One question that I know will come up during my class action lawsuit against the Government of Canada is why didn’t I seek professional help sooner if the events on Canadian Forces Base Namao had such a profound effect on me.
I know that question will also come up in my civil action against the Canadian Corp of Commissionaires.
When I became involved with Captain Terry Totzke starting in November of 1980, it was very clear to me that I was being blamed for what had happened to me on Canadian Forces Base Namao. It was also made very clear to me in no uncertain terms that I was to blame for what P.S. had done to my younger brother.
My father, as his psychological interview indicated, refused to take responsibility for his family and always needed to blame others for the problems with his family. Instead of my father owning up to the fact that he was ultimately responsible for the sexual abuse my brother and I endured at the hands of P.S. and Captain McRae from fall of 1978 until the spring of 1980, my father needed to push the blame on to someone else.
That someone else was me.
And as it turns out it appears that it was the Canadian Armed Forces that was bound and determined to keep me from receiving help.
I know that my father knew about what happened on CFB Namao. There were various times between 1980 and 1987 when my father would bring up the topic of the babysitter and what I had allowed him to do to my younger brother. In August of 2006 my father didn’t feign any ignorance about P.S. when I brought up the subject with him, but this time he was blaming his own mother for hiring P.S. against his wishes.
I know that Captain Terry Totzke knew about what happened on CFB Namao as he would often talk about P.S. during our counselling sessions.
I know from talking to retired warrant officer Fred Cunningham that the military police and the chain of command knew full well what P.S. had done between the fall of 1978 until the spring of 1980.
The CFSIU investigation paperwork shows that the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit and the chin of command knew full well what Captain McRae and P.S. had been doing together on the base.
The Court Martial transcripts illustrate that it was various reports of P.S. molesting younger children on Canadian Forces Base Namao that brought him to the attention of the base military police. It was his statements to the base military police that caused the base military police to call in the CFSIU to investigate Captain McRae.
So people knew.
I knew that people knew.
Yet I was blamed for what had happened.
When I went to Glenrose Psychiatric hospital for a brief stay for observation my father made it clear that this was because I was still kissing other boys.
When I started in the Westfield Program for emotionally disturbed children in the spring of 1982, my father kept telling me that I was in this program because I wouldn’t stop kissing other boys.
When we fled the province of Alberta in the early spring of 1983, my father made me understand that he was saving me from the drugs my civilian counsellors wanted to give to me to make me stop kissing boys.
At this point in my life I was sleeping very poorly at night. I would frequently wet the bed. I started falling deeper and deeper into the world of depression and anxiety.
I have absolutely no idea who issued the orders, but it would appear that someone in the Canadian Armed Forces made the decision that I was not to be placed into any form of civilian care. I was to remain solely in the care of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke.
If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that the Canadian Armed Forces didn’t want the Canadian Public to know that they had a problem with kiddie diddling clergy just as the Catholic Church was having in the civilian world.
This would have been the worst absolute disgrace for the military to have faced.
On Canadian Forces Base Namao, Captain McRae was found to have molested well over 25 children. This number is probably higher due to the number of families that would have moved off the base to other postings prior to the CFSIU investigation of Captain McRae. Also, as my lawyer rationalized in the filing of the class action against the Government of Canada, how many children did Captain McRae molest on the three bases he was posted to prior to arriving on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
Captain McRae started of his career at Canadian Forces Base Kingston. He then went to Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie. He was then transferred to Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island. He was then transferred to Canadian Forces Base Namao in the summer of 1978.
Captain McRae had been investigated by the CFSIU in 1973 at RMC Kingston for a suspected act of homosexuality. In May of 1980 Captain McRae was investigated by the CFSIU for having committed “acts of homosexuality ” with teenage boys living on the base. The Canadian Forces were using the phrase “Acts of Homosexuality ” to describe sexual assaults committed against underage male minors.
So how many children did Captain McRae molest at those four postings?
In June of 1980 prior to McRae’s court martial in July of 1980 McRae underwent an ecclesiastical trial in the Archdiocese of Edmonton. During this ecclesiastical trial he admitted to church officials that he had been having sex with male children for years.
The Canadian Forces must have been worried about how the Canadian public would have reacted to being informed that children living on secure defence establishments in housing provided by the Canadian Forces were being sexually abused by an officer of the Canadian Forces.
This is why the Canadian Forces hid the Captain Father McRae court martial away from the public eye using the ridiculous excuse of “protecting the morals of Canadians “.
The Canadian Forces had the need to keep these matters quiet. The Canadian Forces had the power to keep these matters quiet.
Unfortunately, I as well as many others, paid the price for this desire for silence.
Between November of 1981 and January of 1983 whenever we went to family counselling Captain Totzke and my father would tell me to watch what I said to my civilian social workers and counsellors. I don’t think that Captain Totzke was too happy with our teachers and principal at Major General Greisbach for having called Alberta Social Services on our family in November of 1981.
In January of 1983, when Alberta Social Services issued the ultimatum to my father, it was quite amazing how fast strings were pulled to get my family out of the province of Alberta in order to avoid my apprehension.
Why would the Canadian Forces go through all of the trouble of relocating my family just to avoid me going into foster care or residential care?
Why would the Canadian Forces go through all of the trouble to ensure that I kept my mouth shut?
Simple. Captain Totzke would have been aware that as long as I lived in my father’s house and as long as I was blamed for what happened on CFB Namao and as long as I was terrified of my father, I wouldn’t tell anyone about what had happened on CFB Namao. However, if I was pulled out of the house and placed into foster care or residential care, how long would it be until I started receiving treatment for my depression and anxiety? How long would it have been until I started talking freely about what had happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao from the fall of 1978 until the spring of 1980? How long would it have been until my comments made it to the public realm? How long until an interested person called for an investigation or an inquiry?
Am I the only child from Canadian Forces Base Namao that received this “care” from a military social worker?
No.
I’m pretty sure that other children that had been caught up in the Captain Father Angus McRae / P.S. child sexual abuse scandal also varying degrees of this manner of care.
The Canadian Armed Forces had decided that my mental health and my wellbeing could be sacrificed for the greater good of the military.
Prior to 2011, I had tried to get psychiatric help a few times. But what kept getting in the way was my distrust of counsellors. When I was a child living on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach I was caught in a war between my military social worker and my civilian social workers. To the military social worker I presented a risk if I started to tell my civilian social workers what had occurred on CFB Namao. To my civilian social workers I was just some petulant little child who was acting up for no reason at all. If there were issues like child sexual abuse in my past, surely Captain Totzke and my father would have told them, right?
And having my own father blame me for what had occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao as well as blaming me for “fucking with his military career” meant that I learnt to internalize a lot of this crap. Counselling is only for victims, right? Terry and my father both said that I wasn’t a victim.
And surely, if my father thought that what Captain Totzke was doing was wrong, he could have just got me help regardless of what the Canadian Armed Forces wanted, right? Wrong. His rank of master corporal at the time as well as the National Defence Act’s requirement for him to obey the lawful commands on his superiors meant that what the Canadian Forces wanted is what the Canadian Forces got.
I’m currently trying to obtain counselling. But the problem I face is this. As bad as the sexual abuse was. And as damaging as the sexual abuse was. My treatment at the hands of Captain Totzke and my father was by far worse. The sheer hell I was put through between October of 1980 and April of 1983 is many magnitudes worse than the sexual abuse. So I can’t benefit from counselling for the sexual abuse until I receive counselling for the psychological abuse I endured.
And besides, where would I get the counselling for the psychological abuse?
There’s nothing more guaranteed to bring a look of confusion to someone’s face than to say that you were in the care of a military social worker as a child.
So believe me, it’s not from a lack of trying.
Child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces 