MPCC review part deux.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

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

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.