The Military Police Complaints Commission

It’s amazing and somewhat disturbing how the Department of National Defence still gloats about the findings of the Military Police Complaints Commission.

If one wishes to make a complaint against the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, one does so at their own risk.

This risk is especially true for a civilian with no connection to the Canadian Forces as the civilian receives none of the assistance that a service member would receive whilst making a complaint against the military police or the CFNIS.

You would think that a person wishing to make a complaint against the CFNIS would be granted access to the CFNIS investigation paperwork so that one could indicate to the MPCC exactly what the issue is.

However, there exists no mechanism within the Military Police Complaints Commission guidelines that require or even allow for the complainant to view the military police / CFNIS paperwork.

And as former MPCC chairman Glenn Stannard told the Globe and Mail in 2015, the MPCC has never been given the full and complete set of documents that detail how the military police operate and function. According to Stannard, this means that the Military Police Complaints Commission has no idea of what documents to request from the Provost Marshal during a review.

So, if the MPCC doesn’t even truly understand how the Military Police Group works, how the hell is a civilian such as myself supposed to know how the Military Police Group operates?

The only way a person can obtain copies of the CFNIS investigation paperwork is to file an Access to Information request for the documents.

The delay between requesting the documents and receiving the documents can be quite substantial. For example, when I submutted my request in 2018 for the CFNIS investigation paperwork it was 20 months before I received the records.

The complaint to the MPCC is supposed to be made within one year of the event that gave rise to the complaint. 20 months is well outside of that 12 month window.

I even had to enlist the help of the Information Commissioner of Canada to give DND a swift kick in the ass to get DND to release the requested documents.

The OIC did find that my complaint of “Deemed refusal” was valid. “Deemed refusal” means that the party that is supposed to supply the documents is using delay as a tactic in the hopes that you will simply give up and abandone your request

DND acknowledged my original request on July 30, 2018.

DND finally released the documents to me on February 6th, 2020 I received the documents.

It must be remembered that by MPCC rules, you only have ONE year from the date of the matter you are complaining about to file a complaint with the MPCC.

The documents that I received are redacted almost to the point of being useless.

For example, completely missing from the CFNIS records that I requested is the brief sent to the Alberta Crown in 2018. Lucky for me, I already had made a complaint to the Alberta Criminal Injury Review Board in relation to a decision by the Alberta Victims of Crime Board. As a result of this complaint, the ACIRB released to me the documents that had been supplied to the AVCB. In this release of documents was the 2018 CFNIS investigation submission to the Alberta Crown. The CFNIS in 2018 basically just refiled the 2011 Crown Briefing which included my father’s faulty statement. The CFNIS did not make any attempt to clarify that other agencies had information that indicated what my father stated to the CFNIS in 2011 was not actually truthful. The CFNIS made no mention of the other victims of P.S. that came forward as a result of the Crime Stoppers Appeal. The CFNIS also made no mention of the other victims that I had placed in contact with the CFNIS in 2015 and 2016.

It was, as Sgt. Tenaschuk told me, that my complaint against P.S. was limited to only the one day in particular in the spring of 1980 when P.S. had been discovered buggering me in his bedroom of PMQ #26 – 12th Street.

Sgt. Tenaschuk had stated that his superiors had determined that my complaint was going to have to stand on it’s own merit. The statement given by P.G., another victim of P.S., was not going to be included in my complaint as determined by CFNIS brass.

Reading the CFNIS investigation paperwork I have no idea if Sgt. Damon Tenaschuk re-interviewed my father to ascertain the large discrepancies between my father’s statement to the CFNIS in 2011, and my foster care records from Alberta Social Service.

During the 2015 interview when I was interviewed by RCMP Major Crimes investigator Akrum Ghadban I supplied Mr. Ghadban with the relevant sections of my foster care records along with my father’s sworn statement that was entered into Federal Court in 2013.

These are the same foster care records that I supplied to the CFNIS in 2011 and which I would discover in 2013 that the CFNIS had excluded from the investigation.

Some examples of these descripancies:

In 2011 my father stated to the CFNIS that his mother only looked after my brother and I for a very short period of time, stating that grandma stopped looking after my brother and I after Andy died hinting that Andy shortly after he slipped in the bath tub in our house on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

Andy lingered in the Mewburn nursing home at the University of Alberta until he died just before the summer of 1985.

The reality is that our grandmother raised my brother and I from the spring of 1977 until the summer of 1981.

My father told the CFNIS in 2011 that we never had a babysitter in the house.

The problem with that statement is that from the summer of 1978 until the spring / summer of 1979 my father had been dating a woman named Vicki in Wetaskiwin, Alberta. In the summer of 1979 he briefly saw another woman before he started dating Sue. This woman was in the Canadian Forces and lived on CFB Griesbach in the row house PMQs on the north side of the base. My father started dating Sue shortly after he broke up with the woman from Griesbach. From the summer of 1979 until the summer of 1980, Sue lived in an apartment building over by Londonderry Mall in Edmonton. In August of 1980, Sue moved into our house on CFB Namao.

While Richard was dating these women, he’d often stay at their place. This was especially true when he was dating Vicki who lived in Wetaskiwin which is a town south of Edmonton.

Richard would also often go away on training exercises. These exercises were sometimes as long as 6 to 8 weeks. I know my father did Arctic training in the winter of ’79 and the winter of ’80.

So, if our mother “abandoned” the family in 1977 and Sue didn’t move into our house on CFB Namao until 1980, who was looking after my brother and I.

Now, you might ask why I didn’t raise these points during the 2012 MPCC investigation.

Remember, the MPCC is not required to allow the complainant to view the evidence and documents that the CFNIS had submitted to the MPCC.

I only discovered my father’s horrific statement to the CFNIS in 2013 when I received the certified tribunal records from the MPCC. However, by this time it is far too late to contest anything erroneous that was discovered as any documents entered into court to prove these errors will not be allowed as this is now considered to be “New Evidence” and will not be allowed into federal court.

Even when I examined my father by legal order in 2013, his answers were a stark difference to what he had stated to the CFNIS in 2011.

Why, yes, our grandmother did live with us.

Yes, there was a babysitter.

No, he didn’t actually have legal custody of my brother and I.

Sgt. Christain Cyr had drastically altered what I had discussed with him on May 3rd, 2011 and had even told the MPCC that he had flown out to Victoria BC and met with me in person. The problem with Sgt. Cyr flying out to Victoria to meet with me is that I have never met Sgt. Cyr in person.

On May 3rd, Sgt. Cyr asked me if I remembered anything about the base chaplain having been charged with molesting children during the same time period that I was aledging that P.S. abused me, my brother, and four other children.

I told Sgt. Cyr that I remembered going on five different visits to the rectory at the base chapel, that we’d play board games, watch TV, listen to records in the Padre’s “stereo chair”, and that I could never remember anything after I was given a “sickly sweet grape juice”.

Sgt. Cyr wrote in his notes that when he asked me about Captain McRae, that I remembered going to the chapel with P.S., but that nothing sexual ever occurred.

That’s not what I said.

Even the next day, when I sent emails to Sgt. Cyr indicating which chapel it was that P.S. had taken me to, Sgt. Cyr called me back and told me that I had to have been mistaken as the chapel that I indicated on the maps I drew was a new building that didn’t exist in 1980 when I lived on the base.

I tried to introduce these emails into Federal Court, but the Attorney General demanded that they be struck as I hadn’t provided these emails to the MPCC during their investigation. The problem was that during the MPCC investigation I had no idea that Sgt. Cyr had failed to make mention of these emails in his police reports so therefore I had no reason to introduce these emails to the MPCC.

I also obtained from the Department of National Defence a copy of the blueprints for ” Our Lady of Loretto” chapel that showed the chapel was built in the 1950s. These were struck from the federal court as well.

If you go to the MPCCs website and look at previous REVIEWS (not inquiries, inquiries are completely different) you’ll find that reviews almost always find in favour of the Military Police.

This is not an accident.

As was discovered in the civilian world, the majority of these police review boards are stacked against the complainant and are biased in favour of the police.

Take for example the fact that the MPCC can only hire retired police officers to be investigators. Many inquiries into civilian police review boards have found that these investigators almost always have a bias against the complainants. It’s part of the “Us vs Them” mentality that permeates police departments across North America.

The rules that the Military Police Complaints Commission works under are biased against the complainant as well.

The MPCC cannot share any of the information that the Provost Marshal has provided to the MPCC to the complainant so that the complainant can advance their complaint against the military police and the CFNIS.

The MPCC cannot even ask the complainant questions based upon the documents supplied to the MPCC by the Provost Marshal.

An MPCC review is seriously nothing more than a fell good exercise practically designed by the agency that it is supposed to oversee.

During an MPCC review, the MPCC cannot administer oaths, the MPCC cannot subpeona documents or witnesses.

During an MPCC review, the complainant cannot examine the military police or the CFNIS.

An MPCC review is easily controlled by the Provost Marshal as the Provost Marshal can determine which documents are and which documents are not issued to the Military Police Complaints Commission.

It’s almost as if the MPCC was set up specifically to hide the defects of the military disciplinary system from the eyes of the general public.

And considering that it is the National Defence Act that establishes the Military Police Complaints Commission I think it’s pretty obvious that the MPCC isn’t designed to benefit the complainant.