I finally finished with my submissions to the Military Police Complaints Commission. This time around I hope that things work out a little different.
My first tango with the MPCC back in 2012 was the first time ever that I had dealt with an agency such as the MPCC. I had no lawyer, and no legal advice. I went I completely naive expecting the MPCC to agree that an investigation that couldn’t bring charges against a person with already numerous charges for child sexual abuse had to have been flawed.
Flawed it was, but I had absolutely no access to any of the paperwork from the CFNIS investigation. I had no idea that the Provost Marshal could determine which documents were sent to the MPCC and which documents were withheld from the MPCC.
I also had no idea that CFNIS investigator participation in a MPCC review is strictly voluntary, and that the MPCC investigations can take flights of fancy with their statements to the MPCC as their statements are not taken under oath.
The Military Police Complaints Commission was created by an act of Parliament with extensive input from agencies such as the Department of Justice, and the Department of National Defence. You just know the rules are stacked against you from the word go.
What I find the most disappointing about agencies such as the MPCC is that they aren’t structured at all to assist the complaintant.
To make a successful complaint against the military police, one would need to have access to the investigation paperwork.
However, the MPCC is not set up to be able to assist a person with obtaining the paperwork for the police investigation that they would like to complain against.
In 2018, as soon as I heard that the Alberta Crown was again declining to reccomend charges against P.S., I filed an Access to Information Request with the Department of National Defence to get the paperwork from the CFNIS investigation.
This request was filed on July 27th, 2018. DND acknowledged the receipt of this request on July 30th, 2018. On September 5th, 2018 I filed a complaint with the Military Police Complaints Commission in regard to the second portion of CFNIS GO# 2011-5754.
I made it specifically clear in my complaint that I was awaiting the paperwork from the investigation before I would be able to clearly state my concerns. I explained that as the CFNIS investigator who had been working on the second portion of my case would not give me a firm date as to when the investigation had ended, that I was filing my second MPCC complaint as a way to ensure that the deadline for my filing a complaint didn’t expire.
You only have one year from the date of the end of the investigation to make a complaint.
I recevied the investigation paperwork on Februaty 5th, 2020. This is over 7 months past the one year deadline for filing.
And I only received the documents after the involvement of the Office of the Information Commmisioner of Canada. The OIC stated that my complaint against DND for “deemed refusal” was “Well Founded” and will be officially recorded as such.
Deemed refusal is a term of the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada. It means that while the agency responsible for releasing the information being requested has agreed to the request, they are intentionally dragging their heels in an attempt to deny a person access to the information that they have requested.
Needless to say, had I waited until I received the paperwork from the investigation before I made my complaint, I would have been well past the deadline for filing a complaint.
The paperwork that I received was redacted to the nth degree. There is a lot of good information contained in the documents, but a lot is missing as well.
I know for example that two different investigators spoke with Fred Cunningham during the second portion of the CFNIS investigation. I know that Fred was refusing to be interviewed if the interview was recorded. He also didn’t seem to want to attend the CFNIS detachment on base.
I also know that the CFNIS basically regurgitated the 2011 CFNIS investigation and fed that back to the Alberta Crown again. It became very apparent that no matter how many other witnesses came forward with complaints against P.S., the the CFNIS were going to keep all of our complaints separate.
You do have to understand, the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal are not protecting P.S.. The CFNIS and the Provost Marshal are doing everything within their power to ensure that the Canadian Public never discover that the Canadian Armed Forces were having the exact same problem with their Catholic clergy that the various civilian archdiocese were having. Captain McRae wasn’t the only service member charged with sexual acts involving children in the Catholic clergy in the Canadian Forces. Canadian Armed Forces Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan was another, along with Canadian Armed Forces officer Brigadier General Roger Bazin.
And there are probably many more who were never charged due to the 3 year time bar in the pre-1998 National Defence Act, or the summary investigation flaw that also existed in the pre-1998 National Defence Act.
There is one aspect of my current complaint that concerns me is that most of the personnel involved with the investigation of my complaint against P.S. have moved on to other endeavours. Some have been “released” while some have “retired”.
You’d think that in this day and age the media in Canada would show some interest in the topic of child sexual abuse that occurred on military bases in Canada.
Sadly, this isn’t the case.
You would think that with damning reports like the one released by Madame Marie Deschamps which found that the military police lacked the experience and training to properly conduct sexual assault investigations, or the report released by former Provost Marshal Colonel Tim Grubb which found a “disturbingly higher rate of sexual crimes against children in the defence community”, or even the findings of the Somalia Inquiry which found that the military police and the military justice system prior to 1998 was easily manipulated by the chain of command, would cause the media to question the Canadian Forces as to who the hell is protecting the children living on military bases in Canada.
But no.
Nothing but crickets from the media pool.
The media places and extremely high bar on the evidence required before they’ll even consider looking into how the Canadian Armed Forces dealt with sexually abused children.
The media only showed an interest in Stephanie Raymonde because she was able to seek redress from the Chief of Defence Staff. The Chief of Defence Staff has a legal and binding obligation to investigate when a service member requests redress. The Chief of Defence Staff is not legally responsible for military dependants, much like the Chief of Defence Staff is not legally responsible for children involved in the various cadet programs in Canada. Which is why the cadets from the grenade explosion at CFB Valcartier in 1974 had to wait until 2011 for an apology (but no compensation).
This is one of the reasons why you have probably never heard of any type of action by a former military dependant against the Minister of National Defence, the Department of National Defence, and the Chief of Defence Staff. None of those entities are legally responsible for military dependants.
If your abuser was subject to the Code of Service Discipline at the time they abused you, you wouldn’t legally be able to sue them. You would have to sue the Minister of National Defence as DND is legally required to defend its employees. Hence why P.S. sued the Minister of National Defence in addition to Angus Alexander McRae. And this is why the Canadian Forces Director of Civil Claims and Litigation settled with P.S. in November of 2008.
Another complication for a former military dependant to sue the Minister of National Defence is the 6 year legal time limit on bringing civil actions against government agencies. The Crown Liabilities and Proceedings Act says that you cannot sue the Federal Government more than six years after you became aware of a compensable damage.
I also think the reluctance to cover difficult stories such as child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces has a lot to do with media consolidation and a massive dumbing down of the various newsrooms.
Media consolidation hurts, not through budget cuts or efficiencies. Media consolidation hurts because news reporters have to get permission from the same managing editors no matter which newsroom they work out of.
A reporter from Ottawa has to basically ask the same pool of managing editors as a reporter from Edmonton, or Halifax.
So, if one reporter gets told no, they all get told no.
Viewers today want simple stories that can be understood in a 30 second segment. And editors want simple stories that will get them the most amount of viewers with the least amount of effort.
Explaining to the typical viewer that children lived on the military bases in Canada in housing provided by the Department of National Defence would take far too much effort. This is even more so true when the reporters themselves have a very limited knowledge of what life was like on a military base and these reporters in turn base their opinions on what they imagine life must have been like on a military base. TV shows like “Major Dad” also greatly skew the realities of life on a Defence Establishment.
Explaining to the typical viewer that sometimes bad people made it into the military (Sgt. Alexander Edward Kalichuk, Angus Alexander McRae, Donald Joseph Sullivan, Colonel Russell Williams to name a few) is apparently far too hard for the news media.
Explaining to the typical view that the military “justice” system is more concerned about “discipline” than it is about making things right for the victim is not something that the media is interested in.
Explaining to the typical viewer how the military “justice” system was very easily manipulated by the chain of command prior to 1998 and that commanding officers and base commanders were known to move problem service personnel off to another base to become someone else’s problem would take a lot of effort to overcome the skepticism and disbelief.
Explaining to the typical viewer that just like in the civilian world, there were dysfunctional families living on these bases. But unlike in the civilian world, these families were often isolated from local agencies that could assist, and the serving member of the dysfunctional family was able to use the Canadian Forces to move out of the jurisdiction they lived in when civilian social services started to get involved is not something that the Canadian media is interested in.
The military housing communities on base were nothing more than glorified company towns. Most companies started getting out of the business of providing homes and communities for their employees when they realized that they were legally responsible for all of the social problems occurring in their company town. DND and the Canadian Forces kept the company town idea running way past its expiry date solely because up until the late ’80s, military pay was far too low to attract and keep personnel. Hence the advent of the PMQ patch and the heavily subsidized housing that came with it.
With the pay increases of the late ’80s, the government started to encourage military members to start “living in the economy”. The number of PMQs that exist today pales in comparison to the number of PMQs that existed in the mid to late 80s.
The Canadian media likes myths. Such as military communities were very safe communities to raise children and that nothing bad ever happened on base.
Let’s face it. The Canadian Government, the Department of National Defence, and the Canadian Armed Forces spend a lot of advertising dollars for in the media, and with ever shrinking profit margins, the media may be willing to forgo breaking an important news story if it means not jeopardizing their income.
And no, DND and the Canadian Forces are not above using intimidation to try and deep six embarrassing stories. I know of one reporter who was threatened by the Canadian Forces that if he didn’t back off with his coverage of the Afghanistan boy sex scandal, that DND and the CF would ensure that he didn’t receive any media releases from DND and the CF. This would all but ensure that he would always be one step behind his compatriots in the publishing business. Not a good situation to be in in a “dog-eat-dog” world.
On Wednesday February 19th, 2020 I’ll find out for sure if the most recent reporter that I shared personal information with has any intention on following through with what they promised me last August.
The really sad thing about being jerked around by all of these reporters is that I’ve made contact with other military dependants who were sexually abused, not just at CFB Namao, but on many of the other bases in Canada. It takes so much courage for these people to talk to the media. And every time I get these people to contact to the media, the media pisses all over them. And because of this I’m quickly running out of other victims willing to come forward.
When I post my blog entries to some of the base brat groups, I get torn a new asshole pretty damn quick. I’ve even had some of the groups delete my posts because some of the other brats have made it clear that they want to groups to be all about the “happy times”. So the admins usually give in and the groups end up becoming echo chambers that drown out those of us that didn’t have happy times on base.
And that further drives more of the abused brats underground and away from ever coming forward with their stories.
I’ve been accused of pissing on the graves of dead soldiers.
I’ve been accused of disrespecting retired veterans.
And so it’s very, very easy to see how brats that were sexually abused on the bases, or even physically abused on the bases, or those who came from neglectful dysfunctional homes, just want to stay quiet and keep their pains buried deep inside.
They’ve bought into the constant refrain from DND and the CF that nobody cares about your problems.
The media could ease the pain and suffering that a lot of former military dependants endure in silence by bringing these topics into the light of day.
But the media, with its silence, would rather be complicit in helping the Department of National Defence avoid scrutiny by ignoring these important stories.
And really, it wouldn’t take much for the media to run with this story. A couple of episodes on a news program. Don’t talk about specific cases. Just mention the flaws that existed in the National Defence Act prior to 1998. Mention some of the cases that are already public knowledge. Then ask for more victims to come forward and tell their stories.
I recently recevied the paperwork for the entire CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754. I know now that when the CFNIS ran the Crime Stoppers appeal in 2017 for more victims to come forward that one person in particular did come forward. I thought that this person had called Sgt. Tenaschuk because I had mentioned his name to Sgt. Tenaschuk. That’s not what happened. This person called because they saw the crime stoppers appeal.
And the CFNIS only ran this appeal for a very limited time. And I have the paperwork from when they were putting the appeal together and getting permission from up and down the chain of command. They kept the appeal intentionally limited to the babysitter and nothing else. They didn’t want to mention Captain Father Angus McRae at all. I think they knew that if they mentioned anything about Captain McRae they would have opened the flood gates.
Once the tsunami is unleashed, there’s no stopping it.
But as long as the media stays afraid of offending the DND and the CF both agencies have nothing to worry about.
One interesting thing about the Library and Archives Canada is that the service files of former service members become available 20 years after their death.
These are the rules for obtaining service files of deceased members of the Canadian Forces.
Even the rule for those deceased less than 20 years isn’t set in concrete. By that I mean I asked for the posting records for Angus Alexander McRae, whom died in May of 2011. LAC released his posting records to me as LAC considers posting records to be public information.
So, I decided to submit an ATI request for one Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk. I wasn’t sure what I’d get. Was I ever in for a surprise.
Alexander Edward KalichukDead at 51. Cause of death was determined to be alcohol related illnesses.
The media stories about Alexander Kalichuk had never mentioned that he had a wife. His service files make it clear that not only did he have a wife, but he also had three children.
Two children were his step children, and one child was his.
Mr. Kalichuk first enlisted into the Royal Canadian Army in 1943. He was released from service in December of 1945. He went back to his family farm, where he stayed until 1950 when he re-enlisted into the Royal Canadian Air Force.
During his first stint in the Royal Canadian Army, he seemed to be just an average guy. On his second time in the Canadian military, he seemed to have issues.
This is Kalichuk’s conviction in 1950 for committing an “indecent act”. This occurred just after he re-enlisted into the Royal Canadian Air Force. One has to wonder how much slack the magistrate cut him because of his current service and his service during World War II.
I’ve actually got to track down a copy of the 1950 Criminal Code, to see exactly was language was used in Section 205-B. I’ll head on over to the Supreme Court of BC Law Library next week.
The RCAF had a copy of his civilian conviction on file. An “indecent act” tends to be sexual in nature.On July 20th, 1959, Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk sought treatment for Anxiety, Depression, Nervousness and “feelings of guilt”.
Okay. I know the 1950’s were a different time. 1959 was 12 years before I was born. But come on, I can’t be the only one who finds it completely odd for a 36 year old man to be driving around offering child size panties to young girls if they hop into his car and give him directions to a town that’s literally straight down the same road. And to top it off he also had chocolates and alcohol in the vehicle. I’m surprised that the reports don’t mention that he was driving around in a van with “Free Candy” painted on the sides.
Sgt. Kalichuk’s other vehicle must have been in the shop for an oil change.“The benefit of the doubt” When questioned about the “indecent behaviour” he was convicted of in 1950, Kalichuk developed “nearly complete amnesia”Any charges related to the 10 year old girl were dropped. The charges to the liquor stemmed from the liquor he had in his car. Kalichuk was convicted on June 2nd, 1959 for only the liquor violations. I wonder if he felt emboldened at having pulled one over on the legal system
I wonder. Did Kalichuk show up in court that day wearing his uniform and his WWII medals pinned to his chest? Was the magistrate so blinded by the uniform and the medals that he bought Kalichuk’s explanation that Kalichuk had for driving around offering young girls panties if they get in to his car?
Gotta wonder if things would have turned out differently for both Cheryl Lynne Harper and Steven Truscott had the Magistrate given Sgt. Kalichuk some time in jail as opposed to the “benefit of the doubt”.
Yes, Kalichuk was very lucky that the magistrate dismissed the charges. This referal was made on the same day that Cheryl Lynne Harper disappeared. What this “consultant report” fails to mention is that Kalichuk was offering girls panties that he had bought, “allegedly” as gifts, for a party for neighbourhood children.The military is weird….. Yeah, let’s not worry about the luring young girls. His service record as a Supply Technician is satisfactory.In 1959, Kalichuk wanted to be posted back to RCAF Station Centralia. Apparently it was a “change in police administration” at the O.P.P. that caused a lack of records.From the looks of it, Kalichuk’s odd behaviours were never a concern to the Royal Canadian Air Force. Either that, or the requirements to get “Secret” clearance were very, very low.Kalichuk obviously had a problem with drinking.In fact, Kalichuk never stopped drinking. Kalichuk died in 1975 of alcohol related illnesses.This verbal counselling occurred just over three years after his last verbal counselling for excessive drinking. Seems to me like the Canadian Forces had a real problem with tracking disciplinary matters. Wow…..
“The following was not produced in court as the O.P.P. believed that their case should stand or fall on the one situation in order that the following material could be used in court on another substantial occasion: The O.P.P. have had a number of complaints from rural schools, names of which were provided to but not taken by the writer, of a person answering the airman’s description making such advances to school girls and/or suspected of plans to making such advances. Licence number of car involved was obtained and it was established that the airman’s previous car (he recently obtained a new one) and that he apparently was in possession of the car. The point here is that the airman had been under surveylance(sic) because of the complaints for some time.”
I wonder if this is why any paperwork or reports the O.P.P. had about Kalichuk’s odd behaviours just evaporated. Did the O.P.P. destroy any paperwork or surveillance notes they had about Kalichuk’s involvement with young girls in the days after Cheryl Lynne Harper’s murder as they feared the public ever finding out that Kalichuk was under surveillance by the O.P.P. when Harper disappeared and was murdered.
Yikes.
Does this prove that Sgt. Alexander Edward Kalichuk raped and murdered Cheryl Lynne Harper. No. But it does raise some very serious concerns about the inability of the military police and the Ontario Provincial Police to cooperate.
In the 1950’s the National Defence Act allowed for the services to conduct service tribunals for all Criminal Code offences with the exception of Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape. And if you’ve followed my blog, you know that rape wasn’t always the preferred charge when female children were abused. So, what kept the Royal Canadian Air Force from trying Mr. Kalichuk?
From his service files it would appear that Kalichuk was at the following stations:
With the obvious exception of RCAF Stn Resolute Bay, were there any other instances of a weird man driving around offering young girl new panties if they jumped in his car?
In the next few days, I’ll publish links to all of the paperwork that I received from LAC.
I think I know how the Provost Marshal and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS) intend to play the game this time around.
I gained that insight with a question the registrar of the MPCC recently asked me. The registrar asked me if I had disclosed the documents and informations that I recently shared with the MPCC to the Provost Marshal as well.
This seems to indicate that maybe the Provost Marshal didn’t release all of the documents to the Military Police Complaints Commission.
This is pretty well the same way I got played by the Provost Marshal the last time.
Let me explain.
During my previous involvement with the MPCC it was only after I had made my application to Federal Court for judicial review that I was able to see the documents that the Provost Marshal had supplied to the Military Police Complaints Commission for the MPCC to review.
The Provost Marshal excluded quite a bit of information and many documents from their submission to the MPCC.
During the last MPCC review, it became apparent that the CFNIS spent pretty well the entire 2011 portion of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754 trying to make me out to be the bad guy.
According to the CFNIS, I was a societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the Canadian Forces who couldn’t hold down a job, and who was only going after P.S. for money.
The CFNIS excluded any mention of Captain Father Angus McRae from the investigation paperwork. The CFNIS excluded any mention of the well known connection between P.S. and Captain McRae. The CFNIS also steered very clear of any mention of my foster care / social service records which highlighted issues with my father, and which also indicated that our grandmother was living in our house. The CFNIS also didn’t mention to the MPCC that P.S. had sued the Minister of National Defence and that the Minister of National Defence had settled out of court with P.S. in November of 2008.
As I learnt during my last appearance in Federal Court, by the time a person makes an application for judicial review in Federal Court it is too late to introduce “new” documents or informations as evidence as these documents and informations will be struck from the proceedings as being “new” evidence that wasn’t before the commission you are seeking judicial review of.
Yes, you read that right.
If the Provost Marshal has documents in its possession, and it fails to give those documents to the MPCC during the MPCC review, and the MPCC finds in favour of the Provost Marshal, you as the applicant cannot introduce those same documents into the Federal Court.
The documents and informations that were struck from my last application for judicial review were documents and informations that were in the possession of the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal.
The Department of Justice was able to have the justice reviewing my application for judicial review strike most of my evidence because the Department of Justice lawyer was able to argue that these documents weren’t brought before the MPCC.
And why weren’t these documents brought before the MPCC?
Because the Provost Marshal controlled which documents were and weren’t released to the MPCC. Sure, I probably could have submitted the documents and informations that I had in my possession to the MPCC the last time during the previous MPCC review, but I had no idea how the MPCC worked or how the review process worked either. At the time I had assumed that the MPCC would be reviewing the entire investigation from start to finish. At the time I didn’t realize that the MPCC only reviews the documents supplied to it by the Provost Marshal.
And besides, as I’ve previously stated. The investigators that came to interview me really weren’t interested in what I had to say. They had already sided with the Provost Marshal.
Neat how that works, isn’t it?
It’s almost as if the MPCC is designed to be a feel good exercise in futility.
And I have no doubt that this is the game the Provost Marshal will play. Because I didn’t “disclose” to the Provost Marshal documents that the Provost Marshal already had, I wasn’t following “due process” and therefore I wasn’t being fair to the Provost Marshal.
The CFNIS had collected these documents and informations from me as part of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754.
However, I think that the Provost Marshal neglected to pass these documents on to the MPCC. Hence why the MPCC asked me recently if I had disclosed these documents to the Provost Marshal.
And this folks is how the Provost Marshal is able to play the MPCC like a cheap violin.
The Provost Marshal had access to all of these documents and informations as they reside on DND’s servers and other computer infrastructure. The existence and the content of these documents and informations should have been documented and recorded in the SAMPIS record system employed by the military police group which includes the CFNIS.
By wilfully neglecting to release these documents, the Provost Marshal is able to set the narative to a narative that portrays the CFNIS in a very positive light.
The Provost Marshal is fully aware, as is the Judge Advocate General, that the MPCC does not have the legal authority to compel the Provost Marshal to turn over documents to the MPCC during a review.
During a review, the MPCC can only ask the Provost Marshal for documents. It is only during a Public Interest Hearing that the MPCC has the legal authority to subpoena documents and witnesses.
And as former chairperson Glenn Stannard said during an interview which occurred in 2015, the MPCC has never been given access to the manuals that dictate how the CFNIS operate, and as such the MPCC doesn’t know what documents that it should be requesting from the Provost Marshal during a review.
Does the MPCC fully understand the implications that Section 83 of the National Defence Act has for the supposed independence of the CFNIS investigators from Chain of Command influence?
Does the MPCC fully understand the organizational structure of the Canadian Armed Forces?
Minister of National Defence -> Chief of Defence Staff -> Vice Chief of Defence Staff -> Provost Marshal -> Divisional Officer Commanding CFNIS -> Detachment Officer Commanding -> Investigator Supervisor -> CFNIS Investigator.
P.S. sued the Minister of National Defence in March of 2001 for $4.3 million dollars. The Canadian Forces Director of Civil Claims and Liabilities settled with P.S. for an undisclosed sum of money in November of 2008.
As of right now, myself and the other victims of P.S. and Captain Father Angus McRae have no avenue to seek compensation from the Minister of National Defence due the the CFNIS being unable to find any evidence to bring against P.S..
And the flawed 1980 CFSIU investigation into Captain McRae not only minimized the true number of sexual assault victims on the base, it also anointed P.S. as being the sole victim of Captain McRae, hence why he has been the only person to date who was able to sue the Minister of National Defence.
Yes, I have said time and time again that I do not want to sue for money. But it’s not that simple. There were over 25 other kids the military police knew of in 1980. I can’t promise the Mininster of National Defence that they won’t sue.
P.S. also lived on CFB Petawawa from the summer of 1980 until sometime around 1984. How many children did P.S. molest on CFB Petawawa? If those kids found out that P.S. had been corrupted by Captain McRae, could these kids in turn sue the Minister of National Defence for damages should the CFNIS be able to prove that P.S. molested children on CFB Petawawa?
You can bet your bottom dollar the the Department of Justice and the Judge Advocate General have informed the Minister of National Defence that by agreeing to settle out of court with P.S. that the Canadian Forces Director of Civil Claims and Liabilities has set precedent for any other child who had been sexually abused on a Canadian Forces base by a member subject to the Code of Service Discipline or who was sexually abused by another military dependant so long as there was a connection to someone who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline..
Yes, some of the 25 children from CFB Namao may have only been abused by P.S. and not by Captain McRae. However, I don’t think that any lawyer worth their salt would have any trouble at all linking the sexual deviancy exhibited by P.S. as being caused by Captain McRae.
Even the Juvenile Delinquents Act made the adult responsible for a child’s delinquencies legally culpable for those delinquencies
Revised Statutes of Canada Chapter J-3 Juvenile Delinquents Act
How hard would it be for the Minister of National Defence to make it known via the Chain of Command that he does not wish for his office to be sued, or for the reputation of the Canadian Forces to be tarnished? Very easy. The MoD makes the rules.
Under section 83 of the National Defence Act, ALL subordinates must obey the lawful commands of their superiors.
And yes, there is a stark difference between the word legal and the word lawful.
A commanding officer has the authority to issue any command they see fit to their subordinate. The subordinate is required to obey that command. However, the subordinate is placed in a precarious position. The subordinate has the legal and moral responsibility to ignore commands that are obviously illegal, such as opening fire on unarmed civilians or killing unarmed prisoners of war. For anything else though, the subordinate is expected to follow the lawful commands of their superior without question. How well do you think the Canadian Forces would function if subordinates were consulting legal officers at the office of the Judge Advocate General every time a commanding officer issued a lawful command?
During the Fynes Public Interest Hearing, the Fynes argued that the CFNIS were biased in favour of the CF and conducted the investigation in such a manner as to protect the CF’s institutional reputation or interests.
This is not what I am alleging.
I am alleging that the Chain of Command, starting with the office of the Minister of National Defence, has run this investigation in such a manner as to avoid raising the spectre of historical child sexual abuse which occurred on the bases in Canada prior to the passage of Bill C-28 in 1998 prior to which the National Defence Act contained two outrageous flaws which allowed child sexual abuse to be minimized and hidden on the bases.
It must be remembered at all time that the investigators with the CFNIS do not “own” the investigations they are charged with investigating. The investigation “belongs” to the chain of command. The chain of command will determine the scope and directions of a CFNIS investigation. The chain of command will determine who is interviewed and who isn’t. The chain of command will determine what evidence is collected and what evidence is discarded.
The fact that CFNIS investigators don’t “own” their investigations serves to illustrate why interferance complaints are unheard of. There can be no interferance if the investigation isn’t yours to run as you see fit.
During the Fynes Public Interest Hearing, the lawyer employed by the Fynes was able to access critical documents and witnesses as this lawyer was a former Judge Advocate General in the Canadian Forces and knew how the military police operated.
Because of this we know that the SAMPIS record system is not all that secure and can be edited at anytime and that there is no record of the changes made.
We know that the superiors of one investigator involved in the investigation of Cpl. Langridge’s suicide “edited” the investigator’s final report for “clarity” while coincidentally removing any mention of “suicide watch”. The investigator was told to place his signature upon the “clarified” version of his final report.
We also know due to the Fynes Public Interest Hearing that the supervisors and superiors of the CFNIS investigators were calling the shots during the investigation, but they lacked the necessary training and experience required to make the proper and correct decisions during the investigation.
Are the limitations of the MPCC fixable. No, they’re probably not. The MPCC was created by an Act of Parliament. The committee that drafted the bill that created the MPCC probably consulted and listened to those involved in law enforcement as government mucky-mucks tend to believe that only the police can oversee the police. The Department of National Defence would have also had a significant amount of input into the creation of the MPCC as who else could be trusted to better understand the unique needs of the military.
The fact that the MPCC is required to hire retired police officers to act as investigators shows that the entire MPCC Review process is prone to being captured by those with a bias towards law enforcement.
I honestly don’t know how this review will work out this time around.
I don’t even want to guess.
I know that the Provost Marshal is dead set against this review as he responded to me that the MPCC had already reviewed the 2011 portion of GO 2011-5754 and that no further review was require and to that extent he didn’t bother to review the video interview that was conducted in September of 2015 at the UBC RCMP detachment.
I’m just waiting to see exactly how the Provost Marshal, the Judge Advocate General, or even the Department of Justice spring into action to stop or curtail the current MPCC review.
Child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces 