Canadian Forces would have lost the right to have conducted a service tribunal. And by losing the right to have conducted a service tribunal, Captain McRae’s exploits would have been dealt with in the public courts where the Canadian Forces wouldn’t have been able to”throw a wall of secrecy” around the proceedings.

What, oh what were they hiding?
Oh yeah, 25 children molested on a military base by an officer of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Even in the matter of Regina vs. Donald Joseph Sullivan, all of the boys he was charged with molesting are all 14 years of age and older. You’re telling me that there were no boys under the age of 14 on CFB Gagetown? Was Mr. Sullivan checking birth certificates to ensure that he wasn’t messing around with a 12 year old or even an older looking 11 year old?

I don’t know about you, but I’m really kinda curious to know how many times the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence limited charges to those involving only children above the age of consent to ensure that these matters were dealt with in a service tribunal as opposed to in the civilian justice system.

Unfounded / Founded Not Cleared.

I submitted an Freedom of Information request with the Department of National Defence in July of 2018. I was looking for “copies of any reports, memos, letters, emails, or any other documents and communications indicating how many cases of child sexual abuse occurred pre-1998 and were brought to the attention of the CFNIS / MP / CFPM post 1998 and declined prosecution due to the 3-year time bar which existed pre-1998”

In August of 2018, DND responded to me that (a) their record keeping system was limited in its functionality, and (b) creating a tally of these crimes would be “creating new documents” which runs counter to the ATIP Act.

The above email reached me prior to the official letter which is below.

Two things are learnt from the above letter. The first being that the military police record keeping system was much different prior to 2002 than it is now.
Second, the Access to Information office won’t “create new documents’, and by that they mean if they go through the records as they exist prior to 2002 and created a spread sheet to track what charges there were for child sexual assaults, this would be considered to be the creation of new documents. And due to how records were maintained prior to 2002, creating a new tally sheet would be the only way to meaningfully count the number of sexual assaults in question.

The Information Commissioner of Canada did get involved and DND did finally agree to release some information to me.

On January 2nd, 2020 I recevied my response from DND.

The letter that accompanied the DVD explained that DND has released to me the information that I have requested, but only from the period of 2001 to current day as the Canadian Forces Military Police crime database does not go back prior to the year 2000.

This letter also explained that there is no data available for the years of 1998 to 2000. When DND says they never had a problem with child sexual abuse on the bases, they can say it with a straight face as they have no data due to piss-poor record keeping.

DND also explained that the information is “Invalidated raw data”. Whatever that means.

The data set can be down loaded from here.
https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/a-2018-00779.pdf

Between 2001 to 2019 there were 2,804 sexual assaults reported to the Canadian Forces Military Police.

In 782 of the cases, charges were recommended. One thing to remember is that these cases only resulted in charges, there’s nothing to indicate if a conviction resulted due to the charges.

From page 70 of the “External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces” which was conducted by retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Madame Marie Deschamps.

423 cases were closed as being “Unfounded”.

From CBC news article
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/military-sexual-assault-unfounded-1.4831424

881 cases were closed as being “Founded Not Cleared”

171 cases were subject to “Departmental Discretion”.
I’m still waiting for an explanation for this one.

52 cases were investigations for sexual crimes involving children. The fact that these cases are being investigated by the CFNIS means that Lt. Gen. Christine Whitecross wasn’t stating the facts before the Defence Committee when Randall Garrison asked her who had the jurisdiction for child sexual assault investigations on Canadian Forces Bases in Canada. The response from Lt. Gen. Christine Whitecross was that matters involving children are always handed off to the outside civilian authorities. This would be a very similar response to what I was told by Lt. Col. David Antonyshyn of the Office of the Judge Advocate General.

However, one thing became very apparent while I was reading this data set.

This data set is only for “Sexual Assault”.

Sexual assault is a very specific charge under the Criminal Code of Canada.

So, I filed off another Access to Information request.

One of the key elements of the criminal justice system in this country is that a person being charged with a criminal code offence has to be charged under the criminal code that was in place at the time the alleged offence occurred.

If someone sexually assaulted a child in 1981, and they were investigated today, they would have to be charged under the 1970 Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter C-34, Criminal Code.

If someone sexually assaulted a child in 1986, and they were investigated today, they would have to be charged under the 1985 Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter C-46, Criminal Code.

Sexual assault as a charge did not exist prior to 1985. Prior to 1985 sexual assaults against female children were usually dealt with by Sections 146, 148, 149, 150, 153, 155, and 157. Sections 143 and 145 were rarely used when female children were sexually assaulted. When male children were sexually assaulted, the charges used were usually Sections 155, 156, and 157.

With the new Criminal Code, rape was removed, so there were no longer charges specific to the victim’s gender.

From 1985 onward, persons who sexually assaulted children were usually charged with Section 151, 152, 153, and sometimes Section 159.

Sexual assault in regard to adults is usually dealt with in the 1985 Criminal Code under Section 271, 272, and 273.

We’ll have to wait and see what DND’s response is to my latest request.

A peculiar thing.

One thing that has struck me as odd is the editing that was applied to a document that formed part of the briefing that was sent to the Alberta Crown, first by Sgt. Hancock in 2011, and then by Sgt. Tenaschuk in 2018.

Back in 2011, the CFNIS attempted to contact P.S. though his father. But retired Sgt. J.S. told the CFNIS that he was not going to allow the CFNIS to interview his son and that his son had already paid for “things he did 20 to 30 years ago”

Well, lo and behold, P.S. did in fact contact the CFNIS of his own volition.

P.S. called Sgt. Hancock on August 9th, 2011.

P.S. said that he wasn’t going to participate in the investigation and that “anything he had been involved with as a youth had already been handled by the military” and that if charges were brought against him “a lawyer would handle that”

This is what was captured in the SAMPIS database during the investigation.

I don’t know about you, but if I was an investigator and a suspect said this to me, I think I’d want to investigate this a little further.

What I find odd and peculiar is that when Sgt. Hancock submitted his brief to the Alberta Crown in 2011, either he or one of his superiors edited the SAMPIS record of the telephone conversation that Sgt. Hancock had with P.S.

This is what was submitted to the Alberta Crown in both 2011 and 2018.

The question is, who elected to remove the potion “anything he had been involved in as a youth had already been handled by the military”
What was P.S. “involved in as a youth”
How did the military “handle it”?

As we know, the Minister of National Defence settled out of court with P.S. in November of 2008. And I know from talking directly to P.S. in July of 2015 that there was an “agreement” that went along with this settlement.

Oddly enough, what was passed on to the Alberta Crown was the opinion of the CFNIS investigators that I frequently changed jobs, had a very unstable employment history, was constanly in trouble at school, only called my father when I needed money, and that I was a societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the Canadian Armed Forces.

There was no mention of the fact that I was in foster care, or that my family was a social services magnet from one side of the country to the other with “parental concerns” being a constant factor for our involvement with social services, or that my father didn’t really live with us on CFB Namao due to his frequent absences due to training exercises.

Also missing from the crown brief was the fact that P.S. molested an 8 year old boy on a Canadian Forces Base in Manitoba in 1984 and that P.S. had been kicked out of his family’s PMQ on CFB Edmonton in the spring of 1985 for having molested a 9 year old boy on CFB Namao.

Sure, as some with more familiarity with the criminal justice system may say, P.S. having numerous convictions for sexual assaults involving children doesn’t automatically prove that he molested me, my brother, or the four other children I saw him molest. But it does prove that he does in fact have a predilection for committing sexual acts with children. This should have intensified the investigation into P.S., this should not have resulted in Warrant Officer Blair Hart telling the RCMP that my case was likely to go nowhere due to a lack of evidence.

Communication between Warrant Officer Hart of the CFNIS and Cpl French of the RCMP.
At this point in time, the investigation had been only going on for 3 – 4 months, not 6.

It’s almost as if the CFNIS had an agenda. An agenda that didn’t involve bringing charges against a multi-time convicted child molester who just happened to reach an out of court settlement with the Minister of National Defence in November of 2008.

In other words, the CFNIS had a mandate, and this mandate didn’t involve waking up a sleeping giant from the 1980s which could possibly expose the Minister of National Defence to the potential of multiple civil actions from those who as children had been victims of P.S. and Captain Father Angus McRae.

Richard Gill vs. Reality

Seeing as how Richard died back in January of 2017, we’ll never get to know the truth about his interview with the CFNIS on June 9th 2011.

This interview was conducted with Sgt. Cyr of the CFNIS. Yes, the same Sgt. Cyr who claimed that he flew down from Edmonton, AB and met with me in Victoria, BC.

Yes, the same Sgt. Cyr that couldn’t remember asking me if I knew anything about Captain Father Angus McRae being arrested for molesting children on CFB Namao.

Yes, the same Sgt. Cyr that failed to mention anything about my emails that detailed my visits to the chapel with P.S. to see Captain McRae.

Yes, the same Sgt. Cyr that told me that P.S. was 13 years old when he was caught buggering me in the spring of 1980.

Yes, the same Sgt. Cyr that told me that the church that I indicated to him in an email was a brand new church on the base and that the church that was on the base when I lived there was in a completely different location.

We know that Sgt. Cyr plays fast and loose with the truth.

Richard however also had his own versions of the truth as well.

And as I’ve learnt over the last few years, even if the investigator doesn’t actually have bad intentions, a bad “hunch” can cause the investigator to come down with a case of “tunnel vision” which is sure to run even the best cases off the rails. Take for example the case of “Marie Adler” from Lynnwood, Washington. She had been raped at gunpoint in her apartment. But the police right from the word go latched on to little trivial inconsistencies in her statement. The police also put far too much weight on the personal opinions of her foster parents. The police intimidated “Marie” to the point that she recanted her statement and agreed with the police that she had made the entire story up. The police ended up charging Marie with making a false report. She was fined by the city of Lynnwood and sentenced to probation. The only problem for the police was that about three years later, as the result of an investigation into a string of sexual assaults in another state, the FBI uncovered pictures of “Marie” that had been taken while she was being raped. The pictures pretty well matched what she had said in her initial statements to the police. The city of Lynnwood settled with her for $150k. Her lawyer suggested they could get more. But all she wanted was the apology and $150k was enough for her to get away from Lynnwood and to start over someplace else.

I’m probably cutting the CFNIS too much slack on this. After all, the CFNIS were bound and determined right from the start to not allow the connection between P.S. and Captain Father Angus McRae to be noted anywhere in the official investigation.

Was Richard taken out for a coffee and donut before he gave his statement to the CFNIS? You know, just so that Richard could be made to understand how I obviously had an agenda to screw the military over for money, and that it would be great if Richard could help set things straight for them.

According to the CFNIS “Pre-Charge Screening Report” this is what my father told Sgt. Cyr during his interview.

This is pretty well the same paragraph contained in the tribunal records that were submitted to me.

Actually, here is my father’s entire statement to the CFNIS:

Item (a)
When Richard was posted to Edmonton in 1978, we resided on CFB Namao from 1978 until 1980. We then moved from CFB Namao in October of 1980 and arrived at CFB Greisbach. I can only wonder if it was Richard or if it was Cyr that intentionally stayed away from using the name CFB Namao. CFB Edmonton was comprised of two separate bases. CFB Namao was the air force base, and CFB Greisbach was the army base. CFB Namao was also where P.S. resided and where Captain Father Angus McRae resided. CFB Namao was not called CFB Edmonton, nor was CFB Greisbach called CFB Edmonton. CFB Edmonton was used for referring to both bases, but each base retained its individual name. Make sense? Thought so. But yes, the fact that CFB Namao was not mentioned in my father’s statement struck me as odd.

This is our telephone listing from the 1979 Ed Tel phone book.
Lancaster Park was on CFB Namao, not CFB Greisbach

This is our telephone listing from the 1980 Ed Tel phone book

This is out telephone listing from the 1981 Ed Tel phone book.
PMQ #70 – 10215 – 138 Ave was on CFB Greisbach.

Item (c)
I talked to my father in August of 2006 about the babysitter. My father knew the babysitter’s name. My father at the time pleaded for me to understand that it wasn’t his fault that the babysitter was looking after my brother and I. My father pleaded with me to understand that the babysitter had been hired by our grandmother. Therefore it was grandma’s fault obviously. Richard said that he had warned his mother about the babysitter, but she wouldn’t listen to him.

Item (g)
Grandma came to live with us at CFB Summerside in PEI. Her and her husband, Andy Anderson, moved into the PMQ on CFB Namao when we moved there in the summer of 1978. Andy Anderson was my father’s step father. Andy didn’t die until sometime early 1985. Andy Anderson, due to a slip and fall in the bathtub, was hospitalized from winter of 1978 until his death in 1985. The long bus trips into the city is why Grandma would hire P.S. as our babysitter when she went to visit Andy in the nursing home. Grandma lived with us from 1978 until 1981. We stayed with grandma in Edmonton over the summer of 1984 and 1985. After Andy died in 1985 we never went to see grandma again. But then again she died in early 1986.

Richard’s actual father lived in Oshawa, Ontario. We visited him for Christmas of 1982. I don’t know when Richard’s father died, as Richard and his father had a very icy relationship. Even when we moved to CFB Downsview in 1983 we never went to see Richard’s father in Oshawa. We would frequently visit Sue’s parents and brothers in Oshawa. We’d often go shopping for groceries at Knob Hill Farms in Oshawa. But other than the visit at Christmas in 1982, we never did go visit Richard’s father again. And to be clear, Richard’s father only lived about 10 blocks away from Sue’s parents.

If I had to hazard a guess, there was no “neighbour” across the street on CFB Namao. Why would we need a neighbour when our grandma was living with us? And what neighbour is going to “keep an eye” on his kids when Richard goes away on a six week training exercise to the arctic? The million dollar question is, did Richard imagine this woman across the street, or was it suggested to Richard that it would help if he remembered the babysitter as NOT having looked after my brother and I. Remember, the CF up to this point had actively been scrubbing any mention of Captain McRae from the investigation.

Item (g).
So far as Richard and any of my school teachers went, he ignored them for the most part. Mr. Bowles, my grade 8 science teacher wanted me to enter my 5mW helium-neon laser into the National Science Fair in Ottawa. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get hold of my father. Mr. Ford, my grade 8 and grade 9 music teacher, wanted to get me enrolled in a extracurricular program for electronics and computers in music. Mr. Ford couldn’t get hold of my father. Mrs. Donskov, my grade 7 music teacher wanted me to play the bass guitar so badly that she even arranged for me to be able to borrow one of the school’s amplifiers and one of the bass guitars. She drove me home, and as expected, Richard blew up at her and threatened to call the military police on her if she ever stepped foot on base again. Mr. Snyder the computer lab teacher at Elia Jr. High suggested that I get either a Commodore 64 or an Apple IIe for home use so that I could join one of the local computer clubs and hang out with the other kids that were interested in computers. Richard had his own ideas about that.

And besides, as the few items below indicate, Richard had a very acrimonious relationship with our school teachers.

In 1980 Richard Gill thought that there was nothing wrong with his kids.

In 1983 Richard Gill was of the opinion that there was nothing wrong with his kids.

Jan 28th, 1983 The school and my counselors are apparently harassing poor Richard.

Richard really didn’t like my civilian child care worker apparently.

Item (i)
So much wrong with this paragraph.
I got cut off by a cabbie that ran a stop sign. ICBC found the cab driver 100% at fault. ICBC rebuilt my motorcycle and paid for all new riding gear. ICBC even paid for a rental vehicle while my motorcycle was being repaired.
Yes, I seized the engine in the Plymouth Horizon. No, my mother never paid for it. I bought a used engine from West Edmonton Pick-a-Part and swapped the engines over the course of a weekend. The engine was $150.00. All the sundry parts were maybe another $150.00. This was in early November of 1990 so I was still living mostly off the money I made at Canshare Cabling in Toronto. The long drive from Wabamum into Edmonton is what convinced me to rent an apartment for December 1st 1990.

Item (j).
Since moving out on my own in 1987, I’ve never asked for nor have I received a single nickle from my father. He invited me to move to Edmonton with him in June of 1990 just after I finished the Canshare Cabling job. As I was flush with cash (over $20k) I paid for my way and a little more during the trip. I bought my car, bought a year’s worth of insurance, and rented an apartment, with my own money. Through the good and bad I’d never turn to Richard for money as I knew that I’d never get it. I learnt well as a child to never ask him for money as he’d promise it to you if you did some chore like mowing the lawn, but then he’d renege on paying by finding some trivial fault.

As a kid, my father would quite often promise things and then never have any intention whatsoever of following through with them. Birthdays, driver’s training, attending award ceremonies, etc. And he always had a handy excuse available. So yeah, you just learnt to not rely on Richard.

Item (k)
Richard was full aware of what I changed my name to. I sent him a very detailed and concise explanation as to why I wanted to change my name and what I was changing it to and why I specifically chose the names that I did.

Item (l)
Richard didn’t ask me for a proper reason in 2006. He knew of the abuse, he just didn’t know how bad it had been. He wanted to know why I let the babysitter abuse my younger brother. I had to remind him of how old I was, how old the babysitter was, and the fact that both he and his mother were usually either angry or drunk. In 2006 this just elicited silence from him and a bit of a mumble apology.

By August of 2011, the CFNIS had been given a copy of my Alberta Social Service and foster care records, which had this to say about my grandmother and her position in my family.

Mr. Gill’s mother was Margret Anderson (nee) Winiandy

Richard said that apparently grandma hid problems from him.

Grandma a threat – authoritarian and oppressive.
Grandma moved out of our house in the spring /summer of 1981

Grandma was a bit of a mixed bag. She had been through Indian Residential school as a child. One of the more notorious ones. Holy Angels in Fort Chipewyan. She lived by the maxims of “Children are to speak only when spoken to” and “Children are to be seen and not heard”. She had a very strong affinity for the church. She had a short temper and was not afraid to use corporal punishment. She drank a lot. When she was drunk she was a “happy drunk”.

I wonder what it is they’re trying to say here?

In the winter of 1983 I stopped going to school. At the time my father said that I had been expelled because I wouldn’t stop kissing other boys. In August of 2011 I learnt that I stopped going to school because Alberta Social Services was on the verge of removing me from the home due to my father’s non-compliance with counselling.

In the spring of 1983 just after we started on the drive to Canadian Forces Base Downsview from Canadian Forces Base Greisbach, Richard said that the reason we had to move suddenly was that he was saving me from the drugs the counselors wanted to give to me to stop me from kissing other boys. Again, another lie. From reading the paperwork from Alberta Social Services they had absolutely no concern about my apparent sexual orientation. Their concern was my home life and my father’s inability to look after his family. The only two people that had a hang up on my sexual orientation, imagined or otherwise, were Captain Terry Totzke and my father.

So…………..

Was my father being creative with the truth?

Was Sgt. Cyr being creative with the questioning?

That’s the $64,000.00 dollar question.