Month: February 2021

A little bit of good news.

Back in November of 2020, the Military Police Complaints Commission released their final report of their review of the 2015 through 2018 portion of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754.

Although it was just a review, and although the review had to be conducted as per rules that the Canadian Armed Forces shaped, the MPCC did find that the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal did err when it relied upon the decision of the Alberta Crown as meaning that no crime had been committed. The Crown had opined that there was insufficient evidence to lay charges. The Crown made no determination on the guilt or innocence or P.S..

The MPCC was of the opinion that there was ample evidence to indicate that a crime had been committed.

Generally, the Crown has a very high bar for determining whether or not to pursue charges in court. This is because the accused stands to lose their personal freedom and suffer penalties and sanctions administered by the courts.

However, just because this bar is set high doesn’t mean that the accused is innocent.

And that was one of the findings of the Military Police Complaints Commission.

There had been crimes committed.

But, for some reason when dealing with the outside civilian agency the CFNIS had chosen to use the opinion of the Alberta Crown and not its own opinion in determining if a crime had been committed.

I think this refusal to go on record and state that crimes had occurred comes down to not wanting to expose the Minister of National Defence to civil actions and the resultant public humiliation that the Canadian Forces knew that over 25 children had been sexually abused on a secure defence establishment by an officer of the Regular Forces and instead in 1980 set about to sweep everything under the rug and hide it from the public eye by a very questionable publication ban.

The MPCC recommended that the Provost Marshal supply more documentation from the investigation to the outside civilian agency that was reviewing this matter on my behalf.

Upon receipt of these documents, the outside civilian review agency concluded that I had in fact been the victim of multiple sexual assaults by multiple perpetrators and that these assaults had in fact caused psychological issues as indicated by my Alberta social service Foster Care records. These were the records that were submitted to the CFNIS in August of 2011, but which the CFNIS completely ignored for the most part as they directly conflicted with the statement that my father had given (coerced, coached, or otherwise) to the CFNIS in June of 2011.

Relying on the opinion of the Provincial Crown is apparently nothing new for the Canadian Forces military police.

A former crown prosecutor from New Brunswick who had declined to recommend charges against 5 soldiers from CFB Gagetown who had raped a mentally challenged spouse of a service member remarked that the military police did this as a way of shifting the blame to the Crown for the failure to prosecute.

Why did the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal rely so heavily upon the Alberta Crown report? Was this due to a desire for a “softball” investigation that wouldn’t break any agreement between P.S. and the Minister of National Defence?

That’s beyond the scope of the MPCC. The MPCC cannot, by its enabling legislation, review interference complaints unless the complaints are made by CFNIS investigators directly involved with a particular investigation. As the MPCC indicated in its own submission to the “2nd Independent Review of Amendments Made to the National Defence Act” which was published in 2011, the CFNIS investigators may not even be aware that interference has occurred in their investigation if that interference happens high enough up the chain of command.

And is a superior really interfering with an investigation if they are issuing “lawful commands” that their subordinates are legally bound by the National Defence Act to obey?

CFNIS investigators do not “own” their investigation. They cannot make their own decisions and their own determinations. Everything they do must be approved by the Chain of Command.

In the 2015 to 2018 portion of the CFNIS investigation into my complaint against P.S., even though the Crime Stoppers appeal had generated numerous other tips which resulted in other victims coming forward, the CFNIS chain of command made the decision that each complaint had to stand on its own and that none of the complaints would be used to strengthen the other complaints.

Someone involved with the CFNIS decided that there was far too much risk in presenting a strong case to the Alberta Crown.

In 2020, the CFNIS undertook the investigation into my complaint that P.S. had supplied me for sexual purposes to a man at the base swimming pool in the period of time between having been caught in the bedroom of P.S. and the subsequent house fire at the residence of P.S.. I had made mention of this man previously during the 2011-5754 investigation. Because of paperwork related to the 1980 investigation of Captain McRae released to me under the Access to Information legislation in 2019, I became aware of a very likely possibility of who this man was so I decided to make a formal complaint.

In January I was contacted by the CFNIS investigator handling my case. He said that he was making arrangements with the Vancouver Police Department for me to view police line-up photographs to see if I could identify the man that P.S. had supplied me to. Then suddenly a week ago this investigator contacted me and said that his superiors had decided to scrub the photographs and that they were working on other possible ways for me to identify this man.

I know for sure that the CFNIS are not simply going to pay Mr.P.S. a visit and ask him the name of the man. So I can only wonder how they intend for me to identify this man.

So again, it’s not the CFNIS investigator the runs the investigation, it’s the CFNIS chain of command and the Provost Marshal chain of command that run the investigations.

Under the National Defence Act, the Vice Chief of Defence Staff has the right to issue guidelines and instructions for any investigation undertaken by the CFNIS and that although these instructions are to be made public, these instructions do not have to be made public of the Provost Marshal decides against releasing them.

The Vice Chief of Defence Staff must obey the lawful commands of the Chief of Defence Staff.

The Chief of Defence Staff must obey the Minister of National Defence.

The office of the Minister of National Defence is civilly liable for the actions of any person subject to the Code of Service Discipline while that person is on a Defence Establishment.

This isn’t the first rodeo for the Canadian Armed Forces.

They have a massive legal department.

They also have the benefit of the Department of Justice.

The Canadian Forces have legislation on their side that says that they have very little if any responsibility for civilians injured on Defence Establishment.

About the only thing that would circumvent that implied immunity to civil action would be criminal charges connected directly to a person who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline.

In the case of P.S., that person was Captain Father Angus McRae. Under Canadian law at the time, McRae would have been fully responsible for the delinquency of P.S.

In the case of the man at the base swimming pool, I’m pretty sure that this man was a major in the Canadian Forces at the time. He went on to have his own legal problems involving sexual relations with underage persons.

If the Canadian Forces are unable to find a criminal connection between myself and P.S. or myself and the man at the base swimming pool, the odds on me ever being able to launch a successful civil action against the Minister of National Defence are slim to none.

Minister of National Defence -> Chief of Defence Staff -> Vice Chief of Defence Staff -> Provost Marshal -> Commander of the CFNIS -> Divisional Commander CFNIS -> CFNIS investigator.

My family tree just got a little larger

Okay, so my family tree on the maternal side of my family just got a little more detailed.

I was contacted last week by the stepdaughter of Jean-Yves Dagenais.

Jean-Yves Dagenais is my uncle. He’s the younger brother of my mother.

Albert Lawrence Dagenais was my other uncle. I knew Uncle Al. When Richard’s violence and drinking flared up while we were living on Canadian Forces Base Summerside in PEI it was Uncle Al that my mother wanted to take my brother and I to stay with while she figured out what to do with Richard. Al died in 2017.

One thing that I didn’t know about Al is that he was only in the Canadian Forces for about 7 years before he left the military and went into private industry. I guess Al wasn’t trapped by the Canadian Forces. My father, outside of the Canadian Forces, had absolutely no prospects on civy street.

Richard and Al both joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1963. That’s how they met.

1963 + 7 = 1970

October 23rd, 1969 was the date of the HMCS Kootenay gear box explosion which was the “worst peacetime incident” in the history of the Royal Canadian Navy.

When I met Chris Legere in Halifax in 2014 he said that a lot of men fled the navy in the aftermath of the Kootenay. I wonder if Al decided that enough was enough.

On the maternal side of my family we have:

Albert Joseph Dagenais – maternal grandfather (???? – 1974)
*Marie would have been about 27 when her father died.

Alma Zong Dagenais (possibly Alma Mary Viola Zong) – maternal grandmother (1920 to 1961)
*Marie would have been about 14 when her mother died.

Albert Laurent Dagenais – older uncle

Marie Annette Jacqueline Dagenais – mother

Jean-Yves Dagenais – younger Uncle.

One interesting thing that Jean-Yves’ stepdaughter indicated to me is that my mother’s name “Marie Annette Jacqueline Dagenais” does not appear in Uncle Al’s obituary.

I don’t know what the story was, but I picked up that something wasn’t right when I tracked Marie down in late 2013 and talked to her about some of the answers that Richard had given to me when I examined him for Federal Court.

She talked about Uncle Al, but she didn’t have much to say about Jean-Yves.

She talked about her mother, but she wouldn’t say anything about her father other than he had been in the Royal Canadian Navy and that’s why Uncle Al joined the navy.

Jean-Yves’ stepdaughter said that there were issues in the Dagenais household with the patriarch Albert Joseph, but she wouldn’t say what.

What is odd though is that my medical records state that I was admitted to the IWK Children’s Hospital as a “border” due to the recent death of Marie’s father and that she was having a difficult time.

When I found out in 2019 that my father had died in 2017 I didn’t care. In fact, I felt relieved. I’m not sure if Marie is still alive or not. And I’m honestly not sure if I would be upset to find out that she has died. When you think about it, she’s had my phone number and address for 8 years now and she hasn’t called or written once.

In knew about Lawrence Dagenais from when I talked to Marie in December of 2013. She said that we often played together on CFB Shearwater, but I can’t remember him. I can remember playing with Jennifer and Kimberly, and a boy named Trevor, but I can’t for the life of me remember Lawrence. I didn’t realize that Uncle Al had other children as well. There’s Vincent, Cynthia, Suzanne, and Ellen. According to Marie, Lawrence Dagenais is 2 days older than I am. We were both born in the Salvation Army’s Grace Maternity Hospital.

One thing that I’ve learnt in the last ten years of dealing with the ghosts from CFB Namao is that my family was defective long before Richard married Marie. One other thing that I’ve also come to realize is that there’s nothing odd about this. Dysfunctional families are a dime a dozen. That’s why every city in this country has a children’s aid society or a social services system.

In Canada in 2011, there were over 47,000 children in the foster care system.

I was supposed to have been placed into foster care in 1983 except that my father was able to evade Alberta Social Services by obtaining a posting from the Canadian Armed Forces which allowed him to move out of the jurisdiction of Alberta. So I have no doubt that the 47,000 number is on the low side, and I don’t mean from military families, but due to all families that no doubt have a way to stay a step or two ahead of the local social services. In Ontario my family was supposed to have been placed under the care of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto full time, but according to my paperwork from Children’s Aid, budgetary matters and staffing concerns meant that Children’s Aid would only have placed my brother and I into care had there been complaints from the neighbours about abuse or neglect. But living on a Canadian Forces base meant that there would be no complaints.

I know that my father had parenting issues due to his mother’s issues.

It’s obvious that my mother had parenting issues due to her own family issues.

It’s probably a good thing that I’m not reproducing.

At least this way I can save humanity from another generation of defective Gill genes.