This is my experience trying to receive justice from a system that is designed to keep secrets.
Author: bobbiebees
I started out life as a military dependant. Got to see the country from one side to the other, at a cost.
Tattoos and peircings are a hobby of mine.
I'm a 4th Class Power Engineer.
And I love filing ATIP requests with the Federal Government.
If you ever wanted to know why no one has ever really paid attention to child sexual abuse on the various Canadian Armed Forces bases, it’s because the Canadian Armed Forces are good at hiding and obscuring issues.
A couple of years ago I filed an Access to Information to the Department of National Defence. I was looking for copies of any documents or emails between myself and a particular person.
What I received in response blew me away.
It was a copy of an email between Denis Paradis and William Bain of the Ministerial Correspondence Unit.
Paradis was requesting that Bain attach a copy of an email between the Chief of Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, and the Deputy Judge Advocate General, Major Zenon Drebot, to my file.
Denis Paradis is requesting that my file be encrypted, and the subject matter of my file be changed in name to “Concerns with the CAF’.
This would pose sigificant problems to anyone who was ever searching for the existence of my paperwork.
For example, if a media wonk was to submit a request to DND to see if the Minister of National Defence has ever dealt with subjects such as “child sexual abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces”, their request would come back with negative results as the Ministerial Correspondence Unit changed the subject name of my correspondence.
What’s stopping a media wonk from requesting copies of any documents that mention “Concerns with the CAF”?
Well, they’d never get my files as my files are encrypted. And any files they do get might run the gamut from disgruntled vets upset about their pensions to fishers worried about the impact of our submarines on the cod stocks. Concerns with the CAF might yield so many results that DND would be able justifiably turn this request down due to the amount of time to collect all of the results.
I was able to request a copy of the “encrypted files” because I specifically knew they existed and I knew who created the “encrypted files”. The file contains copies of letters that I had sent to the Chief of Defence Staff and the Minister of National Defence. The file also contains 8 pages of documents redacted in their entirety due to Section 27 of the Privacy act. Numerous sections redacted due to solicitor / client privilege. And a whole bunch of back and forth between the Judge Advocate General, the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Minister of National Defence.
Am I being paranoid?
Nope. Not in the slightest.
A high ranking officer was found during the recent fiasco involving the former Vice Chief of Defence Staff Vice-Admiral Mark Norman to have avoided using Mark Norman’s name on documents and internal correspondence in order to thwart access to information requests and discovery requests.
During the Mark Norman pre-trial, it was discovered during the examination of a DND employee that when this employee went to their commander to fulfil an access to information request for documents relating to Mark Norman, the commander told their subordinate “Don’t worry, this isn’t our first rodeo. We made sure we never used his name. Send back nil return”
It is very apparent that DND is adept at the art of hiding information. And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that they actively use their skills to hide a lot of embarrassing issues from the public eye.
I’ll post a copy of the email I received from the Office of the Information Commissioner.
SAMPIS does not have searchable fields that would give the age of the victims. This is what DND itself has told the OIC. DND has also told the OIC that records outside of the SAMPIS system cannot be searched.
In the final report of the Fynes Public Interest Hearing, the Military Police Complaints Commission voiced numerous concerns about SAMPIS. SAMPIS does not retain a history of changes made to documents contained within the SAMPIS system. General Occurrence reports can be re-written and no history will remain of what was added, removed, or amended to the GO report. Article 636 from the Final Report of the Fynes Public Interest Hearing: ” The hearing revealed that, once created, SAMPIS entries can be, and routinely are, reviewed and edited by investigators and their supervisors. This is of particular importance as SAMPIS does not retain a history of changes made to a document. It saves only the latest version”
Now, so far as the CFNIS investigating historical child sexual abuse that occurred prior to 1998. This would be a legal impossibility. Prior to 1998, a service tribunal had to be commenced against an accused no more than three years after the date of the alleged service offence. This time bar was removed in 1998. Service offences included all criminal code matters. But certain offences had to be prosecuted through the Civilian courts.
Murder, manslaughter, and rape had to be prosecuted through the civilian courts prior to 1985.
After rape was removed from the Criminal Code in 1985 murder, manslaughter, and sexual assault had to be prosecuted through the civilian courts.
In 1998, the National Defence Act was amended and Murder, Manslaughter, and kidnapping are now the crimes that have to be prosecuted through the civilian courts.
It should be noted that rape was never a crime that could have ever applied to males. The Criminal Code was very specific that rape could only apply to females. This is how the Canadian Forces had a court martial for Captain Father Angus McRae in July of 1980 for the crimes of “gross indecency”, “Indecent assault”, and “buggery”. Also, in most cases, not every sexual assault of a female child resulted in rape charges. Indecent assault and gross indecency were the preferred charges. prior to 1985.
Anyways, back to the 3 year time bar.
Any former retired member of the Canadian Forces who was suspected of committing the crimes of “gross indecency”, “Indecent assault”, and “buggery” prior to 1985 would have their matter dealt with via a service tribunal as these were not excluded offences. This means that these crimes could never be prosecuted in the modern day as they would have to be prosecuted through the military justice system and more than 3-years have lapsed between the date of the offence and the resultant service tribunal.
The time period of 1985 until 1998 is a murky period as the Canadian Forces couldn’t conduct a service tribunal for the criminal code charge of sexual assault (271 – 272), but they could conduct a service tribunal for the criminal code charges of 151, 152, 173(2).
It should be noted that the criminal code of Canada has no such limitations on indictable offences and this is why you hear of civilian cases going to court where some 80 year old pervert, who was a hockey coach or a school janitor, molested kids back in the 60s.
Now, it also should be remembered that prior to November of 1997, the commanding officer of the accused was required to conduct a summary investigation AFTER the military police or the CFSIU laid charges against their subordinate. The flaw with this was that the commanding officer could dismiss any charge brought against their subordinate whether or not the commanding officer would have had the authority to try the accused on the charge. This means that prior to November of 1997, commanding officers could dismiss charges brought against their subordinates that would have had to have gone either to court martial or to the civilian courts.
Jurisdiction is another weird issue that changes more often than the weather. In 2011, the CFNIS took the investigation of my complaint of sexual assault at the hands of another military dependant away from the civilian police. I was 7, the accused was months shy of his 15th birthday. The Juvenile Delinquents Act made the accused culpable for any criminal code offence he committed as of the day of his 14th birthday. And there were a lot of offences.
In 2017 I made a complaint to the CFNIS related to some sexual assaults I endured at the hands of a commissionaire at the Denison Armouries in Toronto when I was in cadets. The Denison Armouries were a defence establishment, the commissionaire worked for the Canadian Corp of Commissionaires. The CFNIS in Borden handed this matter over to the Toronto Police Service. The TPS was able to lay six charges of sexual assault against Earl within a month of the TPS being given the case.
I can’t figure out what the criteria is for CFNIS claiming investigative jurisdiction and what the criteria is for the CFNIS to cede investigative jurisdiction. As I said, it seems to change more often than the weather.
The attitudes of society in general towards male victims of child sexual abuse has always been less than desirable.
Males have always been seen to be the instigators of sexual assaults and never the victims of sexual assaults. If a male was he victim of a sexual assault, it was becuase he was weak, or defective, or even a budding homosexual.
Under the criminal code as it was prior to 1985, the charge of “rape” only applied to males having intercourse with females. In Canada, rape was never a crime that could apply to males.
RAPE was only a crime that could be committed by a male against a female. In Canada, male children could never be the victim of rape.
Male teens have always been an outlier if you will. Most laws that involved an adult having sex with an underage male put the male child at almost equal fault with the adult perpetrator.
Yes, this was an actual “educational” video used is schools. It was produced in cooperation with an actual police department.
“Ralph was arrested, Jimmy was released on probation into the care of his parents”
And let’s be clear. Ralph isn’t a normal homosexual. Depending on how old Jimmy is, Ralph is either an ephebophile, a hebephile or a pedophile. And yes, heterosexuals can be ephebophiles, hebephiles, or pedophiles
This was the attitude towards male victims of child sexual abuse in the ’60s. The Canadian Armed Forces have always been about 20 years behind civilian society. Canada, for the most part, decriminalized homosexuality in the ’70s. In 1973 the APA, the American Psychiatric Association, removed homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses. It would take the Canadian Armed Forces until 1994 before it stopped discriminating against homosexuals and ceased treating homosexuality as a mental illness. So yeah, almost 20 years behind the times.
I can undertand why society may be more protective of females. They’re the ones that risk getting pregnant. Sure, boys can’t get pregnant, however they can suffer just as much psychological damage as females can.
Being blamed for the abuse causes issues of self worth.
Being shamed into silence causes trust problems.
The child will sometimes have great difficulty understanding why one adult enjoys sexual touching while other adults will be repulsed and disgusted.
Many times, in small closed communities, the abused child is seen as defective, that there is in fact something wrong with the child. This also happens in a large open community to a certain extent, but in the civilian world the possibility that two neighbours work for the exact same employer are pretty slim. The idea that everyone on the same block works for the same employer is even less likely. And the idea that everyone in the same town or city works for the same employer is just about impossible. There are numerous articles that look at the merits and shortfalls of “Company towns”.
It would turn out that I wasn’t the only dependant from CFB Namao that was prevented from attending activities such as hockey or basketball or swimming. And I would imagine that this same attitude prevailed on most of the other bases in Canada.
Canadian Forces Administrative Order 19-20 formed the policy for how the Canadian Armed Forces were to deal with suspected homosexuals. CFAO 19-20 was in force until 1994.
“Disposal”…… The Canadian Armed Forces considered “homosexuals” to be garbage that needed to be disposed.
The Canadian Forces Military Social Workers that sexually abused male children were put in contact with on the bases would have been expected to deal with Canadian Forces service members as per the policy of CFAO 19-20. And yes, CFAO 19-20 didn’t apply to military dependants, but there is no way that the military social workers were going to switch off their military training when dealing with sexually abused male children.
The Criminal Code prior to 1985 had a charge called “Buggery”. Buggery is one male having anal intercourse with another male. The odd thing about buggery is that it was a charge in which both parties were considered to be equally culpable. It was implied that buggery had no victim. Usually though, the police would only prosecute the party that was over the age of 18.
Well, I’ve written a few things about my father. So I thought maybe I’d touch on my mother.
I don’t really know her all that well.
She left in the spring of 1977. I would have been 5 at the time.
Richard would always moan and bellyache that Marie had abandoned the family and that she had run off with a guy named Gus from the PPCLI.
I know she came to visit my brother and I after we arrived on Canadian Forces Base Namao. I remember grandma telling her that she’d have to wait until my father was away. I do remember grandma telling me to not say anything to my father. I think Richard would have killed her had he found her on the base and in his PMQ visiting his children. On the day she came for the visit I sat by the entrance to the PMQ patch waiting for her car. I only remember her coming up for the one visit in the two years that we lived on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
After the Captain Father Angus McRae child sex abuse scandal on CFB Namao and my family’s subsequent relocation to CFB Greisbach. I remember my mother coming for a visit once. Again my father was away on yet another training exercise and it was my stepmother at home. My mother stopped by with her friend Karen to take me and my brother out for a dinner for my 10th birthday. She picked me up, but Sue wouldn’t let my brother go. Marie drove towards 137th Ave and then stopped before leaving the base. We sat there for a few minutes. Then she turned the car around and dropped me off at home again. There was a screaming match between my mother and Sue.
In 2011, when I got my hands on my social service records, this incident is mentioned. It seems that I had become quite withdrawn after this. When the social workers asked Richard if he had any idea whatsoever as to why I had become so withdrawn, he volunteered that my mother had wanted to take me and my brother out for a birthday meal, but that Sue wouldn’t let my brother go, and Marie said that if my brother couldn’t go, then she wasn’t taking me.
I wouldn’t see Marie again until the summer of 1990
It was weird how my family arrived at Edmonton in the summer of 1990.
My father, my stepmother, and my step brother moved into the PMQ on CFB Greisbach before I did, even though I drove across the states with them. During our drive across the states, I came down with a bad case of tonsilitis. As soon as we arrived in Edmonton I went straight to the Charles Campsel hospital and I spent about a week there receiving treatment for a severe tonsil infection.
My younger brother never lived in the PMQ on CFB Greisbach the second time we lived there. He wouldn’t arrive in Alberta until sometime in the fall.
One of the first people that I met after I arrived was my uncle Doug. Doug set up a meeting between my mother and I. Uncle Doug made me promise that I would never tell my father about Doug’s involvement with me meeting my mother.
I met my mother at Northgate Mall. It wasn’t an emotional meeting. She was kinda happy to see me. It wasn’t like she was overcome with emotions.
In late August of 1990, my father bought a house up in Morinville, AB
Things didn’t work out all that well between my stepmother and I. Sue is about 12 years old than me. At that point in time, she was like the older sister that I never wanted.
I stayed at the YMCA downtown Edmonton for a few weeks, but being that I was only 18 at the time, finding an apartment to rent was proving hard to do.
So, I stayed at Marie and Art’s acreage from late September until November 1st, 1990 when I got my apartment in Edmonton.
Art was an interesting guy. Really great mechanic, and very knowledgeable. But I only really knew Art from about September of 1990 until January of 1992.
When it comes to mental instability, I don’t know which one’s worse, Marie or Richard. They both had their faults. Richard lied better than a rug. Richard had his out of control anger issues. And Richard drank like a fish. Marie on the other hand would play stupid to the point of being very annoying. And Marie is an outright racist, the likes of which I’ve never seen. In the late ’80s and into 1990 she had been working for a news magazine called the “Alberta Report”. Yes, that Alberta Report.
I could easily compile a list of the pros and cons of having lived with Marie. I think the cons would far outweigh the pros.
For instance, we had stopped at a Dairy Queen on Stoney Plain Road for burgers. We were sitting in a booth facing each other. I was facing towards the counter, she was facing towards the front doors. As we were eating, this look of utter disgust kept appearing on her face. I asked her what was wrong. She said “turn around”. So I did. There was an older East Indian couple sitting a couple of booths down eating their food. I turned back and said “I don’t get what’s wrong”. As soon as she said “those people, they don’t belong here” I knew my mother was a fucking racist. Fuck was that ever disappointing.
Things became interesting after that. When we’d talk about my grandmother, Marie would explain that grandma was a proud Indian, but that she was part of a conquered race.
I don’t remember much about Marie from our time on CFB Shearwater. I do remember coming home from playschool and having lunch while watching TV. I know she liked to do yoga like exercises. She used to lay on her back and she’d get me to stand on her feet and then she’d lift me up. I don’t ever remember her hitting me. I do remember her driving the Thunderbird a lot, which is why I had always thought that it was her car. I remember us going for visits and staying with other people. I remember Richard coming to pick us up from these visits.
In late 1991, I answered a classified ad from Brentwood Lanes in Burnaby, BC. They were looking for a “B” mechanic for their centre. Marie insisted that she come along with me on the drive. We fought like literal cats and dogs on the way down and back. I think that’s one of the reasons I decided to leave Edmonton in February of 1992. The other reason I decided to move is I fell in love with the Vancouver area as soon as I saw took a drive around the city. Edmonton was well below freezing at the time with snow and ice on the ground. Burnaby and Vancouver were in the teens with the only snow visible being on the North Shore mountains.
I left Edmonton in February of 1992. I didn’t get the job at Brentwood Lanes. But I had heard through the grape vine that Lions Gate Lanes in West Vancouver was looking for a pair of mechanics. So, I made the decision to go. I didn’t let Marie know. I drove to Vancouver. On my second night in the city, I called her up to let her know that I was in Vancouver. She exploded. Just before she abruptly hung up the phone, she said that I was an asshole just like my father and that I was never to call her again. <slam>.
It was a little rough settling in in Vancouver. The job at Lions Gate kept getting postponed. But once I was hired on in May of 1992, I got an apartment in the West End of Vancouver. I decided to call Marie up to see if she had calmed down any. There was no answer. The Acreage was on a party line telephone system so after letting the phone ring for awhile, another family answered. When I asked them if he had seen Marie or Art, he said that he hadn’t seen Marie or Art for a while and wasn’t sure where they were. I took this to be that Marie had told her neighbours to not say anything to me.
In 2013, I had to examine my father for a Federal Court of Canada matter. My father made some statements to the CFNIS which were completely at odds with the social service records that I had obtained. For instance, he “forgot” to tell the CFNIS that he was often away on training exercises and that his mother was living in his PMQ raising his children. One of the questions that I asked him related to social services. Because of the answer, I decided that I had to try to track down Marie. It took a bit of sleuthing, but I was able to track her down in October of 2013. Just over 21 years since the day she told me to never call her again.
I flew out to Calgary that Christmas to see her. She was older, but she was still as racist as she had been when I last saw her in Alberta. However, it was good being able to sit down with her and get some answers out of her.
When I arrived, she wanted to know how I found her. I explained to her that once I found Art’s son Terry it was very simple.
She asked me why I decided to find her now after all these years. I told her that I was curious about the PEI government stating that Richard was never awarded custody by the PEI government, and that for Richard to take my brother and I from one province to another, that he would have needed her permission.
I asked her why she blew up at me on the telephone back in early 1992 when I moved to Vancouer. All she said is that sometimes peope make mistakes, and that we can’t dwell on them.
She wanted to know why I moved without telling her. I told her that Alberta was in the midst of a massive recession and that I had been on welfare for 5 months and things weren’t going to get any better. I knew I could get work in Vancouver. I said that I also knew that I could fit in better in a city like Vancouver.
She asked me why I told Richard about my move without telling her. I told her that Richard didn’t know that I had moved until I got my first apartment in Vancouver in the summer of 1992. Richard was the first person that I called when I got my phone installed by B.C. Tel.
I asked her why she would never answer my phone calls when I tried calling her in the summer of 1992. She said that she and Art had sold the acreage in the spring of 1992 as the company Art had been working for needed a refrigeration / gas field compressor mechanic in Saskatchewan. Art’s son Terry owned houses across western Canada, so Art and Marie moved into one of Terry’s houses in Saskatchewan while Art worked there. The next stop was BC for a few months. And then Calgary. And then back to Edmonton. The house that Art and Marie lived in when I visited them in 2013 was another of Terry’s house. According to Marie, after selling the acreage in 1992, they never owned another house.
We started talking about other things.
She had been born in Hull Quebec in 1946. Her father had been in the Royal Canadian Navy during WWII. Both her father and her mother had epilepsy. Both died from it.
She had two brothers. Al Dagenais was born in 1944. Jean-Yves Dagenais was born in 1950.
I asked her about Al. I said that while growing up with Richard, Richard would often say that I was insane just like Al. I said that Richard would claim that Al was so insane that he’d just walk out in front of cars daring them to hit him. She laughed. No, Al wasn’t the one running out in front of cars. That was Richard. Al was usually the one dragging Richard out of the traffic.
I asked her not to laugh or get upset at what I was going to ask her. I asked her if I was the product of incest between her and Al. She gasped. No. I was not an incest baby. She wanted to know what this was about. I told her of the numerous times as a child that Richard would tell me that I wasn’t his kid, that my mother had slept with uncle Al.
She assured me that all of my respiratory issues came from Richard’s side of the family. I would discover in the summer of 2013 that CFB Shearwater had been downwind of a massive Esso refinery and that this refinery had been responsible for many a child developing respiratory issues on the base.
Marie said that she had gone to Dartmouth in 1965 to see her brother Al. This is how she met Richard. Richard and Al were inseparable at this time.
Al had forbidden Marie from dating Richard, but they continued to see each other. Marie and Richard were married in 1968.
She said that everything was okay right up until the HMCS Kootenay incident. She said that Richard was with the Sea King attached to the HMCS Kootenay. What’s wrong with this is that the Kootenay had never been fitted with a landing pad or a hangar like some of her sister ships. The Sea Kings went out with the Bonaventure and some of the other ships in the contingent. So, there’s no doubt that Richard was with the Sea Kings. Just that he wasn’t with the one attached to the Kootenay. No biggie.
She said that it was after the Kootenay that Richard’s drinking started to get out of hand. He would often get so drunk that he’d lay on the floor, naked often, and make lour howling animal noises.
I asked her if Richard had ever hit her or abused her, she said no. When I showed her copies of my conversation with Pat Longmore, Marie decidedly changed her story. Yes, there had been physical fights. Yes, Richard had drawn blood on more than one occasion. And yes, we often went to stay with “relatives” while Richard cooled down again.
Did Richard ever strike me or my brother? She said that he didn’t mean to, but sometimes he just got too angry.
I asked her if she ever remembered me being dropped off at the IWK Children’s Hospital and admitted as a “border” for a couple of weeks due to “parental issues” in the houshold. She wouldn’t believe me until I showed her my medical records. Yeah, she remembered. My father did not want to get help from the military for his issues and sometime they just exploded.
I asked her about one curious note from my medical records from the IWK Children’s hospital. I read her the section in which the doctors remarked that I had very noticeable “wide set eyes”. And that my head circumference was always above the 98th percentile.
She turned her eyes down at this. Richard was apparently upset at the prospect of his first born having “issues”.
Head appears large & eyes far apart.
I asked her if my conception was a trap to keep Richard in the marriage. First she heard of this. She said that Richard was the one who wanted a kid.
What about my brother’s conception? Nope, not a trap either.
I asked her about the domestic assault that Richard had been arrested for in January of 1977 at our PMQ in Summerside, PEI. Did Richard hit her? Nope. Turns out that Richard had assaulted his mother, my grandmother, after a heavy night of drinking and it was the Summerside police that called in the base military police.
I asked her about when she left. She said that after the plane from Richard’s squadron on CFB Summerside crashed, Richard went off the deep end and was very destructive and abusive. She said that she wanted to take my brother and I back to Nova Scotia to stay with our uncle Al while Richard sorted himself out, but that Richard found out. This resulted in the base military police coming to our PMQ and warning her that if she left the island with my brother and I that she’d be arrested and charged with child endangerment and kidnapping. She said that a short while later someone from the office of the Judge Advocate General came to the PMQ, told her that the Canadian Forces had awared Richard custody and that she was being evicted from the PMQ.
All in all, she was very similar to my father. And this probably explains why their marriage didn’t last. They were too alike. Neither of them could accept being at fault. Richard blamed Marie. Marie blamed Richard.
Richard didn’t have a temper or a drinking problem.
Marie wouldn’t admit that she had been wrong to leave her kids with a man with a temper and a drinking problem.
I don’t know why I thought of this, I think it came about because I was out pawn shop surfing a few weeks ago and I noticed some Canon camera gear. Looked like it was part of an ’80s estate sale. And this post has just sorta been percolating since then.
My old man had a Canon AE1. Which apparently was a fairly decent camera back in the day.
I know he had all sorts of lenses to go with the camera, specifically a really large autofocus lens. He also had a large auto winder for this camera.
The funny thing was, except for taking pictures of hockey games on TV (yeah, he did that), I don’t think he ever took pictures of either me or my brother. I know he never showed up to awards nights at cadets.
My brother and I took part in the Battle of the Atlantic sea cadet parade at Queen’s park just before I quit cadets in the spring of 1987.
I know that as far as 21 gun salutes goes, ours sounded like 3 volleys of random machine gun fire. But what were you expecting from a bunch of 13 to 18 year old kids.
And yes, these were real rifles firing blanks. I’m not sure when cadets were no longer allowed to fire real ammunition, but in my day we had the Lee-Enfield which was originally a .303, but ours had been re-bored for .22. In addition to using these rifles for parades and drill, we used them on the range for target practice.
And I know our parade skills left a lot to be desired, but again we were all kids.
Richard brought all of his camera gear and set up his tri-pod and stuff off on the sidelines. He kept grumbling after that “the stupid camera” didn’t load the film properly.
If I had to guess, the pictures probably turned out, but Richard was more than likely embarrassed that he captured such a rag-tag performance on camera. He was always like that, praise from Richard was all but non-existent, criticism on the other hand came in spades.
For such an avid photographer, he just never seemed to take pictures.
And when he did take pictures, they just didn’t seem to have any life in them.
And the more I think about it, Richard was more about having the knick-nacks than actually using the knick-knacks.
Richard had a shit load of tools, testers, and other stuff, but he rarely used them.
He had broomball gear, but yet he rarely played broomball.
He had hockey gear, but I never saw him play hockey often.
He had a private pilot’s licence, but outside of a couple times at CFB Summerside where he rented a small airplane, he never took my brother and I on flights.
He had a motorcycle licence that he got in the early ’70s. Outside of a few rare rides he never rode his CB550-Four after 1984.
Richard had a ham operators licence, but never owned a ham radio.
Richard invested a lot of time and effort in learning the C+ programming language on his TRS-80 model IIIs and model IVs.
It wasn’t uncommon for Richard to sit down at his computers after supper and stay there until close 22:00. After a couple of hours of sleep, he’d be back downstairs typing away on his computers until something like 02:00 or 03:00.
I know this because sometime just after the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, my bedroom was moved into the basement. My stepbother was old enough to be on his own, so he got my old room, and I got punted down into the basement. The basement wouldn’t have been too bad, save for the fact that I didn’t have a bedroom door due to the fact that you weren’t supposed to have people living in the basements of the PMQs and by not putting a door on the bedroom, Richard was skirting that rule.
Just about every night, Richard would wake me up with the noise of his computer work. Said that it was his house and that if I didn’t like it, I could move out.
Except for selling a small database program to a church in Toronto, he never went anywhere with his computer programming.
Over the last couple of weeks, the more I thought about it the more I began to realize that Richard, outside of being a soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces, was completely lost and empty on the inside.
He hoped that his do-dads and gizmos would give him meaning. But they didn’t.
He had no goals in life. He had nothing that brought him any type of joy. And I think this is more than likely why he spent absolutely no time being involved with my brother and I.
Where this emptiness came from? I have absolutely no idea.
Sure, grandma wasn’t the ideal parent. She had a lot of emotional issues herself. She drank alot. She had a short temper. She wasn’t afraid to get carried away with corporal punishment. If you disturbed her you’d be told that “children are best to be seen and not heard” or “children are not to speak until spoken to”.
Yes, Richard’s father Arthur Herman Gill buggered off when Richard was fairly young. But Richard really didn’t seem to have any attachment to Arthur.
Uncle Doug seemed normal. Yeah, okay, we didn’t live with him. But ever time he’d come home from the oil fields and stay downstairs in the base when we lived on CFB Namao, he’d always buy my brother and I gifts and presents.
Uncle Norman seemed normal as well. In the two weeks that grandma, my brother and I spent out in Terrace, BC back in the summer of 1984, Norman would frequently take his kids and us out to the lakes and rivers around Terrace for fishing and other activities.
As soon as we moved to CFB Namao in the summer of 1978, grandma enrolled my in Beavers, Youth Bowling, hockey, basketball, and swimming.
Even when she came to live with us out on CFB Summerside after my mother left, she enrolled me in Sunday school, bible class, and various activities with the Knights of Columbus.
Did she do this out of guilt for what she hadn’t done for her kids when she was raising them in Fort McMurray, AB in the late ’40s to early ’60s?
Again, Doug and Norman seemed normal. So, I don’t think that Richard could really blame his mother for his issues.
The social services records from Alberta Social Services said that Richard couldn’t name one single activity that our family did together
And I think that is the key to understanding Richard.
He had nothing to offer, nothing to give. Something had killed him years ago.
Was it the HMCS Kootenay?
Was it the accident on the HMCS Bonaventure?
Was it the CP-140 Aurora crash on CFB Summerside in 1977 when he was attached to the Aurora Sqn?
Was it something else altogether?
I think that by collecting things and knick-knacks and do-dads he was trying to fill the empty holes inside.
And it would appear that my brother and I were also filler material meant to fill voids. He fathered us. And that was about it.
Unfortunately, children make very shitty filler compound.
Richard would often get upset at me for not raising my brother properly. But, I don’t think that’s how that is supposed to work. It’s not my name on my brother’s birth certificate.
I think Richard’s aloofness was best summed up by the Alberta Social Service records when he first stated to Alberta Social Services that he had no idea that both of his sons were having emotional issues. He then stated that his mother was hiding these issues from him. Finally he blamed his mother for these issues.
Where his emptiness came from, I don’t think anyone will ever know. That’s one of the many secrets that he took to the grave.
Why, after a successful investigation and charges have been laid, did the Ontario Crown decide not proceed with charges against former Canadian Armed Forces parde Brigadier General Roger Bazin.
Federal Access to Information laws give Canadian Citizens the rights to see non-classified / non-secret documents. And normally things work out as they should. But quite often, government departments like the Department of National Defence skirt the rules and deny access to information requests through various other tactics.
The various Government agencies have 30 days to acknowledge your request. They’re also supposed to give you a reasonable time frame for you to expect to receive the information you have requested.
As can be seen though from the response from DND, my request A-2018-00781 has been with the Department of National Defence for 15 months now. That’s generally well above and beyond the time frame that the Act allows for a department to respond.
According to the Office of the Information Commissioner, this tactic is called “deemed refusal”. The government department isn’t saying these records don’t exist nor is the government department exempting these records from release. Both of these actions can be investigated by the Office of the Information Commissioner, and sanctions can be called for if it is found out that a government department has been opaque about the status of records.
On the other hand, if a department simply takes too long in the hopes that the requester forgets about the request, this isn’t something that can bring sanctions. It’s just one of those little “oopsies” that sometimes happens.
I did speak with this analyst’s supervisor earlier this week. The big hold up on this document is they can’t figure out how to excise third party information without raising questions about the handling of this matter.
There are generally two parties that could be expected to be the third party in this Access to Information Request. The victim who made the complaint against Brigadier General Roger Bazin, or the Prosecutor.
In Canada, the victim of the sexual assault generally cannot withdraw their complaint once charges have been laid against an accused. Only the Crown Prosecutor can decide to proceed or not proceed with charges.
So, here’s the million dollar question, and this I think is the issue that the Department of National Defence is trying to navigate around. How does DND confirm to me the fact that it was the Ontario Crown that decided to not proceed with charges without revealing why those charges did not proceed.
The CFNIS were obviously able to bring charges against Roger Bazin, and the charges were strong enough that the were able to merit a preliminary hearing.
Bazin did settle a previous accusation brought against him for similar issues, so it’s not like the accusations brought against him were some fanciful fairy tale.
I believe the reason that the Crown dropped the charges against Bazin had to do with the fact that Bazin was subject to the Code of Service Discipline at the time he is alleged to have molested the boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1972. Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and buggery were all Service Offences which the Canadian Forces could conduct a Service Tribunal for, e.g. a court martial. However, prior to 1998, service offences had to be prosecuted within three years of the date of the alleged offence. Even if Bazin were being prosecuted in Civilian Court, he would still have to be dealt with as if he was subject to the Code of Service Discipline. This means that the Crown would have had to take the 3-year time bar into account.
This is what I think is giving the DND Access to Information Office such problems. How does the ATI office release to me the reason the Crown decided to not move forward with charges, without exposing the reason for not moving forward with charges. Don’t forget, DND cannot lie or deceive in their release of information. They can’t for example tell me that the charges didn’t proceed due to a lack of evidence, unless that was the actual reason. Nor can DND tell me that the charges didn’t proceed due to a conviction being unlikely or that a prosecution would not be in the public interest.
If the charges didn’t proceed due to the 3-year time bar, DND would have to release that information. But, this is not information that DND would ever want to release to the public, hence the mental gymnastics.
The Catholic chapels on many of the bases in Canada had rectories attached for the padre to reside in.
Blueprints for “Our Lady of Loretto Chapel – Canadian Forces Base Namao” These plans were used on most other bases as well
Most of these rectories were systematically removed in the late 1980s to early 1990s.
Instructions for removing the bathtub from the rectory and for removing the kitchen partition walls New layout for former living quarters now re-purposed as worship and absolution areas.
It’s anyone’s guess really as to why the Canadian Armed Forces started to remove the rectories, but I have a guess or two that probably aren’t far from what the true answer actually is.
I think the Canadian Armed Forces were beginning to realize in the ’80s that they were having a problem with the chaplins. It’s no secret that it was during the ’80s that the public started to become aware of the problems facing the Catholic Church and their priests that had a fondness for children. And all of the military chaplains were supplied by the Catholic church.
This was such a known problem that the Catholic Church even had a recycling facility where they would send the Catholic priests to help them with their issues after they had been found to be sexually involved with children.
In 2006 the Canadian Armed Forces changed the procedure for obtaining baptismal records. In their explanation, they specifically cite the number of lawsuits brought against the various civilian diocese across Canada as being the primary reason for the change in procedure.
If you ask me, I think the reason for this change is to make civil actions against the Canadian Forces for the actions of their kiddie diddling clergy that much harder. If you can’t prove that you were baptised, then how could you have been involved with the padre. I know I was baptised as my grandmother had me take my first communion on CFB Namao at Our Lady of Loretto Chapel. Captain McRae would have been the padre.
When Captain Father Angus McRae was being investigated by the CFSIU for having committed “acts of homosexuality” with teenage boys on CFB Namao, Major Roger Bazin had been sent out from Ottawa to assist Captain McRae with his affairs.
Major Roger Bazin was once a padre on Canadian Forces Base Borden in the 1970s. We know for sure that Captain Roger Bazin was on CFB Borden in 1972. Major Roger Bazin would go on to become Brigadier General Roger Bazin and he would become the head of the chaplaincy branch of the Canadian Forces.
Just before the time of the Colonel Russell Williams fiasco on Canadian Forces Base Trenton a man came forward and made a complaint against Roger Bazin. The complaint was that Roger Bazin had sexually abused this man when he was a child living on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1972.
Bazin was investigated and charged, but the charges were dropped at the last minute. I think the three year time bar played a significant role in the dropping of charges. As Bazin was subject to the Code of Service Discipline at the time of the abuse, and as he had committed the service offences of Buggery, Gross Indecency, and Indecent Assault, these were crimes that could be prosecuted through a court martial (see the court martial of Captain McRae, July 18th, 1980 CM62).
However, as previously discussed, the three year time bar that existed in the pre-1998 National Defence Act meant that the court martial had to occur within 3 years of the date of the offence. As more than 3 years had elapsed, there is no possibility that charges could proceed.
And no, there exists no mechanism to kick these matters over to the civilian courts to get around the 3 year time bar.
Now, this isn’t the first time a complaint had been brought against Roger Bazin.
After Roger Bazin had retired from the Canadian Forces, he became a chaplain in a small parish in Ontario. A boy from that parish came forward with complaints against Bazin. The church convinced the parents of the boy to not bring the police in. Bazin made a cash settlement with the boy, and the matter simply went away.
So, what are the odds that Captain Father Angus McRae and Brigadier General Roger Bazin were the only two padres with a soft-spot for children?
Unlike the Catholic church, the Canadian Armed Forces have their own legal system. The Canadian Armed Forces can choose to deal with the wayward padres however they see fit.
I know that in the matter of Canadian Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae, the Canadian Forces were just as guilty of moving the predator padres around as the Catholic church was guilty of moving the predator priests around. In 1973, McRae was investigated for “acts of homosexuality” at RMC Kingston @ CFB Kingston. He was punted off to CFB Portage La Prairie. He was then punted off to Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island where he became involved with a teenage boy. He was then punted over to CFB Namao where in less than two years he was investigated for molesting over 25 children.
If the CFNIS were requested by the office of the Minister of National Defence to investigate the military padres during the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, what would they find? Would they have the required skills? What would the point be if charges couldn’t be brought due to the 3-year time bar? How would the Minister of National Defence find all of the former military dependants? What about the ones who committed suicide over the years?
Would the Minister of National Defence ever request this to be done with the knowledge that any evidence of wrongdoing would expose the office of the Minister of National Defence to civil actions much like when Mr. P.S. sued the office of the Minister of National Defence?
Would the Minister of National Defence ever allow this type of investigation to occur knowing full well that it would forever damage the image of the Canadian Armed Forces and probably lead Parliament to overhauling the military justice system.
How many time during the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, did other military dependants come forward with complaints against other military pardes for incidents of sexual assault, only to have charges not proceed due to the 3-year time bar.
How many times in the past did commanding officers dismiss charges that had been brought against the padres?
Remember, as in my case, the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal have a multitude of ways to cover-up the reason why charges didn’t go forward. In my case, Sgt. Christian Cyr intentionally told me that Mr. P.S. was only 13 years old in the spring of 1980 when Mr. P.S. had been discovered buggering me in his bedroom in his family’s PMQ . Sgt Cyr did this for a reason. Under the juvenile delinquents act, a person who had not yet achieved their 14th birthday could not be charged with a criminal offence.
However, Mr. P.S. was born on June 20th, 1965. In May of 1980, Mr. P.S. would have been two months shy of his 15th birthday. Under the Juvenile Delinquents Act he would have been fully culpable for all of the criminal code offences that he committed since June 20th, 1979 while at the same time Captain McRae couldn’t be charged for any crime after May of 1983. (3-year time bar).
And in researching the CMAC records I’ve collected for this blog posting, I came across a CMAC finding that says that the Minister of National Defence functions as the Attorney General for the Canadian Armed Forces and maintains a supervisory role over military prosecutions. This means that the Minister of National Defence has some involvement in the military justice system. This serves to further my observations that a conflict of interest exists in allowing the CFNIS to investigate historical matters of child sexual abuse on the Defence Establishments when it is the office of the Minister of National Defence that would be subject to civil actions should convictions result.
So, is the jurisdiction of the CFNIS really set in stone?
One has to wonder why the CFNIS weren’t involved in this matter.
The matter of former Canadian Forces officer SLt. Jeffery Delisle is an interesting study in the jurisdiction of the Canadian Forces military police and the CFNIS.
On January 13, 2012, SLt. Jeffery Paul Delisle was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for violating the Security of Information Act. His offence was that he had been selling “5 -Eyes” intelligence to the Russians.
5-Eyes is the name of the intelligence alliance comprising of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The information that Delisle had given to the Russians was most damaging to the United States, hence why the American Federal Bureau of Investigations was the first agency to become involved in this matter.
The FBI made contact with the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and informed CSIS of the activities of Mr. Delisle.
From documents released under Access to Information Requests, it became very apparent that the CFNIS was kept out of the loop literally until the last minute.
So the timeline want like such: December 9th, 2011 CFPM informs the CO CFNIS that an investigation is underway into a member of the Canadian Forces. January 13th, 2012 Canadian Forces officer Sub-Lt. Jeffery Paul Delisle is arrested by the RCMP. December 13th, 2012 the RCMP fully brief the Commanding Officer of the CFNIS on the particulars of the investigation.
In a report issued in October 2012 which discussed the matter of Sub-Lt. Delisle,
Was this interesting section:
Basically, this is the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence pouting that their “police” weren’t involved in the investigation of their own officer Mr. Delisle. One can only wonder why the FBI, CSIS, and the RCMP wanted to steer clear of involving the Canadian Forces Military Police Group and the CFNIS .
SLt. Delisle had been sharing “5-Eyes” intelligence that he collected from DND computers, located on DND property, while he was a person subject to the Code of Service Discipline. If anyone was deserving of being investigated by the CFNIS, it was SLt. Delisle.
The National Defence Act even has sections that specifically deal with persons such as Mr. Delisle.
Sections 75(b), 75(c),75(j) would possibly have applied.
Section 78 may be a stretch, but it could still be argued that if Russia is not an ally, then it is automatically considered an enemy.
The Security of Information Act is what Mr. Delisle violated.
4(1)(a) and 4(1)(b) seem to be the sections that Mr. Delisle ran afoul of.
The Security of Information Act applies to all persons who were subject to the Code of Service Discipline when they became aware of the information.
A prohibited place means a military base, or even a building that is used by the military for military business.
Is the incompetence of the CFNIS really that legendary?
In March of 2015, then Defence Minister Jason Kenney said that an MPCC report issued had clearly indicated that the military police were guilty of “wrongdoing and incompetence”.
If the Slt Delisle case does prove one thing, it’s that the “sole jurisdiction” claim of the CFNIS is laughable at best.
Trying to define the jurisdiction of the CFNIS and the military police is about as easy as trying to nail jello to the wall. Sadly, this is more to do with the failure of Parliament to close the holes in the National Defence Act than anything else.
In 1987, the Crown of Canada took a man by the name of John Patrick Nolan to the Supreme Court to try to have his lower court appeal overturned.
The Crown argued that military police are “Peace Officers” and therefore can arrest anyone at anytime. The Supreme Court squashed that.
In the Supreme Court of Canada case Regina v. Nolan, the Supreme Court of Canada declared that the Canadian Forces military police are not a secondary civilian police force and have no jurisdiction over civilians except for when enforcing regulations that specifically apply to civilians located on Defence Establishments. I have attached a copy of Regina v. Nolan below.
Some key points of Regina v. Nolan are this. ” The military policeman had no authority under s. 2(f)(i) of the Code to demand that the accused provide a breathalyzer sample. That section, which prescribes that “peace officer” includes “officers and men of the Canadian Forces who are appointed for the purposes of section 134 of the National Defence Act “, does not extend the authority of military police to act as “peace officers” throughout a province and in relation to all residents of a province, duplicating the role and function of the civil police. Section 2 of the Code serves only to grant additional powers to enforce the criminal law to persons who must otherwise operate within the limits of their statutory or common law sources of authority. In the case of military policemen, the purposes of s. 134 are clear: the section provides that they may exercise authority over persons subject to the Code of Service Discipline. That is the full extent of the grant of power. Section 2 (f)(i) must be construed, therefore, as extending to persons appointed for the purposes of s. 134 of the National Defence Act the additional authority to enforce the Criminal Code , but only in relation to persons subject to the Code of Service Discipline. “ -and- ” The authority to demand that the accused provide a breathalyzer sample can be derived in this case, however, from the definition of “peace officer” in s. 2(f)(ii) of the Code. Section 2 (f)(ii) establishes that “officers and men” of the Canadian Forces are peace officers when “employed on duties that the Governor in Council, in regulations made under the National Defence Act for the purposes of this paragraph, has prescribed to be of such a kind as to necessitate that the officers and men performing them have the powers of peace officers”. Under s. 22.01(2) of the Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Canadian Forces, made under the National Defence Act for the purposes of s. 2(f)(ii) of the Code, military policemen have the powers of peace officers when they perform any lawful duties “as a result of a specific order or established military custom or practice” when those duties are related to certain matters including the maintenance and protection of law and order and the protection of property or persons. Here, the officer had authority under the Government Property Traffic Regulations to enforce the applicable speed limits against a civilian driving on the base and, having stopped him for the purposes of enforcing the speed limit, the officer derived further authority from s. 28(1) of the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations. This section, which applies to persons not subject to the Code of Service Discipline, prescribes that a military policeman is “authorized to arrest without warrant any person found committing any criminal offence … on or with respect to any defence establishment or whom on reasonable and probable ground he believes to have committed such offence . . . .” A military police officer who has clear statutory authority to enforce the law and who is sent out on a patrol on a base is abiding by “established military practice” in fulfilling his role by attempting to enforce the law and he meets the conditions imposed by s. 22.01(2). Therefore, when s. 22.01(2) of the Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Canadian Forces is read with s. 28(1) of the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations, the arresting officer was a peace officer within the meaning of s. 2(f)(ii) of the Code and he was entitled to invoke the statutory authorization of s. 235(1) of the Code. The fact that the accused was arrested outside the military base did not deprive the military policeman of his authority. Given the instantaneous police warning to the accused to stop his vehicle and the detention immediately outside the gates of the base, there was such a clear nexus between the offence committed on the base and the detention off the base that the military police retained their status and authority as peace officers. “
Long story short, the military police only have jurisdiction over civilians when they are enforcing very specific regulations. Those two regulations are the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulation and the Government Property Traffic Regulation.
The following document is one of many that would seem to throw a monkey wrench into the workings of the military justice system so far as it having jurisdiction over civilians.
Here, the Canadian Forces are admitting that they don’t have jurisdiction over all civilian offences committed by civilians on Defence Establishments. For the CFNIS to claim jurisdiction over a civilian for having committed a criminal code offence on a Defence Establishment, the CFNIS would have to have arrested the civilian within a certain period of time after the offence occured, and within a certain distance from the base. Mr. P.S. molested me from 1978 until 1980 on CFB Namao which is just north of Edmonton. Mr. P.S. currently resides in Fort Erie, Ontario. The distance between Edmonton Garrison, AB and Fort Erie, ON is 2786 km. I think that 30 years and 3k km is stretching CFNIS jursidiction to the extreme.
Another interesting document that casts doubts on the arrest jurisdiction of the CFNIS is the following from CFPM 2120-4-0. This document originated in 1998, just after the creation of the CFNIS. This document was re-issued to all bases and units in 2006.
NDHQ POLICY DIRECTIVE MILITARY POLICE INVESTIGATION POLICY 2120-4-0 (CFPM) Vice Admiral G.L. Garnett, Vice Chief of Defence Staff
Pretty Straightforward, right? Wrong. In December of 2015, when I realized that RCMP Inspector Akrum Ghadban was not going to be involved in the second phase of the investigation into my complaint against Mr. P.S., and that he was stepping aside to let the CFNIS run their show, I filed a complaint with the “Civilian And Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police”. The CCC-RCMP found in favour of the RCMP. But for a rather interesting reason.
Basically, unless the CFNIS offer an investigation to the outside civilian authorities having jurisdiction, the RCMP cannot insist that the CFNIS hand over the investigation.
On February 9th, 2015, I had a telephone conversation with Lt. Col. David Antonyshyn of the Office of the Judge Advocate General. In this conversation Mr. Antonyshyn stated that “domestic matters that occur within the PMQs” are always pushed to the outside civilian authorities. Mr. Antonyshyn also stated that the CFNIS do not have sole jurisdiction on the bases for Criminal Code matters, they have at most concurrent jurisdiction.
In 2014, Madame Marie Deschamps was tasked with reviewing the military police, including the CFNIS, to see how they were dealing with sexual assaults amongst service members. Her report was very damning of the defective military justice system. More importantly, her report was accepted by the Chief of Defence staff as being valid and true.
excerpt from External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces
The full report of the External Review Authority is available here:
Even though Lt. Gen. Christine Whitecross insists that matters involving children and cadets (12 to 18 year olds) are handed off to the outside civilian authorities, and even though CFAO 2120-4-0 says that offences in which the offender is a civilian will be “offered” to the outside civilian authorities, and even though Madame Marie Deschamps stated in her review that offences involving civilians are referred to the outside civilian justice system, and even though Lt. Col. David Antonyshyn states that domestic matters are always handed off to the outside civilian authorities, the CFNIS in my case held on to jurisdiction in a matter of a civilian teenager sexually abusing a civilian child.
This problem arises due to the loosey-goosey language in the National Defence Act. The National Defence Act says who the military police have jurisdiction over. However, the National Defence Act does not state who the military police do not have jurisdiction over.
And that’s a very dangerous precedent.
Basically, the CFNIS chain of command can choose on a case by case basis who they have jurisdiction over and who they don’t have jurisdiction over.
And that leads to the possibility of all sorts of political interference.
I’ll be willing to bet you dollars to donuts that had Mr. P.S. not been anointed the sole victim of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae in July of 1980, and had Mr. P.S. not gone on to sue the Office of the Minister of National Defence in March of 2001, and had the Office of the Minister of National Defence in November of 2008 not accepted General Legal Liability for the personal injuries that Mr. P.S. suffered at the hands of a Canadian Forces officer, I firmly believe that the CFNIS would have handed my matter off to the RCMP in Morinville.
However, as the Office of the Minister of National Defence accepted General Legal Liability and admitted that the sexual abuse that Mr. P.S. endured caused him personal injuries, it could be argued that those personal injuries suffered by Mr. P.S. caused Mr. P.S. to act out his abuse on younger children living on Canadian Forces Base Namao. Therefore, a matter like this would have possibly exposed the Office of the Minister of National Defence to further civil legal action brought forth by the numerous other victims of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae.
So, it should be of no surprise to anyone, that the CFNIS would have kept this investigation away from the civilian authorities. After all, the civilian authorities have no fealty to the Office of the Minister of National Defence.
Remember, there has to be a reason why the CFNIS edited a statement that was given to them by Mr. P.S. in 2011.
Telephone call between Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock and Mr. P.S. “Already handled by the military”
Now, compare what Mr. P.S. stated to Sgt. Hancock with what Sgt. Hancock in turn submitted to the Alberta Crown.
Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock’s submission to the Alberta Crown.
I wonder why CFNIS investigator Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock felt the need for the Alberta Crown to not know that Mr. P.S. considers that the military has handled things for him.
And I don’t know about you, but I’m really curious to know just what exactly the military handled for Mr. P.S., who is a multi-time convicted child molester. And more importantly, why is the military handling things for child molesters?
Who ordered the charges against Captain McRae to be reduced?
I would find out in July of 2012 that Captain Father Angus McRae’s commanding officer was Colonel Dan Munro, the base commander of CFB Edmonton. Munro’s name is spelt without the “e”. Continue reading “Colonel Dan Munro…..”
Although I grew up in my father’s house, I know very little about him. He wasn’t a man that shared much of his life with anyone.
Richard was such a complicated man that to get through him will take a few posts.
The most that I ever knew about my father came after I had obtained my foster care records from the Alberta Government and when I examined my father for Federal Court in 2013.
Richard himself came from a dysfunctional household.
His mother, Margaret Winiandy, had been through Holy Angels residential school for Indian Children in Fort Chipewyan, AB.
Grandma had a drinking problem. She also had an affinity for the church.
Knowing now that she had been through residential school as a kid explains a lot of her issues.
Richard had two brothers. His eldest brother Norman was full Cree. Both Richard and his younger brother Douglas were from Margaret’s second marriage. By the time Richard invited his mother into the house to raise my brother and I, my grandmother had married a third man, Andy Anderson.
My uncle Doug had his Metis status, and in 1990 Doug encouraged me to apply for my status. Richard forbade this. My father would get very upset if you ever suggested to him that he was half Cree.
Richard’s father, Arthur Herman Gill, split when he was young and his mother moved her family from Peterborough, ON to Fort McMurray, AB.
Richard attended grade 1 through grade 9* at St. John’s Separate School in Fort McMurray, AB.
Questions from the examination of Richard GillRichard’s answers from the examination of Richard Gill
*Richard stated in 2013 that he had completed grade 9. Marie, my mother whom I tracked down in 2013, stated that Richard and my uncle Al, Marie’s brother, both had to take academic upgrading as both only had grade eight. Neither had completed grade 9. It was through this academic upgrading that Richard and Al became best buddies. And they enrolled in the Navy together and became inseparable until about ten years later.
As a kid, what I remember the most about Richard is that he was quick to anger. Asking him questions was akin to walking on broken glass.
Just after we moved to CFB Downsview, I had asked him for help with my math homework. We were still living in the LDH at 94 Sunfield Rd, so I know I was going to Sheppard Public at the time. I think the math question was something along the lines of long division. That was the first time he had ever hit me with a closed fist. It was a couple of days later that he tearfully apologized and said that he was going to take a math upgrading course and that he’d be able to help me with any math homework. That was another one of the many Richard promises that would come to naught. Yes, he took the upgrading course at York University and Seneca College, but knowing math and knowing how to teach math are two very separate issues.
Like most kids, I think I took an interest in electronics and mechanics to be closer to my father. But, this was a foolish endevor in my case.
Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t learn my electronics from him. Yes, his interest in electronics intrigued my interest in electronics. But most of my skills I got from either Radio Electronics, Popular Electronics, or the Radio Shack hobbyist books.
By the time I was 14, I was repairing arcade video games, pinball machines, and jukeboxes. I was honing my skills with real world technicians. Dorian was probably my greatest teacher. House and Winston would be second and third.
My father couldn’t teach. He could redicule. He could humilate. If you made a simple mistake, you were a fucking idiot. That’s just the way things were.
I remember asking him once how to do the calculation to determine the gain of an amplifier stage and he got seriously bent out of shape.
When I moved out of the house just after my 16th birthday, I went to work servicing video games, pinballs, and jukeboxes full time.
Electronics though was never a serious interest of mine. Yeah, I understand it. But no, I don’t get any pleasure from it. Pursuing your hopes and dreams was never something encouraged in Richard’s house. I don’t honestly know what I’d be doing today had I been encouraged or supported in my interests back then.
When I was 15 years old, I bought a 1977 Volkswagen Rabbit for $175.00 with money from my after school job repairing video games.
The car was a piece of crap as one could imagine. Floor pans were rotted out, rocker panels were shot, engine had a shot head gasket.
But it was my car. I even had it registered in my name. Just couldn’t insure it, and couldn’t get plates for it.
I bought the car so that I could get a membership at the base auto hobby club. My hope was that my father would come over to the club on the weekends and help me work on it.
Never happened.
In the days after it was brought homes, he pulled the head off the engine one weekend in the parking lot over by the PMQs. He said that he’d clean the head and block and then he’d put the head back on for me. He told me that I could watch, but that I had to stay out of his way and not ask questions or annoy him. That’s not what I wanted. The reason I bought the car is I wanted to learn how to work on cars. I didn’t buy the car so that I could watch him fix it for me.
In 2011 I tried tracking down my uncle Doug to see what he remembered about CFB Namao from 1980. Turns out that Doug had died in 2010. In speaking with Doug’s widow Yvonne she said something interesting about my father. She said that Richard was the type of guy who would always help, but if you asked for his help you had to stand back and stay out of his way because if you tried to help out as well or pointed out that he was doing something wrong he’d get very upset almost like a little child.
So one afternoon after school I sat out behind our PMQ with the head upside down and clamped in the Black and Decker workmate. I was following the instructions in the service manual that I had bought. I had even gone over to crappy tire and bought head gasket removing solvent and some knives made specifically for scraping head gaskets.
You’ll have to excuse my English, but holy fuck did Richard ever lose it. “Can’t you fucking do as you’re told”? “I told you I’d fix the fucking engine for you, I don’t need you fucking things up!”, “Don’t you understand that if you fuck this up, there’s no fixing the damn thing?”.
It was a $175.00 car that cost him nothing. He just didn’t get it.
Bill Parker overheard this exchange. He waited until Richard went into the PMQ. He told me to go put the engine head in the car and he’d make arrangements for my car to be towed to the auto club and then he’d help me work on the engine and get it fixed up and running right.
Bill Parker was a navy buddy of my father. They had served together on some of the ships at CFB Shearwater between 1963 and 1968.
When we lived on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater, I remember going for visits with the Parkers, and staying over at their house on occasion.
In 2013 I would make acquaintances with a woman named Pat Longmore who had been in the Royal Canadian Navy. She knew my father, she knew my mother, and she knew the Parkers. And she had some rather interesting information about the visits to the Parkers.
I’ll have more to say about the Parkers and Pat Longmore in a later post.
The autoclub was fun. Normally the club only gave out memberships to service members. But as Bill Parker was the president of the club, and Bob Wrightson, another former navy buddy of my father was the treasurer, rules were bent and I got a membership.
I was even supplied with a set of licence plates to put on the car to fool the base military police. Uninsured and unregistered vehicles were not permitted on a Defence Establishment, so the auto club had a collection of plates to thwart the MPs. The MPs at the time had to manually run plates if they wanted to run them. And this was time consuming, so they usually didn’t.
I had fun at the auto club. Tore the engine completely down and spent a month rebuilding it. Learnt how to do clutch jobs. Learnt how to do brake jobs. Brazing and TIG welding sheet metal was interesting. All these skills I learnt from the other guys in the auto club. Other members would pay me to do brake jobs on their cars.
Richard had an early ’80s Cadilac at one point while we lived on CFB Downsview. The car started to develop a fuel leak infront of the rear driver side wheel. The car was hard to start when the fuel leaked out. The car had two electric fuel pumps. One fuel pump was in the tank. The second pump was outside of the tank just in front of the rear wheel arch. Richard pulled up to the autoclub one weekend at the autoclub when I was there working on my car. Richard mater-of-factly pulled the car into one of the bays. He told me that he wanted me to look under the car and see if I could pinpoint the leak and then he’d deal with it. I slid under the rear of the car and he would cycle the ignition on and off to trigger the fuel pumps to prime. I started moving the hose that went between the pump in the tank to the external pump. When I moved the hose it split open and sprayed me in the face with high pressure gasoline. Bill Parker grabbed me by the ankles, pulled me out from under the car, and ran me over to the eyewash station and started washing the gasoline off my face and head. Bill had me take my gasoline soaked shirt off. Richard? Richard thought this was the funniest thing he ever saw. Richard told me that all I was supposed to do was find the leak, not make it worse.
In the aftermath of me having been found being buggered by the babysitter in his bedroom in the early spring of 1980, I became a social pariah on CFB Namao. I couldn’t even make it the distance between the babysitter’s family PMQ and my family PMQ without getting beaten up by about 5 or 6 of the teenaged boys that were in the group of 10 to 12 kids who appeared on the lawn of the babysitter’s family PMQ after someone discovered the two of us together in his bedroom.
Again, for the record, at the time I would have been 8 at the time, and the babysitter would have been just weeks shy of his 15th birthday.
And unlike what the Alberta Crown stated in November of 2011, a 14 year 11 month old boy having forced anal intercourse with an 8 year old boy is not a simple matter of “sexual curiosity and experimentation”.
From the office of the Alberta Crown Prosecutor The Crown couldn’t even be bothered to spell my name correctly.
It should be noted that it is not uncommon at all for victims of childhood sexual abuse to remain quiet for great periods of time before coming forward. And, had the CFNIS not failed to take my Alberta Social Service records into account, the CFNIS would have informed the Crown that there in fact was no one at home that I could have told.
School turned into an absolute nightmare as everyone at school knew what had happened. And unbeknownst to me at the time, the base military police were investigating the babysitter, and as a result of the babysitter’s confessions to the base military police the Canadian Forces Special Investigation Unit called in to investigate Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae for committing “Acts of Homosexuality” with teenage boys on the base.
Fred R. Cunningham was the acting section commander of the CFSIU at the time. When I spoke to Fred in November of 2011 he stated that what Mr. P.S. had been doing with younger children on the base was well known. Fred said that many families had complained to the base military police about the actions of Mr. P.S.. Fred told me that the base military police had interrogated Mr. P.S. in his family’s PMQ and that Mr. P.S. broke down and started crying and then named Captain Father Angus McRae as having been the adult that had shown him what to do. What Fred didn’t tell me during our telephone conversation is that he was with the CFSIU and that he had been tasked with investigating McRae. I’ll have more about my conversation with Mr. Cunningham in another post.
In July of 2015 I spoke with Jack, the father of Mr. P.S.. Jack stated pretty well much the same that Fred Cunningham had stated to me, that the base military police cam to his house and questions his son. Jack said that he told his son that “you can’t keep doing this” and that his son named Captain Father Angus McRae.
Yes, Captain McRae did face a court martial to answer to Criminal Code of Canada charges. This was well within the scope of military prosecutorial jurisdiction. Sections 155, 156, and 157 were not considered to be “Rape” so therefore they were not excluded from the military’s mandate.
However, according to both Fred Cunningham and Jack, the number of charges brought against Captain McRae had been dropped substantially to only the charges involving the sexual acts between McRae and Mr. P.S..
Cunningham stated that it was a decision of the “Brass”.
Jack stated that he never understood why out of 25 children involved that his son was the only one required to testify against Captain McRae.
So yeah, this turned into a massive fiasco on CFB Namao. No wonder the Canadian Forces “threw a wall of secrecy” over the court martial and sealed the evidence records.
“Under orders from superiors” They all are, aren’t they? “in-camera trial and none of the evidence needs to be made public” What were they trying to hide? The true number of children abused, that’s what.
The summer of 1980 was probably the loneliest summer of my life. I spent the entire summer hiding out from the other kids. I’d leave home early in the morning and go play in the woods. I wouldn’t return home until late in the evening.
When school started up in September, it was just as bad as it was at the end of the previous school year. The beatings, the taunting, and the teasing were relentless.
Just after my birthday in late September of 1980, my family was moved from Canadian Forces Base Namao to Canadian Forces Base Greisbach. This was a total distance of 10km. I thought that things would get better at my new school, Major General Greisbach School, but they didn’t. The kids at Major General Greisbach knew who I was even before I started there. The kids on CFB Namao knew the kids on CFB Greisbach, they played hockey together at the base rink on CFB Namao, they went to movies together at the theatre on CFB Namao. Some of the older kids from CFB Namao and from CFB Greisbach even attended M.E. Lazerte High School as neither school on CFB Namao or CFB Greisbach went beyond grade 9.
After my arrival at CFB Greisbach in October of 1980, I started going to see a man named Terry. Terry was different from the other adults that I knew at the time as he insisted that I call him by his first name. I probably did know Terry’s last name back then, but becuase I used it so infrequently I more than likely forgot about it. It wouldn’t be until August of 2011 that I would be reminded of Terry’s last name. I would also discover who his employer was.
Whenever I met with Terry, he was always dressed in suits.
At first, my visits with Terry were quite frequent, something around three times a week, right after school. Sometimes Terry would see me in a private room at the school, but mostly Terry would see me in an office over by the base administration offices.
Terry seemed to know what had happened on CFB Namao. Terry knew that I had been involved in with the babysitter and that it had been going on for a while. Terry was upset that I had apparently encouraged the babysitter to touch my younger brother. For the record, my father would often parrot this. Terry never mentioned anything about Captain Father Angus McRae, and I don’t honestly know if he knew anything about my visits to the chapel with the babysitter. But then again, after the “sickly sweet grape juice” I honestly can’t remember anything. The fact that I never remember how I got home after the visits to the chapel is always caused me concern. I know my grandmother caught me once while I was intoxicated. She was furious. She wanted to know which of the older kids on base had gotten me drunk. It wasn’t just any older kid on base. It was Mr. P.S. and Captain McRae.
There is one thing that has always stuck out in my mind. I can’t remember who said it to me. It was either Terry or my father. I was being driven over to Terry’s office by the base admin building. As we drove past the detention barracks on CFB Greisbach one of those two told me that if I didn’t smarten up, that I would end up in prison like the padre from CFB Namao as they pointed at the detention barracks.
Terry told me that he was convinced that I was showing signs of a mental illness as I had been caught having sex with another boy. Terry would often say that boys aren’t supposed to have sex with other boys. Terry would say that boys are supposed to have sex with girls.
Terry would frequently remind me that he had the military police watching me, and if the military police ever saw me kiss or touch another boy on base, that he’d send me off to the Alberta Hospital.
I’m almost certain that Terry is the reason why my bedroom door was taken off. My father told me just after we moved into the PMQ on CFB Greisbach that what I had done on CFB Namao proved that I couldn’t be trusted alone in my bedroom.
My grandmother, who was still living with us at the time, was very angry with my father for taking my bedroom door off. It’s too bad that my grandmother died back in 1986 because I’d sure love to know what she knew McRae fiasco.
I do know that it was Terry’s idea that I be kept away from sports as there would be a risk of me possibly seeing other boys in the change room. Once, my school sent home a permission slip for a field trip to the swimming pools at the Kinsmen Sports Centre in Edmonton. My father said that he wasn’t going to sign the permission slip as there would be other naked boys in the change room and that I wouldn’t be able to control myself.
This freaked me out because I was actually attracted to another boy. He was my age. He lived in PMQ #68, I lived in PMQ #79. We were quite attracted to one another. But I was quite conflicted back then. We were both 11 years old. He was a little older than me. On one hand I really liked him, but on the other hand both Terry and my father were telling me that what I had been caught doing (being buggered by a boy 2x my age) was a sign of mental illness. And then there was another issue. His father was a Sgt. in the army, quite possibly the Canadian Airborne Regiment. My father was a master corporal in the air force. When his father found out about the two of us, that was the end of our relationship. My father was beyond furious. He wanted to know what the fuck was so wrong with me that I couldn’t listen to what Terry was trying to help me with. My father told me that if another father on base ever complained about me being involved with their son that he’d break my fucking neck.
And no, I don’t believe that my abuse at the hands of McRae / Mr. P.S. made me attracted to other males. I think that predators like McRae search out children from dysfunctional homes. And like it or not, but there were a lot of dysfunctional families living on the PMQ patches back then. I also think that predators like McRae search out boys who may be different as they’re more likely to keep their mouths shut out of fear of others discovering the child’s “difference”.
My father was a lowly master corporal at the time. I would learn in 2011 why my father treated Terry’s words like gospel.
Around the start of the ’81 – ’82 school year, I started seeing more adults. There was Pat and Wayne and a few other adults. Sometimes we’d go for meetings where my father, Terry, Pat, and Wayne were all in attendance. Sometimes even my younger brother and my stepmother would attend.
It was after the first couple of meetings with Pat and Wayne that my bedroom door went back on, however, I was never to close the door. The only time the door was to be closed was if I was being punished.
The odd thing about these meetings with Pat and Wayne is that Terry never once brought up my “mental illness” or my attraction to other boys. And after I started seeing Pat and Wayne, both Terry and my father would caution me ahead of time to be very careful with what I said to Pat and Wayne as they’d twist my words.
Around xmas of ’82, Pat and Wayne would often pick me up from school and take me to a facility where there were other kids living in “pods”. They’d often ask me if I liked the idea of living in a pod with other kids and having kids my age that I could make friends with.
The Yellowhead Youth Centre – formerly Westfield.
Pat and Wayne at this time would also ask me if there was any family member that I possibly wanted to go live with.
None of this made any sense to me at the time.
Sometime in the new year of 1983, Pat, Wayne, and Terry took me out of class and had a talk with me. Pat did most of the talking, but when she said that they were going to take me away from my father, I freaked out.
The first mention of me being placed into foster care.
At the time I thought that it was my fault. My mother had left a few years prior, and my father had told me it was because I was so bad that it drove her crazy and she left. My grandmother had just recently left. And now Pat, Wayne, and Terry wanted to take me away from my father. I was pretty sure that Terry was going to send me to the Alberta Hospital. I ran out of the room and I barricaded myself in the boys washroom.
Pat and Wayne were trying to get me to calm down. Terry had other ideas. He kicked the partition door open, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me through the school back to the room we had been in. He then forced me into the chair, restrained me, and told me to shut up and do as I was told.
My reaction to learning that I was about to be removed from the home.
I remember looking at Pat and Wayne for help, and they seemed just as shocked as I was.
The day after.
Shortly after this, I never went to school again.
When I asked my father why I wasn’t allowed to go back to school, he said that my teachers had complained that I was still attracted to boys and therefore I had been expelled.
Shortly after this, we moved to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario.
We drove from CFB Greisbach to CFB Downsview in a small Datsun B210. Once we had crossed over the Saskatchewan border and were staying at our first motel I asked my father why we were moving. My father said that because I was still attracted to boys, my counselors wanted to give me drugs to stop me from liking boys. He said that he didn’t want me taking these drugs and that he was saving me from my counselors.
In August of 2011, I would learn the truth about what was going on back then. To help build my case against the babysitter, I started tracking down my school records from back then. I wanted to show the CFNIS that the abused I endured on CFB Namao had caused me some issues.
I made two startling discoveries in August of 2011. First, I discovered that I had been in foster care.
Second, I discovered that Terry wasn’t just some guy in a suit.
Terry was Canadian Armed Forces Officer Captain Terry Totzke. Captain Totzke was a military social worker.
My name used to be Robert Gill
Pat and Wayne were child care workers with Alberta Social Services.
According to the Alberta Social Service records, Captain Totzke had been called in by both mine and my brother’s school teachers just right after we had arrived on CFB Greisbach for the odd behaviour that we were exhibiting. I guess that 1-1/2 years of depraved sexual abuse will make children do odd things.
Somehow, Captain Totzke was aware of what had happened to me on CFB Namao, he was convinced that I just needed to stop being attracted to other boys and that everything would be fine. That’s why Captain Totzke had no concern whatsoever about the dysfunction in my household.
Totzke, being a military social worker, would have been involved with the enforcement of CFAO 19-20, which was the military’s policy for the “Sexual Abnormality, investigation, medical examination, and disposal”. Apparently homosexuals back then were less than trash and should simply be disposed of.
“Counselling and rehabilitation” a fancy term for “Conversion Therapy”
And again yes, I was not a member of the Canadian Forces, and CFAO 19-20 shouldn’t have applied to me. But CFAO 19-20 did set the attitude of military members towards “homosexuals”, and as Section 10 of CFAO 19-20 shows, the Canadian Forces believed that homosexuals could be “rehabilitated”, in other words the Canadian Armed Forces believed in “Conversion Therapy”
In November of 1981 our teachers and our school principal grew weary of Captain Totzke’s lack of action and called in Alberta Social Services. Alberta Social Services started doing home visits. These visits would correspond with my bedroom door being put back on my room.
My father, being the idiot that he often was, unwittingly signed the paperwork that admitted me into the foster care system in Alberta. I was at the first stage in which the child to be apprehended is allowed to remain in the household until a determination of risk can be made.
That determination came on January 26th, 1983. This was the day that Alberta Social Services warned Captain Terry Totzke that my removal from my father’s house was imminent and depended solely on my father attending family counselling as Alberta Social Services had determined that the dysfunction in my household was due to my father’s emotional issues and my father’s inability to control his anger.
I hadn’t been expelled from school.
The school I was attending was run by Westfield. It was a school for emotionally disturbed children. The children in this program often came from “at risk” dysfunctional homes. For me to attend this school, my father was required to sign the foster care admission paperwork. And if Alberta Social Services wanted to apprehend me, they could at anytime while I was at school.
Once I stepped foot back on base, that was a different story. Being that I lived on a Defence Establishment access to my house was subject to the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations. This meant that anyone who wasn’t subject to the Code of Service Discipline who wanted to step foot on the base technically needed the permission of someone within the Canadian Forces. And I’d be willing to bet you that Captain Totzke was not about to give Alberta Social Services permission to step foot on base to apprehend me.
I spoke with one of my child care workers around 2015. She remembered me. She also remembered Captain Totzke. She also remembered that Captain Totzke had a different agenda from what Alberta Social Services had.
Going through my social service records, my civilian child care workers and case workers never once voiced any concerns about my apparent homosexuality. They were more concerned with my father and his issues.
When Captain Totzke first became involved with my family, he sent my father, my brother, and I for psychological evaluations with a psychologist. I was found to be extremely fearful of men, I was convinced that my father was going to kill me, I absolutely did not like physical contact, I preferred to be left alone, and I loved to read. My I.Q. was evaluated to be 136 +/-6.
My father was found to not accept responsibility for his family, blamed others for problems with his family, blamed others for his problems, blamed his mother for the problems his sons were exhibiting,
Richard had no shame what so ever.
and he blamed his mother for hiding problems from him,.
The Gill family put the “fun” in dysfunctional .
After Alberta Social Services became involved with my family, my child care workers noted that my father’s anger was out of control, that he needed to learn how to direct his anger in a useful manner,
Richard’s anger issues were legendary.
and that he often used his frequent absences as excuses for not attending family counselling. He also often told conflicting stories.
Richard would often promise one thing one day and then renege on that promise the very next day.
I wasn’t the only boy from CFB Namao that had been messed with by Captain Terry Totzke. There was another family of boys that had become involved with Totzke in the days after the McRae fiasco. The eldest brother appears to have been dealt with the hardest by Totzke. This boy ended up committing suicide years later. This boy’s younger brother blames the treatment they received in the days after the McRae fiasco as being something the older brother never recovered from and it was something that haunted the older brother.
There was also another family from CFB Namao. Two older boys and one girl. Both of the older boys had apparently been involved with Captain McRae. Both of the boys ended up seeing a military social worker. The boys ended up sexually assaulting the young sister in an apparent attempt to show that they obviously weren’t homosexuals.
Due to the 3-year time bar that existed in the National Defence Act prior to 1998, Captain Terry Totzke could never be investigated by a modern day investigation in order to ascertain exactly what it was that he was doing with the boys from CFB Namao who had been caught up in the Captain McRae / Mr. P.S. child sex abuse scandal.
And I have severe doubts that the Canadian Armed Forces have any appetite to ask the Canadian Forces Ombudsman to investigate how many male military dependants were forced to undergo “conversion therapy” at the hands of the military social workers.
And then there’s the matter of records. If it wasn’t for my civilian social service records, I would never have known that Terry was actually an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces. Soon after I received my Alberta Social Service records, I submitted a request to DND for the military’s records of my involvement with Captain Totzke.
Obviously I have no idea who has these records. It is virtually impossible for me to know where these records are being held.
This means that anyone who had their brain messed with by a military social worker when they were young faces an uphill battle to prove that they were in fact involved with the military social workers. And if you can’t prove that you had involvement, then DND doesn’t have to apologize for any mistreatment that you had received.
I can only wonder how many former military dependants took their own lives as a result of this.
One of the most signifcant examples of “Conflict of Interest” that I have ever seen is having the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service investigating crimes that could cause the Office of the Minister of National Defence to suffer civil actions.
Much as when Mr. P.S. sued Angus McRae in March of 2001, anyone who wants to initiate a civil action against a person who had sexually abused them while the abuser was subject to the Code of Service Discipline would also be required to sue the Office of the Minister of National Defence.
Granted, I can’t recall any sexual abuse at the hands of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae. However, that’s more a function of the alcohol that Captain McRae had his altar boy, Mr. P.S. give to me on the five distinct visits to McRae’s living quarters at the base chapel.
We know from the findings of the Fynes Public Interest Hearings that the investigators with the CFNIS do not run their own investigations. The chain of command within the CFNIS determine the scope and breadth of any particular CFNIS investigation.
This is one of the reason why you never hear of investigators within the CFNIS making “interference” complaints to the Military Police Complaints Commission. There can be no interference with a CFNIS investigation. CFNIS investigation do not belong to the investigator. Investigations that fall within the CFNIS mandate are always designed by the chain of command within the CFNIS.
Around 2016, Sgt Damon Tenaschuk told me he was about to submit a brief to the Alberta Crown. Sgt. Tenaschuk asked me if I thought he had done enough. I asked him if he had found other victims or witnesses. He said that he had not. So I asked him about running a Crime Stoppers appeal. He said to me that he would have to speak with his commanding officer to see if his C/O thought that this would be okay to do.
This was the Crime Stoppers Appeal. Even though the connection between Captain McRae and Mr. P.S. had been well established, you’d be hard pressed to know that McRae had molested over 25 children on CFB Namao in this time period.
When Mr. P.G. made himself known to me as another victim of Mr. P.S., I passed his name on to Sgt, Damon Tenaschuk. Sgt. Tenaschuk informed me that CFNIS chain of command had decided that Mr. P.G.’s statement would be a separate complaint from mine and that my investigation would not contain any statement from Mr. P.G..
So, as you can see, it is the chain of command that runs the CFNIS investigations and not the CFNIS investigators. The CFNIS investigators are nothing more than “meat puppets” that dance as per their master’s wishes.
The anatomy of a CFNIS investigation.
Much is made about the apparent “independence” of the CFNIS from local chain of command interference. However, the investigators within the CFNIS as well as the officers within the CFNIS hierarchy are all still subject to section 83 of the National Defence Act.
Section 83 of the National Defence Act sounds like a perfect reason as to why someone should just go along with the game plan and not make waves. And no, there are no exemptions from section 83. Section 83 applies to every person who is subject to the Code of Service Discipline all the way from the Chief of Defence Staff all the way down to a fresh new baby faced recruit.
One thing that I am almost certain of now, is that due to the sheer number of children that Captain Father Angus McRae and his altar boy Mr. P.S.. molested on Canadian Forces Base Namao, I don’t think I’m anywhere near the first person to have ever brought a complaint against Mr. P.S..
Mr. P.S. had criminal convictions going back to 1985.
Mr. P.S. convictions in 1985
In the summer of 2012, I had made acquaintances with an RCMP constable from the Morinville Detachment in Edmonton. This Constable was the one who told me Mr. P.S.’s date of birth was June 20th, 1965. This was the first hint I had that the CFNIS were being far less than truthful with me when Sgt. Cyr tried to tell me that Mr. P.S. was only 13 years old in 1980. Under the Juvenile Delinquents Act, a person under the age of 14 could not be tried for Criminal Code offences.
The RCMP constable that I had dealt with also ran a CPIC check on Mr. P.S.. The constable wouldn’t tell me any exact details from the CPIC check other than that in addition to the charges and convictions mentioned in the newspaper article, that Mr P.S. had numerous more convictions between 1985 and 2000. Some but not all the convictions were for child sexual assault. Now, what if these charges and convictions in the ’90s weren’t for “current” sexual assaults? What if this was other kids from CFB Namao coming forward with complaints against Mr. P.S. for what he had done on CFB Namao.
On January 14, 2000, Mr. P.S. tried to commit suicide. What if Mr. P.S.’s suicide attempt was due to the fact that he knew he was never going to be able to escape what he had done on CFB Namao? Both the 3-year time bar flaw and the summary investigation flaw meant that Captain Father Angus McRae could never be held responsible for what had occurred on CFB Namao from 1978 until 1980. However, as Mr. P.S. was not subject to the Code of Service Discipline, he could be held responsible for what had happened on CFB Namao, regardless of the fact that Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae may have forced or induced Mr. P.S. to act the way he did on CFB Namao from 1978 until 1980.
That I think would drive anyone to the point of suicide.
It is apparent now that the CFNIS knew right from the word go of the connection between Mr. P.S. and Captain Father Angus McRae.
When I was interviewed by Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock in March of 2011, he asked me some peculiar questions during the video interview that didn’t make sense at the time. When Sgt. Christian Cyr contacted me on May 3rd, 2011 and told me that Mr. P.S. was only 13 years old in the spring of 1980 he was trying to set me up to believe that Mr. P.S. was too young at the time of the sexual offences to have charges brought against him. And if Sgt. Cyr had just shut his damn mouth at the time, I might have believed him. But Sgt. Cyr had to be a dumbass and he had to mention Captain Father Angus McRae being arrested for molesting children on the base. It was at that point that I knew something was going wrong with the investigation.
Then on July 18th, 2011 during a telephone conversation between myself and Master Warrant Officer Terry Eisenmenger, MWO Eisenmenger told me that his investigators couldn’t find any evidence that Mr. P.S. had committed the crimes that I had accused him of and that this case was going no where due to a complete lack of evidence. It was interesting when I made my application for Judicial Review in 2013 and I received the certified tribunal records, I discovered that when I spoke to MWO Eisenmenger, the CFNIS hadn’t yet talked to any other victims or even tried to contact Mr. P.S. at that point in time.
All of this tells me that the CFNIS are well aware of who Mr. P.S. is. And I have no doubt in my mind that the CFNIS are well aware of the $4.3 million dollar civil action that Mr. P.S. brought against the Minister of National Defence in March of 2001.
I also have no doubt that the CFNIS are well aware that the Office of the Minister of National Defence accepted Legal Liability for the personal injuries that Mr. P.S. suffered at the hands of Captain McRae.
I have the Department of Justice paperwork from when the DOJ represented the Minister of National Defence in this matter. Most of it is blanked out. But it is safe to say that in convincing Mr. P.S. to settle out of court, the Office of the Minister of National Defence agreed to certain terms favourable to Mr. P.S.. I can only wonder if one of these terms is that the Office of the Minister of National Defence agreed to ensure that Mr. P.S. would no longer face any “harassment” related to his actions on CFB Namao in the years of 1978 until 1980. I know this sounds crazy, but there’s the conversation that Mr. P.S. had with CFNIS investigator Sgt. Damon Tenaschuk in August of 2011.
What exactly was Mr. P.S. talking about when he said that anything he had been involved in as a youth “had already been handled by the military”. Is Mr. P.S. referring to the terms of his out of court settlement with the Minister of National Defence? If the CFNIS were to have brought charges against Mr. P.S., and this broke the terms of the out of court settlement agreement, would this allow Mr. P.S. to take further action against the Minister of National Defence hence the comment “a lawyer would be handling that”?
What’s very interesting is that the CFNIS scrubbed the line “anything he had been involved in as a youth had already been handled by the military” from the Crown Brief that was submitted to the Alberta Crown both in 2011 and in 2018.
This is what Sgt. Damon Tenaschuk submitted to the Alberta Crown in 2018 Notice something missing?This is what was submitted by Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock in 2011
Besides that fact that Sgt. Damon Tenaschuk basically resubmitted the 2011 CFNIS investigation Crown Brief to the Alberta Crown again in 2018, it’s rather intersting that the CFNIS thought there was a need to remove the comment about the military “handling things” for Mr. P.S.
The sad thing is, it looks as if the Alberta Crown doesn’t know, or doesn’t care that it was fed a load of B.S.
And this brings me right back around to the issue of Conflict of Interest.
The CFNIS were well aware of the history of Mr. P.S., and in doing a CPIC check on Mr. P.S., they would have discovered that they were dealing with a sexual predator that had a thing for young children.
Yes, these past convictions from 1984 onward don’t necessarily prove that Mr. P.S. sexually abused me, my brother, and 4 other children that I knew he abused on a regular basis. However, these past convictions do prove that Mr. P.S. is deserving of a thorough investigation. An investigation that would be more deeper and detailed than someone who had a CPIC record check that came back negative for any criminal interactions.
What this does tell me though is that the CFNIS investigation was influenced by chain of command authority in such a manner as to ensure that Mr. P.S. was never again charged for any crime that he committed on Canadian Forces Base Namao after the date of his 14th birthday on June 2oth, 1979.
The only question is this.
Was this decision made so as not to break any covenant agreed to in the out of court settlement between Mr. P.S. and the Office of the Minister of National Defence, or was this decision not to charge Mr. P.S. made solely to ensure that the chain of liability between the Office of the Minister of National Defence and the victims of both Mr. P.S. and Captain McRae remains severed?
Remember, the Office of the Minister of National Defence did accept General Legal Liability for the personal injuries that Mr. P.S. suffered at the hands of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae. Now that the Office of the Minister of National Defence has accepted liability for the abuse Mr. P.S. suffered, how hard would it be for the victims of Mr. P.S. to also make claims of liability against the Office of the Minister of National Defence? If there had been criminal convictions brought against Mr. P.S., claims of civil liability would be rather elementary to establish in court. Without criminal convictions brought against Mr. P.S., suing the Office of the Minister of National Defence would be a fruitless endeavour as the Office of the Minister could argue that no crime occurred.
And the Minister just happens to be ultimately in charge of the police force that would possibly subject his own office to civil liability.
And this is why I believe that this whole investigation from the word “Go” has been a classic textbook example of what a conflict of interest looks like.
If you thought that yesterday’s post relating to the 3-year time bar flaw was interesting, you ain’t seen anything yet.
Legislative Summary LS-311E detailed another interesting flaw that existed in the National Defence Act prior to 1998. The flaw had been temporarily addressed via an administrative order in November of 1997, but nonetheless this flaw was so substantial that it had to be addressed by Bill C-25 “An Act to Make Amendments to the National Defence Act”.
Sections 160 to 162 of the 1985 National Defence ActSections 138 through 140 of the 1970 National Defence Act
Section 138 of the 1970 Act, and Section 160 of the 1985 Act defines “commanding officer” as being the commanding officer of the accused. In the case of Captain Father Angus McRae, the Canadian Forces have confirmed that CFB Namao base commander Colonel Dan Munro was Captain McRae’s commanding officer.
Section 139 of the 1970 Act, and Section 161 of the 1985 Act both stipulate that after a person subject to the Code of Service Discipline has been charged with a Service Offence, the commanding officer of the accused will conduct a summary investigation.
Section 140 of the 1970 Act, and Section 162 of the 1985 Act both stipulate that the commanding officer of the accused has the power to dismiss charges brought against their subordinate. Or the commanding officer could cause the charges to proceed against their subordinate.
The Canadian Forces didn’t have an independent “prosecutor” until after the passing of Bill C-25 in 1998. The commanding officer had the primary discretion to either proceed with charges or to dismiss the charges. Once the commanding officer made this decision, they would pass this up the chain of command to the “prosecutor”.
The Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia had some very serious reservations of the Commanding Officer acting as a prosecutorial agent. The Commission found that commanding officers could operate as investigators, prosecutors, and judiciary. The Commission pointed out that in the Civilian justice system, those three roles were conducted by three completely separate entities. Civilian police have no sway over the prosecutors and prosecutors have no sway over the judiciary. Commanding officers on the other hand could be subjected to “command influence”. Military police officers had to obey the commands of superior officers.
What did Legislative Summary LS-311E have to say about Section 160 to 162 of the 1985 National Defence Act?
Page 18 of Legislative Summary LS-311E
The decision to prosecute or not to prosecute was in the hands of commanding officers prior to November of 1997. As the Somalia Inquiry discovered, these commanding officers had no legal training, no legal background, swore no peace officer’s oath. Their decisions could easily be influenced by the chain of command as well as the commanding officer’s own parochial interests.
What charges could a commanding officer dismiss prior to November of 1997? Gross Indecency; Indecent Assault; Buggery; Sexual Interference; Invitation to Sexual Touching; and Sexual Exploitation. These were crimes that the Canadian Forces were not precluded from conducting a service tribunal for.
“regardless of whether or not the commanding officer would have the authority to try the accused on the charge”
What I am not certain of, but seems to be indicated nonetheless by the language in the italics on page 18 of Legislative Summary LS-311e, is could commanding officers dismiss charges related to Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape? Commanding officers definitely would not have had the authority to try the accused on the charges of Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape.
What is the fallout of a commanding officer dismissing charges prior to November of 1997?
As LS-311E states “the effect of a decision of a commanding officer to dismiss a charge is that no other authority – military or civil- can thereafter proceed against the accused on the charge or any substantially similar offence arising out of the same facts”.
This means that anyone, who as a child was sexually abused on a military base, and whose abuser had their charges dismissed or reduced by their abuser’s commanding officer, could never bring charges against their abuser today.
According to the babysitter’s father, with whom I spoke to in July of 2015, the military police on CFB Namao in 1980 knew of 25 other children being molested by Captain McRae.
According to former Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit acting section commander Fred R. Cunningham, with whom I spoke in November of 2011, the military police in 1980 had numerous more charges ready to go to court martial against McRae, but that the “brass” reduced the number of charges brought against Captain McRae to only those involving the babysitter / altar boy.
Why did the Canadian Forces try to bury this matter in 1980?
It would have been quite embarrassing for the Canadian public to have found out that an officer with the Canadian Armed Forces had been committing “Acts of Homosexuality” with children as young as five years of age, on a military base none the less.
What were the implications of dropping the “excess” charges against Captain McRae and only charging him with enough offences to get him booted out of the military? If any child between May of 1980 and May of 1983 had tried to bring charges against Captain McRae, and those charges were similar to the charges that had been dropped, Captain McRae could not be charged.
What are the implications of the 3-year time bar? Anyone who had been sexually abused by Captain McRae would never have been able to bring charges against McRae after May of 1983.
It is apparent that the 3-year time bar flaw and the Summary Investigation flaw make it almost virtually impossible for anyone who was sexually abused as a child to bring charges against their abuser.
I wish I could say that these two flaws were the only issues that could stymie a person’s quest for justice.
However, as I will discuss in future blog postings, there are other issues at play that stand as road blocks to justice.
One of two horrific flaws in the pre-1998 National Defence Act.
Before I go too far into the details of what happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao in the years of 1978 until 1980, I’m going to first examine two historical flaws in the National Defence Act that greatly impact the ability of the Canadian Forces to investigate historical child sexual abuse that occurred on the military bases in Canada prior to 1998. These flaws may actually interfere with modern day CFNIS investigations.
1998 is an important year in that this was when Parliament passed Bill C-25 “An Act to make Amendments to the National Defence Act”. Legislative Summary LS-311E accompanied Bill C-25.
Per the Library of Parliament web page: Legislative Summaries Legislative Summaries are non-partisan, concise analyses of bills. They are prepared for government bills concerning new initiatives or changes to existing legislation and for significant private members’ bills and Senate public bills.
In layman’s terms, a Legislative Summary is a detailed overview of the contents contained within a Bill without all of the legalese that goes along with a Bill.
I became aware of LS-311E and Bill C-25 quite by accident in April of 2014. I forget exactly what I had been searching for at the Law Library at the Supreme Court of British Columbia, but I came across Legislative Summary LS-311E.
This section of LS-311E talks about removing the “3-year” time bar from the National Defence Act.
This is what the time bar actually looked like in the 1985 National Defence Act.
This is what the time bar looked like in the 1970 National Defence Act.
And this is what the time bar looked like in the 1950 National Defence Act.
Subsection 2 relates to Mutiny, Desertion, AWOL, or any service offence for which the punishment was death.
What are “Service Offences?” Service Offences include Offences Punishable by Ordinary Law, which in simple terms means criminal code offences.
Under the Criminal Code of Canada, indictable offences have no statute of limitations. However, the National Defence Act, via Section 60 from 1950 until 1970, and Section 59 from 1970 until 1998, placed a three year statute of limitations on ALL Criminal Code of Canada matters that were enumerated into the National Defence Act by Section 130.
This means that offences such as Gross Indecency(157-1970), Indecent Assault(156-1970), Buggery(155-1970), Sexual Interference(151-1985), Invitation to Sexual Touching(152-1985), Sexual Exploitation(153-1985) which have no statute of limitations under the Criminal Code of Canada, do in fact have a statute of limitations under the pre-1998 National Defence Act.
From 1950 until 1985, the Canadian Forces could not hold a service tribunal for the crimes of Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape. And from 1985 until 1998, the Canadian Forces could not hold a service tribunal for the crimes of Murder, Manslaughter, and Sexual Assault.
It must be pointed out that in the pre-1985 Criminal Code of Canada, Rape was a crime that could only be committed against females. Males could never be the victim of rape under the pre-1985 Criminal Code of Canada. Even at that, Rape was rarely the preferred charge when a female child was sexually assaulted. This means that the Canadian Forces could hold service tribunals for the crimes of Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery. And this also meant that the 3-year time bar applied to these crimes.
Sexual Assault(271), Sexual Assault with a Weapon(272), and Aggravated Sexual Assault(273) in the 1985 Criminal Code of Canada are completely separate charges from Sexual Interference(151), Invitation to Sexual Touching(152), and Sexual Exploitation(153). This means that while the Canadian Forces may have been precluded from conducting a service tribunal for Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault with a Weapon, and Aggravated Sexual Assault, there was absolutely nothing preventing the Canadian Forces from holding a service tribunal for the crimes of Sexual Interference, Invitation to Sexual Touching, and Sexual Exploitation. The problem with this is that the three year time bar applies to all pre-1998 instances of Sexual Interference, Invitation to Sexual Touching, and Sexual Exploitation, which all just happen to be offences that apply only to child victims.
And I know that this 3-year time bar actually impacts the ability of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service to conduct modern day investigations.
I had asked Mr. Tenaschuk about the possibility of investigating the former base commander of Canadian Forces Base Namao to see whether or not he committed the offence of “obstruction of justice” during the investigation of his immediate subordinate, Captain Father Angus McRae.
“Obstruction of Justice” is an indictable offence under the Criminal Code of Canada.
The response that I received from Mr. Tenaschuk confirms that basically any criminal code offence that occurred on a base in Canada prior to 1998 cannot be investigated due to the 3-year time bar that applies to ALL service offences which occurred prior to 1998.
I recently watched a Netflix series called “Unbelievable”. This is a must watch program if you’re ever interested in just how badly the police themselves can screw up an investigation.
The story starts off in August of 2008 when an 18 year old woman named “Marie” makes a report to the Lynnwood Police Department that she had been raped. The police investigators in this matter screwed up the investigation from the start. They hounded “Marie”, they intimidated “Marie”, they made “Marie” repeat her story over and over all the while picking her story apart due to what they considered to be “inconsistencies”. The investigating officers placed special emphasis upon the statements of two of “Marie’s” former foster parents who thought that “Marie” wasn’t behaving like someone who had just been raped. In the end, “Marie” was coerced into admitting that she made the whole story up. The Lynnwood Police charged “Marie” with making a “False Report” In March of 2009 she was fined $500 by the courts and sentenced to probation, and ordered to attend counselling.
It wouldn’t be until February of 2011 that “Marie” was proved to have not lied at all. The FBI along with two Colorado police detectives from two different Colorado police departments arrested a man named Marc O’Leary. Upon searching his house for evidence, the police found a hard drive that contained pictures of “Marie” the night she had been raped and photographed by Marc O’Leary.
The two Lynnwood Police sergeants that had originally coerced “Marie” into admitting that she lied faced no repercussions. The City of Lynnwood did however refund “Marie” her $500 fine. “Marie” later settled out of court with the city for $150k.
How did this happen? I wish I knew. But, from my personal experience, this happens quite frequently. Police quite frequently start investigations with preconceived biases already floating around inside of their skulls.
In my case, I have no doubt in my mind that the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service was well aware of who my abuser was, I have no doubt in my mind that the CFNIS knew about my abuser’s lengthy criminal record with numerous charges and convictions for sexual crimes involving children, I also have no doubt that the CFNIS knew of the direct connection between Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae, and my abuser, Mr. P.S.
Much like in “Marie’s” matter, my care giver at the time I was being abused gave the CFNIS in 2011 a false statement. Why’d he give the CFNIS a false statement? My Alberta Social Service paperwork from my childhood contained a report from a psychologist that had been hired by the Canadian Forces in October of 1980 to evaluate my family. This psychologist found that my father accepted no responsibility for his family, blamed others for problems with his family, expected others to solve his problems for him. My child case workers noted that my father often told conflicting stories from one session to the next, and that he often told people in positions of authority what they wanted to hear.
I honestly don’t remember much of my father from before we were posted to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in the spring of 1983. Prior to us living on CFB Downsview, my father was usually frequently away on training exercises or missions with the Canadian Forces. I know that on CFB Shearwater, he was frequently away. He was also away frequently when we lived on CFB Summerside. After my mother left in the spring of 1977, my father asked his mother to move in with us and raise my brother and I. When my grandmother moved back to Edmonton in the spring of 1978, my father received a compassionate posting to CFB Namao to be near his mother. Upon our arrival at CFB Namao, grandma and her husband moved into the house on base to again raise my brother and I. My father was infrequently home.
I think my father told the CFNIS investigators what they wanted to hear because he didn’t want to own up to the fact that it was his own alcoholic mother that he had brought into the house to raise his kids hired the babysitter that would end up molesting his sons for over a year and a half.
I also think that my father still bore some shame for the way that he would stand aside while I was psychologically traumatized in his presence by Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke. My father never once stood up to Captain Totzke. Sadly, my father seemed to absorb Captain Totzke’s ideas, and my father brought those ideas into our house on CFB Greisbach. I’ll talk more about Captain Totzke in a later post.
When I had my first frank talk with my father back in 2006 about Mr. P.S. and what he had done to me and my brother, my father wasn’t shocked. In fact my father had named Mr. P.S.. My father implored me to understand that he had nothing to do with the hiring of Mr. P.S. and that hiring Mr. P.S. had been my grandmother’s fault and that she was to blame.
I think my father’s statement played right into the hands of the chain of command within the CFNIS as when I spoke with Master Warrant Officer Terry Eisenmenger on July 18th, 2011, he stated that the CFNIS couldn’t find any evidence to corroborate my complaint against Mr. P.S. and that it looked as if my complaint was groundless and without merit.
Captain Father Angus McRae became an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces in 1973. Captain McRae joined the military as a chaplain. According to court martial documents, Captain McRae had been investigated for “Acts of Homosexuality” while he was at RMC Kingston at CFB Kingston in Ontario. The reason that “Acts of Homosexuality” is in quotes, is that is also what the Canadian Forces investigated Captain McRae for in 1980 when he was suspected of committing the crimes of Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery, with numerous male children on Canadian Forces Base Namao from the summer of 1978 until May of 1980. The question is, was Captain McRae involved with young boys on CFB Kingston?
In between McRae’s posting at RMC Kingston and CFB Namao, he had been posted to Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island. According to another base brat from a Facebook group, McRae was known to have been involved with a teenage boy on the station.
After McRae was quietly booted from the military in July of 1980, he made his way to the kiddie-diddler recycling centre called Southdown in Ontario. After his brief stint in “counselling” he was allowed to become involved with a church in Scarborough, Ontario in the late 1980s. McRae was arrested and charged with molesting two brothers. McRae was going to plead innocent until the Ontario Crown informed him that there were at least 10 other children ready to come forward with complaints that McRae had sexually abused them.
McRae wasn’t the only military chaplain with a questionable past. Retired Brigadier General Roger Bazin was arrested and charged in 2011 with molesting a boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1974. I will have more to say about Bazin later.
The military was the perfect place for these perverts to molest children. Rank was very important on base. If the son of a corporal were to come forward and make a complaint against a Captain or a Major, who do you think the military police would believe?
Also, back in the days I lived on the bases, homophobia was very much a thing. No male child in their right mind would want anyone else on base knowing that they had sex, consensual or otherwise, with another male.
Sadly, Captain McRae died on May 18th, 2011. This was two and a half months after the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service started looking into the complaint I had made against Captain McRae’s altar boy, Mr. P.S.. According to Master Warrant Officer Terry Eisenmenger, the CFNIS will not open an investigation into the connection between Captain McRae and his altar boy, Mr. P.S. as McRae is dead.
I’m sure that McRae’s death isn’t the only reason why the CFNIS won’t investigate to see the connection between McRae and Mr. P.S.. There are two flaws in the pre-1998 National Defence Act which conspire to prevent charges from being laid against anyone who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline prior to 1998. I’ll go into detail about these two flaws in upcoming posts.
I was a military dependant as a child. In otherwords, I was an itinerant moving from one side of this country to the other at the whim of my father’s military career.
I lived on military bases from the day I was born until months into my 16th year. I lived in 6 different houses on 5 different bases in four different provinces by the time I was 12. If you include the 2 months that I moved back in with my father when I was 18, I lived in 7 different PMQs on 6 bases in four provinces. But hey, who’s counting.
You would think that living on a military base would be the safest place for a child, but sadly this isn’t the case. A child was just as likely to be sexually assaulted on base as they were to be sexually assaulted off base. The primary difference between the child assaulted on base and the child assaulted off base is that the child assaulted off base was more likely to receive justice that the child sexually assaulted on base.
As this blog goes on, I will be highlighting the historical flaws in the National Defence Act which serve to prevent persons who were sexually abused on base prior to 1998 from receiving any type of recognition or justice for the abuse they endured. Parliament has the ability to rectify these issues. But it remains to be seen if the Minister of National Defence will ever acknowledge these flaws.
Okay, so I’ve decided to move my blog from Google Blogger over to WordPress. The biggest change is that I own the domain: cfbnamao.ca
The next biggest change is that I will be able to use the WordPress Android app to make mobile posts. The Blogger app seems to have become a very low priority for Google and it hasn’t been updated in quite a while.
As usual, this blog is going to touch on child sexual abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces.
I will be posting mainly new content on this blog, but over time I will be bringing most of my content from the blogger site over to this site
Child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces 