Guess who might not see a single red fucking cent from his class action brought against the Canadian Armed Forces.
I kid you not.
Even if the DOJ goes ahead and settles this matter out of court, I might not see a single nickel from the action.
See, even though the babysitter had been groomed by Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae. And even though the babysitter had been recommended to families such as mine by Captain Father Angus McRae in his role as padre for the base. And even though Captain McRae was using the babysitter to bring us young children over to the rectory attached to the chapel. And even though the chain of command made decisions to not bring the RCMP to deal with the babysitter and the horrific crimes he committed against the children living on the base, the Government is arguing that the babysitter was not a member of the Canadian Forces and that Captain McRae had no real authority over the babysitter and therefore the Government of Canada is not responsible to compensate those who were only abused by the babysitter.
But Bobbie, didn’t you say that the babysitter had taken you over to the chapel on five different occasions and that at Captain McRae’s request he gave you a “sickly sweet grape juice” which was later determined to be wine?
Well, because the CFNIS never undertook that investigative path in 2011 after I told the CFNIS about the visits to the chapel, there was never any investigation into this.
And the CFSIU investigation paperwork from 1980 doesn’t help much as the military police and the CFSIU conceded during their investigations that they had only touched the tip of the iceberg, that not all of the parents on Canadian Forces Base Name wanted their children associated with the obvious taint that would have come from being a male victim of male-on-male sexual abuse and so they wouldn’t let their children be interviewed by the investigators.
And then there’s that fact the some of Captain McRae’s abuse victims along with the victims of the babysitter had moved off the base during the summer of 1979 posting season and weren’t around to be interviewed by the military police and the CFSIU in May of 1980 when the babysitter’s activities along with Captain McRae’s activities became know to the military police, the CFSIU, and the base chain of command.
Am I angry?
nope.
Am I upset?
nope.
Am I surprised?
nope.
I’ve spent the last 12 years learning about the military justice system.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the Canadian Armed Forces are literally fucked seven ways from Sunday.
It’s an organization, that while not brimming full of child molesters and pedophiles, will do anything it can to not own up to the fact that its twisted and broken “justice system” as well as its self-interested parochial chain of command knew that there were pedophiles and child molesters praying on military dependents but was happy to look the other way so as not to create a public relations nightmare.
I can’t ever see the Department of National Defence or the Canadian Armed Forces owning up to and fixing this mess. They don’t have to. They’re so fucking untouchable that they never have to worry.
They’re not legally obligated to look after military dependents.
Ethically, sure. Legally, no.
Again, look at how the Canadian Armed Forces fucked over the 12 to 18 year old Army Cadets from Canadian Forces Base Valcartier in 1974 from the “grenade incident”. The only people in the room who received any type of help when a grenade detonated were the regular force members who were negligent in their duties and allowed the grenade in to the barracks and allowed the cadets to handle and play with it.
From 1974 until 2011 the Canadian Armed Forces told the victims and the families of the victims who died to basically fuck off and go pound sand due to the civilian nature of the cadets. The DND and the CAF weren’t legally responsible, the kids were on the base at their own risk.
Finally in 2011 the Ombudsman released a scathing report that chastised the Canadian Forces for compensating the negligent members of the Canadian Forces who allowed the bloodshed to occur while at the same time ignoring the death, pain, and suffering that the cadets aged 12 to 18 endured.
And that’s where I am at along with all of the other victims of the babysitter.
So far as General W.D. EYRE and the rest of the chain of command at National Defence Head Quarters are concerned, the child victims of Captain Father Angus McRae and his teenaged accomplice can go fuck themselves in the politest of terms.
To men such as General W.D. EYRE and even women such as Minister of National Defence Anita Anand are concerned the children from Canadian Forces Base Name and the other bases that Captain McRae served at are just collateral damage that must be endured in order to keep the image of the Canadian Armed Forces unblemished.
Well, my lawyer has informed me that the Department of Justice and the Department of National Defence wish to initiate mediation in an attempt to reach a settlement.
Hopefully this matter doesn’t come with too onerous of a Non Disclosure Agreement.
And hopefully the DOJ and DND make good on their offer to compensate ALL victims of Captain Father Angus McRae.
On November 7th and 8th my first lawyer and I will have a meeting with the lawyers in the matter of Earl Ray Stevens. This meeting is to see if all sides can reach a final agreement on the matter of an “out of court” settlement.
I don’t know what to expect with this meeting. The lawyer for the defendant in this matter has postulated that by the time Earl Ray Stevens abused me at the Denison Armouries when I was in cadets that I was already “damaged” from the abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao. He even seemed to have honed in on items from my foster care records that I wasn’t even aware of.
One such thing that he honed in on came about because my lawyer had requested a fresh copy of my foster care records from the Alberta government at the start of this matter. I had never seen the quoted text that the lawyer for the defendant read during the meeting because this was redacted from the copy of the records I had obtained in 2011.
In this formerly redacted section my father had told the psychologist hired by the Canadian Armed Forces in November of 1980 that he blamed my behaviour and the behaviour of my brother on his mother, specifically stating this “his mother was frequently cruel to his children, especially when she was inebriated”.
This by the way is the same mother that Richard wrote out of our family history when he gave his statement to the CFNIS in 2011.
So I’ll have to see what the future holds so far as this settlement goes.
I received an interesting telephone call from my other lawyer on Friday. It seems that the Department of Justice is curious to whether or not I would entertain the possibility of an out of court settlement. As this matter is a class action this would affect all members of the class. we don’t have anything to lose on this.
The DOJ and DND may insist that if we take the out of court settlement that we’d have to agree to be bound by an NDA. This is something that I would have to discuss with my lawyer.
That said, an out of court settlement in the Captain McRae matter from Canadian Forces Base Namao would resolve the matter in a fairly quick time unlike the 10 to 15 years that the DOJ had warned me they would drag this matter out for.
Questions that I would have are would there be any payments towards the families of the victims of Captain McRae and his 14 year old accomplice who committed suicide over the years as a result of the abuse and the failure of DND and the CF to look after the victims properly?
Would all of the surviving victims receive equal payments?
Would DND and the CF reveal the names of all of the children involved and ensure that these victims are made aware of the cash settlement being offered?
Would I be gagged by a Non-Disclosure Agreement much like the 14 year old accomplice agreed to in December of 2008?
I sure those details will be worked out.
The one thing that settlements in both matters allows be to do is to obtain medical assistance in dying in much my original time frame.
It was always my intention to die either in 2023 or 2024.
By going with settlements in both matters I can now rest assured that I won’t be spending the next 10 to 15 years dealing with this crap.
If I apply for medical assistance in dying on March 20th, 2023, it will probably take about 4 to 6 months for me to undergo the psychiatric review that would be required.
There would be a 90 day “cooling-off period”.
Then I would be given my prescription for medical assistance in dying. From what I understand the prescription would be valid for up to one year.
This would put my death into 2024. I’m okay with that. I’ve suffered 40 years so far, another year or two isn’t going to kill me.
Okay, here is my latest video. It’s about my meeting yesterday with Captain St-Amand and Warrant Officer Petruk of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service Western Region.
Well, here’s something that might come as a surprise to some people, but it doesn’t come as a surprise to me.
There were about 19,000 claims submitted for compensation.
If 40% of claimants were men that’s 7,600 men. And trust me men, especially in a military environment, are NOT going to be all that willing to come forward out of fear that others will judge them as being weak or of being a homosexual.
And if one sexual abuser in the Canadian Armed Forces had five or six victims that 7,600 sexually abused men could quickly become 45,600 men. And I don’t really want to think about the total number of men that were sexually abused by other men in the Canadian Armed Forces. According to some stats, over 90% of sexual assault victims never report their assaults.
I’ve known about this since 2014 when L’Actualite ran an exposé on sexual assault within the Canadian Armed Forces. Part of this exposé looked at male-on-male sexual assault within the Canadian Armed Forces. This exposé was stripped from the English version of this article that ran in Maclean’s magazine.
This story was only featured in the French newsmagazine L’Actualite in Quebec. This story did not survive the translation into English for the Maclean’s English version of the exact same story.
Basically, it was found that male-on-male sexual abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces had nothing to do with “homosexual” relationships. The article found that male-on-male sexual abuse was more about exerting dominance and punishing others for perceived bad behaviour. https://globalnews.ca/news/8360601/canadian-veteran-military-sexual-assaults-misconduct/
Male-on-male sexual abuse was frequently used to shame other members into compliance or to humiliate members that had “caused trouble” or used to blackmail a member into silence least his coworkers, friends, and family discover that he had participated in anal intercourse.
And I have absolutely no doubt that many male children living on the bases were subjected to this “discipline” in the household.
If a member of the Canadian Armed Forces is willing to force anal intercourse on a fellow adult member or if a member of the Canadian Forces is willing to force another adult member to perform fellatio on him in order to teach the other member a lesson or to change the other member’s non-conforming behaviour, you can bet that this type of behaviour found its way back into the PMQs on base.
Almost every type of discipline these men were taught would find its way back into the homes on base.
Once you engage in the military life, it’s almost impossible to separate and segregate the military life, the military training, and the military discipline from the home life.
I have absolutely no doubt that there are many a male military dependent that have some rather fucked up hazy memories from way back then. After all, it’s not like these male members were engaging in routine homosexual activities. They would just use male-on-male as a disciplinary tool.
It might have happened once.
It might have happened twice.
But I would be more than willing to believe that if it happened once or twice, that this would have been buried in the dark recesses of one’s mind.
Especially if it happened on a military base.
Who are you going to tell?
Who is going to believe you?
Are you really going to risk having your serving parent booted from the military?
Are you really going to endure the wrath of your serving parent if they found out that you tried to rat them out to the military police?
Sure does raise some interesting questions, doesn’t it?
Maybe this is one of the reason why the Canadian Armed Forces refuse to investigate historical child sexual abuse.
Maybe this is one of the reasons that some former serving parents are always telling their kids to forget about the past and to let sleeping dogs lie. Even if the serving parent in question didn’t abuse their own kids, were they aware of other service members that abused their own kids? Hard to keep secrets during an investigation, isn’t it? Might be best to just deny anything and everything, right?
One question that I know will come up during my class action lawsuit against the Government of Canada is why didn’t I seek professional help sooner if the events on Canadian Forces Base Namao had such a profound effect on me.
I know that question will also come up in my civil action against the Canadian Corp of Commissionaires.
When I became involved with Captain Terry Totzke starting in November of 1980, it was very clear to me that I was being blamed for what had happened to me on Canadian Forces Base Namao. It was also made very clear to me in no uncertain terms that I was to blame for what P.S. had done to my younger brother.
My father, as his psychological interview indicated, refused to take responsibility for his family and always needed to blame others for the problems with his family. Instead of my father owning up to the fact that he was ultimately responsible for the sexual abuse my brother and I endured at the hands of P.S. and Captain McRae from fall of 1978 until the spring of 1980, my father needed to push the blame on to someone else.
That someone else was me.
And as it turns out it appears that it was the Canadian Armed Forces that was bound and determined to keep me from receiving help.
I know that my father knew about what happened on CFB Namao. There were various times between 1980 and 1987 when my father would bring up the topic of the babysitter and what I had allowed him to do to my younger brother. In August of 2006 my father didn’t feign any ignorance about P.S. when I brought up the subject with him, but this time he was blaming his own mother for hiring P.S. against his wishes.
I know that Captain Terry Totzke knew about what happened on CFB Namao as he would often talk about P.S. during our counselling sessions.
I know from talking to retired warrant officer Fred Cunningham that the military police and the chain of command knew full well what P.S. had done between the fall of 1978 until the spring of 1980.
The CFSIU investigation paperwork shows that the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit and the chin of command knew full well what Captain McRae and P.S. had been doing together on the base.
The Court Martial transcripts illustrate that it was various reports of P.S. molesting younger children on Canadian Forces Base Namao that brought him to the attention of the base military police. It was his statements to the base military police that caused the base military police to call in the CFSIU to investigate Captain McRae.
So people knew.
I knew that people knew.
Yet I was blamed for what had happened.
When I went to Glenrose Psychiatric hospital for a brief stay for observation my father made it clear that this was because I was still kissing other boys.
When I started in the Westfield Program for emotionally disturbed children in the spring of 1982, my father kept telling me that I was in this program because I wouldn’t stop kissing other boys.
When we fled the province of Alberta in the early spring of 1983, my father made me understand that he was saving me from the drugs my civilian counsellors wanted to give to me to make me stop kissing boys.
At this point in my life I was sleeping very poorly at night. I would frequently wet the bed. I started falling deeper and deeper into the world of depression and anxiety.
I have absolutely no idea who issued the orders, but it would appear that someone in the Canadian Armed Forces made the decision that I was not to be placed into any form of civilian care. I was to remain solely in the care of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke.
If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that the Canadian Armed Forces didn’t want the Canadian Public to know that they had a problem with kiddie diddling clergy just as the Catholic Church was having in the civilian world.
This would have been the worst absolute disgrace for the military to have faced.
On Canadian Forces Base Namao, Captain McRae was found to have molested well over 25 children. This number is probably higher due to the number of families that would have moved off the base to other postings prior to the CFSIU investigation of Captain McRae. Also, as my lawyer rationalized in the filing of the class action against the Government of Canada, how many children did Captain McRae molest on the three bases he was posted to prior to arriving on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
Captain McRae started of his career at Canadian Forces Base Kingston. He then went to Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie. He was then transferred to Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island. He was then transferred to Canadian Forces Base Namao in the summer of 1978.
Captain McRae had been investigated by the CFSIU in 1973 at RMC Kingston for a suspected act of homosexuality. In May of 1980 Captain McRae was investigated by the CFSIU for having committed “acts of homosexuality ” with teenage boys living on the base. The Canadian Forces were using the phrase “Acts of Homosexuality ” to describe sexual assaults committed against underage male minors.
So how many children did Captain McRae molest at those four postings?
In June of 1980 prior to McRae’s court martial in July of 1980 McRae underwent an ecclesiastical trial in the Archdiocese of Edmonton. During this ecclesiastical trial he admitted to church officials that he had been having sex with male children for years.
The Canadian Forces must have been worried about how the Canadian public would have reacted to being informed that children living on secure defence establishments in housing provided by the Canadian Forces were being sexually abused by an officer of the Canadian Forces.
This is why the Canadian Forces hid the Captain Father McRae court martial away from the public eye using the ridiculous excuse of “protecting the morals of Canadians “.
The Canadian Forces had the need to keep these matters quiet. The Canadian Forces had the power to keep these matters quiet.
Unfortunately, I as well as many others, paid the price for this desire for silence.
Between November of 1981 and January of 1983 whenever we went to family counselling Captain Totzke and my father would tell me to watch what I said to my civilian social workers and counsellors. I don’t think that Captain Totzke was too happy with our teachers and principal at Major General Greisbach for having called Alberta Social Services on our family in November of 1981.
In January of 1983, when Alberta Social Services issued the ultimatum to my father, it was quite amazing how fast strings were pulled to get my family out of the province of Alberta in order to avoid my apprehension.
Why would the Canadian Forces go through all of the trouble of relocating my family just to avoid me going into foster care or residential care?
Why would the Canadian Forces go through all of the trouble to ensure that I kept my mouth shut?
Simple. Captain Totzke would have been aware that as long as I lived in my father’s house and as long as I was blamed for what happened on CFB Namao and as long as I was terrified of my father, I wouldn’t tell anyone about what had happened on CFB Namao. However, if I was pulled out of the house and placed into foster care or residential care, how long would it be until I started receiving treatment for my depression and anxiety? How long would it have been until I started talking freely about what had happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao from the fall of 1978 until the spring of 1980? How long would it have been until my comments made it to the public realm? How long until an interested person called for an investigation or an inquiry?
Am I the only child from Canadian Forces Base Namao that received this “care” from a military social worker?
No.
I’m pretty sure that other children that had been caught up in the Captain Father Angus McRae / P.S. child sexual abuse scandal also varying degrees of this manner of care.
The Canadian Armed Forces had decided that my mental health and my wellbeing could be sacrificed for the greater good of the military.
Prior to 2011, I had tried to get psychiatric help a few times. But what kept getting in the way was my distrust of counsellors. When I was a child living on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach I was caught in a war between my military social worker and my civilian social workers. To the military social worker I presented a risk if I started to tell my civilian social workers what had occurred on CFB Namao. To my civilian social workers I was just some petulant little child who was acting up for no reason at all. If there were issues like child sexual abuse in my past, surely Captain Totzke and my father would have told them, right?
And having my own father blame me for what had occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao as well as blaming me for “fucking with his military career” meant that I learnt to internalize a lot of this crap. Counselling is only for victims, right? Terry and my father both said that I wasn’t a victim.
And surely, if my father thought that what Captain Totzke was doing was wrong, he could have just got me help regardless of what the Canadian Armed Forces wanted, right? Wrong. His rank of master corporal at the time as well as the National Defence Act’s requirement for him to obey the lawful commands on his superiors meant that what the Canadian Forces wanted is what the Canadian Forces got.
I’m currently trying to obtain counselling. But the problem I face is this. As bad as the sexual abuse was. And as damaging as the sexual abuse was. My treatment at the hands of Captain Totzke and my father was by far worse. The sheer hell I was put through between October of 1980 and April of 1983 is many magnitudes worse than the sexual abuse. So I can’t benefit from counselling for the sexual abuse until I receive counselling for the psychological abuse I endured.
And besides, where would I get the counselling for the psychological abuse?
There’s nothing more guaranteed to bring a look of confusion to someone’s face than to say that you were in the care of a military social worker as a child.
In the school year of 1985 – 1986 I was in grade 8 at Pierre Laporte Junior High in what used to be North York, Ontario.
Active Surplus was a dealer down on Queen Street West between University and Spadina that sold new electronic components along with used surplus electronic equipment.
Active Surplus had just received a bunch of Pioneer Video Laser Disc players from New Way Sales. New Way Sales was a video game distributor that had been located up on Rexdale Blvd. New Way Sales was owned by brothers Paul and Jerry Janda.
The laser disc players had been removed from a bunch of Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace, Astron Belt, and other laser disc based arcade games that had been scrapped when they reached the end of their useful life.
Active Surplus was selling these for $50 a piece. I grabbed 10 of them. Bob Becker drove his cube van down and we loaded them into the van and drove them up to the base and brought them into the house.
I would eventually get 3 of these players working, but the rest I scrapped.
In reality I had bought these players for one reason, and that was for the laser tubes and the optics. Making them work for playing movies was never the goal.
The fact that I did get three of the players working probably indicated that I wasn’t quite as dumb as some people made me out to be.
Radio Electronics was a magazine that I used to buy from Coles bookstore downtown. Popular Electronics was the other. These two magazines were the primary source of my electronics education.
Both of these magazines always had projects to build. One project was a made from scratch power supply that would strike and arc in a 5mW helium neon laser tube, and then drop the current and voltage down to a safe level once the arc was established.
Each of these Pioneer laser disc players came with a 5mW Toshiba helium-neon laser tube, a collimator lens, two surface reflecting mirrors, and two surface reflecting mirrors mounted on voice coils.
The two surface reflecting mirrors mounted on voice coils were the tangential and radial correction mirrors.
Tangential / Radial tracking mirrors.
The manner in which these two mirrors were mounted allowed them to scan in an x-y pattern with one mirror moving the beam in a horizontal direction and the other mirror moving the beam in a vertical direction.
Because they were moving a laser beam around, a tiny bit of movement of these mirrors would cause a significant amount of deflection of the beam.
The voice coil on these mirrors was 8 ohms. 8 ohms was the perfect impedence for just about any power amplifier at the time.
I built a small dual channel amplifier with 25 watts per channel. 25 watts was enough power to make the mirrors move fast enough, but not enough power to overheat the voice coils.
I could feed audio into the amplifier and have the laser project odd patterns on the wall to the beat of the music. I could feed the output of a function generator and have the laser generate shapes on the wall based on the type of waveform, the amplitude of the waveform, and the frequency of the waveform.
And I could also feed the x-y voltages from a Vectrex video game console into the amplifier and I could play video games on the wall.
Vectrex was an interesting game console from around 1982. It displayed graphics by actually drawing lines on the monitor tube as opposed to how conventional video games draw images. I won’t get too detailed, but think of games like Asteroids, Omega Race, Tempest, Major Havoc, Armor Attack, Space Fury, etc. These games had a very unique look due to the way the CPU drew the images on the screen. The Vectrex console drew x-y graphics as opposed to raster graphics.
Mr. Jonathan Bowles was my grade 8 science teacher.
The first couple of times that I had taken the laser to school and set it up in science class and just bounced the beam around the room he was more than impressed. But once I got the Vectrex interfaced with the laser, he was astonished. I could set the laser up in the cafeteria / auditorium of the school and project the Vectrex images on the screen.
The first time Mr. Bowles had talked to my father about the laser, Richard blew up at me at home.
“Why the fuck did you take that to school?”
“Do you know how much fucking trouble you’re going to get me into?”
“Why can’t you just be quiet in school, do the fucking work the teachers tell you to, and stop showing the fuck off, what is wrong with you?”
“Tell your teachers that I work during the day and to stop bothering me at work, I don’t have the time for their bullshit.”
The next science class, Mr. Bowles asked me if my father had spoken to me.
I asked about what.
Mr. Bowles said that my father seemed quite pleased that I was taking an interest in science.
By this time in my life I was begining to notice that my father would often say one thing at home, and then something completely different to other people.
As per my father’s instructions, I stopped taking my laser to school for science class.
Mr. Bowles had told me once that this laser was something that I should enter into the National Science Fair in Ottawa, and that he’d be happy to talk to my father about this.
I pleaded with Mr. Bowles to never call my father again, that my father was upset about the last phone call and that my father said that none of my teachers had better interrupt him at work,
Mrs. Donskov, my grade 7 music teacher from Elia Junior High had made somewhat a similar mistake. She saw that I could keep rhythm fairly well, and she suggested that I take up bass guitar. When she called Richard to suggest a local music shop that could finance a guitar if money was tight, he exploded.
So, Mrs. Donskov did the next best thing, she arranged for me to be able to take one of the school’s bass guitars and an amplifier home to practice on the weekends. She’d even go so far as to drop the guitar and amp off on Friday and pick it up on Monday. When Richard saw me carrying the guitar and Mrs. Donskov carrying the amplifier towards our house on Canadian Forces Base Downsview, he blew up. He threatened to have her arrested by the military police if she ever though of doing something stupid like this again.
Mrs. Donskov suggested that maybe my father could set me up with drum lessons from a local teacher. Nope.
And then there was Mr. Ford, my grade 8 music teacher from Pierre Laporte. This time Mr. Ford was convinced that I had a knack for sequencing music on the new MIDI control system.
Looking back, I know a few things about my father that help me to understand what his issues were.
The first issue that he had was his grade school education.
When I examined my father for Federal Court in the summer of 2013, I asked him what school he attended as a child. He put down St. John School, Fort McMurray, Alberta. I have yet to receive confirmation, but the school Richard named also shows up on a list of schools covered under the Indian Residential settlement program. The particular school my father attended is listed as inelligable for receving settlement funds solely due to the fact the school was only the Indian Day Program and it did not have the the residential component.
Richard was half Swampy Cree and half Irish. This made him a half-breed under government definition. And yes, that was the actual legal definition for people like my father. The federal government didn’t start using small “m” metis to describe people like my father until the late ’60s and early ’70s. The Indian Day Program was leaps and bounds behind the standard public school. The Indian Day Program was only meant to teach the kids that attended the absolute basics as the government of Canada didn’t think that these kids were going to become much more than farm labourers or manual labourers.
Was Richard’s experience in the Indian Day Program the reason why he despised my school teachers so much?
I think Richard’s experience in school as a child is what poisoned him towards my teachers and my counsellors.
Cost was another issue that my father often had.
As long as a program didn’t cost him anything, or cost him very little, he was all for it.
I could join Sea Cadets in 1984, because the Canadian Armed Forces basically picked up all of the costs associated with cadets. My uniform was free, my boots were free, parade night and weekend trips to CFB Borden were free. It didn’t cost him a single nickle.
A trip to Ottawa to enter my laser into the National Science Fair ? That would cost a lot of money. There’d be the cost of the hotel room. The cost of food. The cost of this, the cost of that.
Get me a computer capable of working with MIDI? Again, that would cost money, so that was out of the question.
Buy me a bass guitar and an amplifier and lessons? Christ, forget the lessons, just buy me a guitar and amplifier? Again, this would cost money so the answer would be no.
Paid professional drum lessons? Nope.
And as he told his buddy Jacque Choquette, the only reason that Richard kept my brother and I is so that he could control the costs.
Yes, it is true that Richard did get my brother and I season passes for Canada’s Wonderland for the 1983 season and the 1984 season. But these passes were $29.95 at the time for unlimited visits.
Canada’s Wonderland served, as my brother would say, Richard’s discount babysitting service.
Richard, or Sue, would drop me and my brother off at 08:00 just about every weekend and weekday that we weren’t in school with the exception of the summer we spent in Edmonton in ’84.
We’d each be given $10 for the day.
Let me tell you, $10 doesn’t go very far in an overpriced amusement park.
Richard or Sue would pick us up at 22:00 just after the park closed. We’d have to wait in the passenger drop off / pick up area.
The novelty of Canada’s Wonderland wore off for me really fucking quick. I used to find corners of that park where I could hide and go to sleep in order to pass the time.
It got so bad that I used to pray that I would get kidnapped and then Richard would have to explain to the police why he was dropping his kids off unattended at the park all day long.
This is one of the reasons I had to do a double take when I read Richard’s statement that he had given to the CFNIS in 2011. He claimed that the school wanted to go on a trip to Canada’s Wonderland, but that he didn’t want me to go because I had been bad, and that the school had threatened him that not letting me go could be considred “child abuse”. Fucking seriosuly? This is the guy who used Canada’s Wonderland like a “discount babysitting service”. So yeah, there definately was something wrong with Richard.
What exactly that problem is, I don’t think we will ever know.
Every now and again I get weird phone calls related to my blog. The funny thing is, I haven’t really put my phone number out there.
Every now and again I get weird phone calls related to my blog. The funny thing is, I haven’t really put my phone number out there.
I don’t know who this person is, “unknown” number. But they sure had an interest in my blog postings about the MPCC.
This guy was adamant that when I made my complaint to the MPCC that I would have been allowed to view the CFNIS paperwork.
No matter how I explained to him that I did not see the CFNIS investigation paperwork until February of 2013 he wouldn’t believe me.
“What made you think that something was wrong with the investigation if you didn’t see the investigation paperwork” he asked.
I explained to him that my babysitter had his first criminal conviction for child molestation in 1984, two more convictions in 1985. And nine more convictions between 1985 and 2000. And for PO Morris to tell me on November 4th, 2011 that the CFNIS couldn’t find anything that would indicate that P.S. was capable of molesting the children he was babysitting, meant that something went wrong. I already knew about the $4.3 million dollar lawsuit between P.S. and the Minister of National Defence.
The caller interjected that just because P.S. had criminal convictions for child sexual abuse starting in 1984, this in no way automatically means that P.S. was guilty of molesting children prior to 1984. And to be fair to the mystery caller, my brother said the same thing to me back in 2013.
I explained to the mystery caller that if someone was convicted of raping a woman, and their modus operandi happened to match the modus operandi of the perpetrator in a couple of previous rapes that occured when this particular person happened to live in the vicinity of the two previous victims, you can be sure that the police would look into these matters. Sure, the similar modus operandi doesn’t mean that the three rapes were committed by the same person, but by the same token you don’t just discount any possible connection because they happened prior to the current conviction.
The mystery caller asked me why I didn’t bring this to the attention of the MPCC. I asked in response how could I when I had absolutely no idea what was done during the CFNIS investigation.
The mystery caller asked me if I was so certain that my father lied in his statement to the CFNIS why didn’t I say something to the CFNIS or the MPCC.
I tried to explain to the mystery caller that at no time during the 2011 CFNIS did the investigators ever ask me about anything my father had said to the CFNIS.
You would think that if someone said that they had been repeatedly molested for 1-1/2 years by a person acting as a babysitter, and then someone else countered and said that there never was a babysitter, that the investigators would want to follow up with the victim to understand this significant discrepancy. At no point in time in 2011 did the CFNIS ever call me to ask if I was certain that there was a babysitter.
The mystery caller then said that I should have told the MPCC about the lies in my father’s statement.
Again, I tried to expain to the mystery caller that I had no access to my father’s statement until 2013. By the time I read my father’s statement it was far too late to contest it. The CFNIS had my foster care records. I gave them a complete copy in August of 2011. They refused to consider them at all during the investigation. That means the CFNIS willfully ignored such things as:
Mr. Gill frequently contradicts himself from one meeting to the next.
Mr. Gill tells those he perceives to be in positions of authority what he believes they want to hear.
Mr. Gill brought his mother into the house to raise his children.
Mr. Gill uses work as an excuse for his frequent absences as a reason to not attend the family counselling sessions.
Robert was in the protective custody of Alberta Social Services and Mr. Gill had signed the paperwork placing Robert into the foster care system.
Mr. Gill told both Alberta Social Services and the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto that there was nothing wrong with his children, that the intense sibling rivalry between his two sons was just “boys being boys” and that the counsellors were no help at all.
The mystery caller was adamant that if this was in my foster care records, that the would have picked up on this.
I told the mystery caller that my father’s statement gave the CFNIS exactly what they wanted. According to my father, there was no babysitter in the house and that’s all the CFNIS needed.
I told the mystery caller that during the 2011 CFNIS investigation I was told repeatedly by the CFNIS investigators that there was no house fire at PMQ #26 on 12th street in the summer of 1980. It was suggested to me by various persons with the CFNIS in 2011 that the fire I was thinking of occured on 1986 and happened on CFB Griesbach, and that if I was wrong about this fire, maybe I was wrong about other things too. Maybe the babysitter didn’t molest my brother and I. Maybe it was a man who lived off the base. Maybe I was making this up.
The mystery caller wanted to know why I didn’t raise this with the MPCC if I was so certain that there was a fire.
I told the mystery caller that even though I was certain that there was a fire in the P.S. houseat #26 – 12th street that I had no proof that there actually was a fire. It was my word against that of the Canadian Armed Forces……. and why would the CF or the CFNIS lie about the fire? Again, it wouldn’t be until February of 2013 when I obtained the certified tribunal records that I would learn that the CFNIS had the Canadian Forces Fire Marshal records for the June 23rd, 1980 fire at PMQ #26 on 12th street and they knew that I had told the truth about the fire.
I really wish I knew who the mystery caller was.
Is he a member of the Canadian Forces, or maybe a reited member?
Is he another former military dependant that’s upset with the way that I’m slandering the Canadian Forces.
That one sentence has always stuck with me since I first read it when I obtained the Certified Tribunal Records from the Military Police Complaints Commission when I made my application to Federal Court in February of 2013.
The conversation between P.S. and Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock From the Military Police Complaints Commisison Certified Tribunal Records 2013
Sgt. Hancock had called Jack, the father of P.S. earlier in the day of August 9th, 2011 and asked Jack to have P.S. give him a telephone call. P.S. called Sgt. Hancock in the afternoon.
What’s interesting about this is not the part “he further indicated that anything he had been involved in as a youth had already been handled by the military”, nor the part “he furhter stated that if charges were brought against him a lawyer would be handling that”. What’s interesting is that only one of those two statements would be introduced into the brief sent to the Alberta Crown.
From the Certified Tribunal Records from the Alberta Criminal Injuries Review Board June 2019
There are two things that I find interesting about what Sgt. Damon Tenaschuck submitted to the Alberta Crown in 2018.
The first is that my father’s statement is still in there even though I had illustrated during the September 2015 interview with RCMP Inspector Akrum Ghadban that it was our grandmother raising my brother and I during this period of time. I also supplied to Mr. Ghadban the answers from my father’s written examination in which my father admits that there was a babysitter in the house, but that it was his mother who hired the babysitter.
Nowhere in the submission to the Alberta Crown is any mention of my foster care records which would indicate that my father’s statement didn’t actually reflect what family life was like in the Gill household back then.
But more interesting is what was removed from the record of the telephone conversation between Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock and P.S.. The statement “he further indicated that anything he had been involved in as a youth had already been handled by the military” was removed yet the statement “he further stated that if charges were brought against him a lawyer would be handling that” remained.
What was so controversial about that one statement that it needed to be removed. The second statement wasn’t removed, so that shows that the CFNIS weren’t trimming out superfluous excess for the sake of brevity. I mean, if P.S. was charged, a lawyer would be handling that. That’s how the criminal justice system works in this country, right?
Why did the CFNIS decide that the Alberta Crown didn’t need to know that the military has already handled things for a multi-time convicted child molester? It wasn’t as if P.S. had never been convicted of child molestation before.
And we know that our government often enters into some rather boneheaded deals with criminals.
I honestly don’t believe that I am the only person who has ever come forward with complaints against P.S.. I can only wonder how many of the charges that P.S. was subject to between 1985 and 2000 were due to other dependants from CFB Namao coming forward with their own complaints.We know that the Department of National Defence accepted General Liability for the damages that P.S. suffered at the hands of Captain McRae on Canadian Forces Base Namao. Would that also mean that anyone that P.S. was convicted of molesting could also bring their own civil actions against the Department of National Defence?
Is this why the CFNIS has bent over backwards to ensure that no charges would ever be brought against P.S. thereby ensuring that the Canadian Forces would not be breaking the terms of the settlement reached in November of 2008?
Another interesting item is this:
From the Certified Tribunal Records from the Alberta Criminal Injuries Review Board June 2019
In both 2011 and 2018 the CFNIS determined that there was “insufficient evidence” to lay charges which was supported by review conducted by the Alberta Crown.
So why througout 2018 was Sgt. Tenaschuk telling me he expected that charges would be laid this time?
Email between myself and Sgt. Tenaschuk
The investigation was all bullshit, wasn’t it.
Nothing more than theatre for the mind.
The illusion of justice while being nothing more than a perversion of justice.
On Thursday July 30th, 2020 I was interviewed again by the CFNIS Western Region.
This interview was for the “man in the sauna”
We’ll see how this plays out.
I have an idea of who the man in the sauna was.
A name was mentioned in Canadian Forces Special Investigation Unit investigation DS 120-10-80. This name has had previous charges related to sexual acts with underage children.
This man was sent from National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa specifically to help Captain McRae deal with his affairs during the CFSIU investigation DS-120-10-80.
But sadly, there seemed to be quite a few perverts on Canadian Forces Base Namao / Canadian Forces Base Griesbach back in the ’70s and ’80s.
In addition to Corporal Larry King who had been tried in civilian court in 1980 for raping a 16 year old girl on CFB Griesbach, and in addition to P.S. who had molested numerous children in 1979 and 1980 as well as a 9 year old boy in 1985 on CFB Namao, there was a man at the rec centre who had exposed himself to some young girls at the base rec centre. And then there was another man from CFB Griesbach who had exposed himself to a young girl over at one of the malls just on the other side of 97th Street.
With the exception of P.S., was the man in the sauna one of these men?
How many other pedophiles were on CFB Namao / CFB Edmonton in the ’70s and ’80s?
Sadly, the only witness to this whole event is none other than P.S.
Will P.S. talk?
I don’t see why he would. He was allowed to play the role of the “innocent angle” all those years ago. And from the looks of it, the Canadian Forces are more than willing to allow P.S. to continue on in this role.
OPP Det Sgt. Jim Smythe was able to get Canadian Armed Forces officer Colonel Russell Williams to confess to the murders and rapes that Williams had committed.
At the time, the OPP had very little to go on other than some matching tire treads and some boot prints. Those on their own weren’t enough to indicate that Williams had done sweet bugger all.
Opp Det. Sgt. Jim Smythe basically let Williams talk himself into his own arrest.
What deals did the Canadian Forces and the Department of Justice reach when they settled out of court with P.S. in November of 2008?
Again, who knows.
But remember, our government has often agreed to bad deals.
Karla Holmolka is walking the streets and Paul Bernardo is rotting away in prison.
I’m not saying that Paul, should be free.
I’m saying that Karla should have been sentenced to a very lenghty sentence as well.
She supplied the animal tranquilizers.
She administered the animal tranquilizers.
She killed the girls.
But the Clown Prosecutors and the Attorney General decided that it was better to make a deal with her (the infamous Deal With The Devil), than it would be to lose the case against Paul Bernardo.
After all, Paul had to be the worst of the two, right?
In 2011, when contacted at home by Mcpl Hancock, P.S. told Mcpl Hancock that “anything he had been involved in as a youth has already been handled by the military”.
Was this another “Deal with the Devil”?
Did the Canadian Armed Forces, the Provost Marshal, the office of the Minister of National Defence, or even the Attorney General of Canada make a deal with Mr. P.S.?
During the interview, I read a fairly long statement.
This statement was very detailed.
In 2011, my statement was very specific. It only related to the abuse that I endured at the hands of P.S. from late fall 1978 until the spring when someone discovered him buggering me in his bedroom. My statement also included all of the abuse that I saw P.S. committ against my brother as well as the abuse he committed against four other children.
My stupidity lay in the fact that I didn’t describe my home life.
Because I didn’t describe my home life right off the bat, my father was able to substitute his own fantasry for reality.
Whether my father had some help in shaping his fantasy is anyone’s guess. But my father’s version of reality simply didn’t match the social service records and other records that I came into possession later.
The sad thing about the 2011 CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754, is that once the CFNIS had what they wanted, they ran with it, even after I provided my foster care records, my Alberta Social Service records, my Children Aid Society of Toronto Records, PEI Family Court Records, the CFNIS still absolutely refused to admit that they fucked up the case pretty bad.
After all, if the Government of Canada had made a deal with P.S. related to his out of court settlement relating to the matter of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae, the government wouldn’t reneg on that deal, would they?
Sure, the MPCC gave the CFNIS a gold star in 2013.
However, during the 2012 – 2013 MPCC review, the MPCC shared absolutely none of the documents with me that the Provost Marshal had provided to the MPCC. This meant of course that I was unable to raise my concerns with any of the numerous flaws with the 2011 CFNIS investigation, such as Mcpl Cyr’s faulty transcription of what I told him on May 3rd, 2011, my father’s obviously distorted reality, or the fact that the CFNIS refused to look at the connection between P.S. and Captain McRae, or the fact that the CFNIS refused to consider what the Alberta Social Service records and the Children Aid Society of Toronto, or the IWK Children’s Hospital had to say about my father.
Yes, I did go to Federal Court. However almost all of the documents that I had submitted to the MPCC were struck from the hearing as this was considered “new evidence”. Basically, you can’t introduce “new evidence” into your hearing for judicial review if it wasn’t before the tribunal you wish to have reviewed. However, as you have no idea of what is in front of the tribunal, you have no idea of what to introduce.
It’s a vicious Catch-22 that seems to have been designed like that on purpose.
So, we’ll have to wait and see how this one plays out.
Yes, the CFNIS and the Canadian Forces allowed me to have Earl Ray Stevens. But Earl represented absolutely no risk of liability to the Canadian Forces or the Federal Government.
The same cannot be said about P.S., nor can the same be said about the “man in the sauna”
Remember, under the National Defence Act, there is absolutely no exception to section 83 of the National Defence Act for members of the CFNIS.
If the CFNIS investigators Chain of Command decide the direction of the investigation, the investigators must obey those orders. The independance of the CFNIS investigators is an illusuion at best.
Back in 2019, I was trolling around the government website that lists all ATI requests that have been filed with the various departments and what the outcome of those reports was.
One ATI request caught my eye. Someone had requested a copy of all of the General Occurence Reports from DND related to “Sexual Assault” that occured on CFB Namao from 1978 until 1980.
I filed a request with DND for a copy of this information on October 10 2019.
I just received a copy of this report on Friday July 3rd 2020.
There were three “sexual assaults” on CFB Namao in the years of 1978 until 1980.
The first was related to a male exposing himself to young females at the base rec centre. The fact that the military police administered a polygraph to this person indicates that this person would have been subject to the Code of Service Discipline. This event occured in November of 1978.
The next incident occured in the vicinity of Northtown Mall in May of 1979. A member of the Canadian Forces exposed himself from his waist to his ankles to a girl. The City of Edmonton police and the CFB Edmonton police worked on this matter. The fact that the incident report indicate that the male was “dress in civilian clothing” and the fact that the CFB Edmonton military police we called in by the Edmonton Police Service also indicates that this was a person subject to the Code of Service Discipline.
Then of course there’s the matter of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae.
Curiously, there is one incident that is missing.
In June of 1980, Corporal Larry King, who was 39 years old at the time, had been sentenced to 3 yers in prison for choking and raping a 16-year-old Edmonton girl.
Corporal Larry King, 39, was sentenced in civilian court to three years in prison for choking and raping a 16-year-old Edmonton Girl
There were three sexual assaults in two years in addition to all of the sexual assaults that P.S. and Captain McRae committed on CFB Namao. You can’t tell me that the Canadian Forces was a safe environment for children to grow up in.
I finally finished with my submissions to the Military Police Complaints Commission. This time around I hope that things work out a little different.
My first tango with the MPCC back in 2012 was the first time ever that I had dealt with an agency such as the MPCC. I had no lawyer, and no legal advice. I went I completely naive expecting the MPCC to agree that an investigation that couldn’t bring charges against a person with already numerous charges for child sexual abuse had to have been flawed.
Flawed it was, but I had absolutely no access to any of the paperwork from the CFNIS investigation. I had no idea that the Provost Marshal could determine which documents were sent to the MPCC and which documents were withheld from the MPCC.
I also had no idea that CFNIS investigator participation in a MPCC review is strictly voluntary, and that the MPCC investigations can take flights of fancy with their statements to the MPCC as their statements are not taken under oath.
The Military Police Complaints Commission was created by an act of Parliament with extensive input from agencies such as the Department of Justice, and the Department of National Defence. You just know the rules are stacked against you from the word go.
What I find the most disappointing about agencies such as the MPCC is that they aren’t structured at all to assist the complaintant.
To make a successful complaint against the military police, one would need to have access to the investigation paperwork.
However, the MPCC is not set up to be able to assist a person with obtaining the paperwork for the police investigation that they would like to complain against.
In 2018, as soon as I heard that the Alberta Crown was again declining to reccomend charges against P.S., I filed an Access to Information Request with the Department of National Defence to get the paperwork from the CFNIS investigation.
This request was filed on July 27th, 2018. DND acknowledged the receipt of this request on July 30th, 2018. On September 5th, 2018 I filed a complaint with the Military Police Complaints Commission in regard to the second portion of CFNIS GO# 2011-5754.
I made it specifically clear in my complaint that I was awaiting the paperwork from the investigation before I would be able to clearly state my concerns. I explained that as the CFNIS investigator who had been working on the second portion of my case would not give me a firm date as to when the investigation had ended, that I was filing my second MPCC complaint as a way to ensure that the deadline for my filing a complaint didn’t expire.
You only have one year from the date of the end of the investigation to make a complaint.
I recevied the investigation paperwork on Februaty 5th, 2020. This is over 7 months past the one year deadline for filing.
And I only received the documents after the involvement of the Office of the Information Commmisioner of Canada. The OIC stated that my complaint against DND for “deemed refusal” was “Well Founded” and will be officially recorded as such.
Deemed refusal is a term of the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada. It means that while the agency responsible for releasing the information being requested has agreed to the request, they are intentionally dragging their heels in an attempt to deny a person access to the information that they have requested.
Needless to say, had I waited until I received the paperwork from the investigation before I made my complaint, I would have been well past the deadline for filing a complaint.
The paperwork that I received was redacted to the nth degree. There is a lot of good information contained in the documents, but a lot is missing as well.
I know for example that two different investigators spoke with Fred Cunningham during the second portion of the CFNIS investigation. I know that Fred was refusing to be interviewed if the interview was recorded. He also didn’t seem to want to attend the CFNIS detachment on base.
I also know that the CFNIS basically regurgitated the 2011 CFNIS investigation and fed that back to the Alberta Crown again. It became very apparent that no matter how many other witnesses came forward with complaints against P.S., the the CFNIS were going to keep all of our complaints separate.
You do have to understand, the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal are not protecting P.S.. The CFNIS and the Provost Marshal are doing everything within their power to ensure that the Canadian Public never discover that the Canadian Armed Forces were having the exact same problem with their Catholic clergy that the various civilian archdiocese were having. Captain McRae wasn’t the only service member charged with sexual acts involving children in the Catholic clergy in the Canadian Forces. Canadian Armed Forces Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan was another, along with Canadian Armed Forces officer Brigadier General Roger Bazin.
And there are probably many more who were never charged due to the 3 year time bar in the pre-1998 National Defence Act, or the summary investigation flaw that also existed in the pre-1998 National Defence Act.
There is one aspect of my current complaint that concerns me is that most of the personnel involved with the investigation of my complaint against P.S. have moved on to other endeavours. Some have been “released” while some have “retired”.
The Military Police Complaints Commission has recently been in contact with me regarding documents and other forms of information that I have in my possession from the 2015 through 2018 portion of the CFNIS investigation into the acts of P.S. on CFB Namao from 1978 until 1980.
In preparation for sending the pertinent information to the MPCC, I’ve been reviewing the documents. And I realized something. The second investigation was designed to fail from the word go.
In the summer of 2015, after I had spoken to J.S. and then subsequently his son P.S., I wrote a letter to the Chief of Defence Staff and I sent a courtesy copy to Bob Paulson who at the time was the commissioner of the RCMP. Within a few weeks I was contacted by RCMP Major Crimes Investigator Akrum Ghadban. Mr. Ghadban was on secondment to the CFNIS and was responsible for reviewing major cases. Mr. Ghadban said that he had reviewed the 2011 CFNIS investigation and that he had concerns about the investigation and that he was going to instruct the CFNIS on areas that he thought they could improve.
This led to a new interview being conducted between myself, RCMP Inspector Ghadban, and Sgt. Tenaschuk of the CFNIS. This interview took place on September 22nd, 2015 at the RCMP detachment at the University of British Columbia.
Just prior to the interview, Inspector Ghadban met with me. He said that he had concerns about aspects of the 2011 CFNIS investigation. He said that the 2011 investigation was not up to “contemporary policing standards”.
During the interview, Inspector Ghadban said that he was going to instruct the CFNIS to concentrate on four specific areas of the investigation.
First is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to track down and locate P.S.’s younger brother who also has the initials of P.S.. For clarity I will call P.S.’s younger brother P.S.2.
Second is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to track down Doug Schwirtz who in 1980 would have been around 9 years old and lived at PMQ 13 on 12th street and had potentially seen the kids on the front lawn of the S. PMQ attack me when I came out of P.S.’s PMQ after P.S. had been discovered buggering me in his bedroom.
Third is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to talk to retired Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham to find out what Cunningham knew about the 1980 investigation into Captain McRae. After all, both J.S. and Fred Cunningham indicated that the investigation into Captain McRae was commenced due to the complaints of numerous parents on CFB Namao about the interaction of P.S. with their young children.
Fourth is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to ascertain that I did in fact mention during my initial interview with the CFNIS in March of 2011 that I had tried reporting P.S. to the military police in 1984 and in 1990. This was specifially to counter Alberta Crown Prosecutor Jon Werbicki’s concern that I hadn’t tried reporting these crimes to anyone before.
True to CFNIS form, when Sgt. Tenaschuk tried locating P.S.2 he contacted the family again. The same very protective family that closed ranks around P.S. during the 2011 CFNIS investigation. When Tenaschuk contacted these family members, they all claimed that P.S.2. lived out on the West Coast and that they had lost contact with him years ago and they didn’t know how to get hold of him. As it turns out P.S.2. lives in London, Ontario which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Fort Erie, Ontario where his father J.S. and his older brother P.S. both live.
Tenaschuk tracked down Doug Schwirtz. I have no idea what questions Doug was asked. According to Sgt. Tenaschuk, Doug remembers absolutely nothing from back then.
I have no idea of what Sgt. Tenaschuk did so far as trying to locate records of me having tried to report P.S. to the military police in 1984 and 1990.
Sgt. Tenaschuk then contacted Fred Cunningham. According to Sgt. Tenaschuk he asked Fred Cunningham what he remembered about our telephone call on November 27th, 2011. Fred said that he couldn’t remember anything.
So, here’s what caught my eye. Tenaschuk wasn’t asked to talk to Fred Cunningham about our telephone call on March 27th, 2011. Sgt. Tenaschuk was instructed to talk to Fred Cunningham about the 1980 investigation into Captain McRae.
Sgt. Tenaschuk avoided asking Cunningham about the 1980 investigation, such as why did the base military police interrogate P.S. in his family’s PMQ in May of 1980? Why had Fred Cunningham been tasked with investigating Captain Father Angus McRae?
What did Fred Cunningham remember on November 27th, 2011? Quite a lot. What Fred Cunningham told me that day has been verified by Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit file DS 120-10-80 and by two separate Canadian Forces Fire Marshal reports.
During our brief phone call on November 27th, 2011 Fred identified another boy, younger than P.S. named F.A., as a “prolific pyromaniac”.
And what a pyromaniac he was. The Canadian Forces Fire Marshal identified F.A. as having been responsible for two separate house fires on CFB Namao. One of the Fire Marshal reports even goes on to identify this boy named F.A. as having been friends with P.S. and that P.S. had been at F.A.’s house earlier in the day prior to one of the fires and that both F.A. and P.S. had been playing with fire on the stove in the F.A. household.
The Fire Marshal’s report also indicated that this boy named F.A. wasn’t attending school as he had just recently been released from psychiatric care.
It was also noted in the most recent Fire Marshal report that F.A. seemed to like to play the role of the “hero” by “discovering” the fire and alerting people to the fire.
According to Fred Cunningham, when the charges stemming from F.A.’s complaint against Captain McRae were dropped by the “brass”, the boy named F.A. thought that P.S. had stabbed him in the back. Fred Cunningham said that the boy named F.A. had no idea that it was the “brass” that dropped all of the charges against McRae except for the charges related to P.S..
Fred Cunningham said that there had been a massive falling out between F.A. and P.S.
I asked Fred if this pyromaniac named F.A. had anything to do with the June 23rd, 1980 house fire at P.S.’s family’s PMQ.
Fred Cunningham said is that he wasn’t going to speak to that.
As I have the CF Fire Marshal’s report for the June 23rd, 1980 fire at the S. PQM, I know that Colonel Dan Munro’s signature was the final signature on the Fire Marshal’s investigation report for June 23rd, 1980 fire. In the Fire Marshal’s report, Colonel Dan Munro declines the need for further review of the cause of the fire.
I also learnt that someone did actually die in that fire. An Edmonton area civilian gas fitter employed on base by the Canadian Forces named Sam Stelter died as a result of trying to shut off the gas to prevent a major fire. Sam died of a heart attack in the basement of the S. family PMQ.
The Alberta Fire Marshal ruled that the house fire was due to a defective brass gas line behind the stove. I’ve often wondered since November 27th, 2011 just how hard it would have been for someone to have given that already defective gas line a simple tug. Someone with a grudge against a resident of the house. Another opportunity for someone to play the hero maybe?
Pure speculation I know.
Colonel Dan Munro was also Captain Father Angus McRae’s commanding officer.
Was Colonel Dan Munro the “brass” that dropped all of the charges against Captain McRae except for those relating to P.S.? Or was it someone higher up the chain of command?
In 2018, Sgt. Tenaschuk said that he wouldn’t be able to talk to Colonel Munro due to the 3-year time bar that existed in the National Defence Act prior to 1998.
It should be noted that the term “brass”never referes to a non-commissioned officer. If you were in the military, you would never call a Master Warrant Officer “the brass”. And you would almost certainly not call a junior rank officer “the brass”. It’s generally not until you get into the senior officer ranks that you start referring to officers as “the brass”. Colonel is the highest rank senior officer.
Above Colonel are the General / Flag officers. These you can call “the brass” as well.
Tenaschuk spooks the S. clan by contacting them and asking them for contact information for P.S.2 becuase he wants to talk to P.S.2 about what P.S. did in 1980. That family is extremely protective of P.S.. They view P.S. as the sole victim of Captain McRae. They obviously view the children that P.S. was abusing as being of no consequence. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the S. clan blame all the children that P.S. abused on CFB Namao as being the driving force behind P.S. attempting suicide in January of 2000. See, we’re not victims, we’re ruthless cold hearted killers who won’t leave poor misunderstood P.S. alone.
During the 2015 through 2018 CFNIS investigation, I provided the CFNIS with the names of other victims of P.S.. The CFNIS took their statements, and kept them separate from my investigation. According to Tenaschuk, this was a decision by his superiors.
The Crime Stoppers appeal that was run in November of 2016 provided “numerous” tips with others coming forward with complaints about P.S.. None of this information was forwarded to the Alberta Crown in 2018.
Sure, my father died in January of 2017, but the CFNIS had a whole year and a bit to interview him again. The statement that he gave to the CFNIS in 2011 does not reflect the reality of my family as it was back in the late ’70s and early ’80s. More specifically my father’s statement to the CFNIS is 100% at odds with the answers he gave me when I examined him for Federal Court in 2013. I provided Sgt. Tenaschuk with the pertinent sections of my foster care / Alberta Social Service records as well as a copy of my father’s answers to my written examination. From what I’ve seen that was provided to the Alberta Crown in 2018, Sgt. Tenaschuk made no mention at all that he had any concerns about the validity of my father’s statement to the CFNIS in 2011. My father’s statement would have had a very negative effect on the Crown’s decision.
In 2018, in the same letter that Sgt. Tenaschuk informs me that he can’t talk to Colonel Dan Munro due to the 3-year time bar, Tenaschuk informs me that the P.S. “investigation is still with the Crown Prosecutor” and that he viwed this as a “positive note”.
Weeks later the 2015 through 2018 investigation goes down in flames.
Sgt. Tenaschuk informed me in 2018 that the Alberta Crown was declining to recommend charges as it wasn’t in the public interest.
In late 2018 an agency of the Alberta government reviews the 2015 through 2018 portion of the CFNIS investigation and can’t find any evidence that any type of criminal code offence occured.
From the documents that I’ve seen from another agency of the Alberta government, Sgt. Tenaschuk basically resubmitted Sgt. Hancock’s 2011 Crown Briefing.
I don’t think that it was Sgt. Tenaschuk’s decision. Someone within the chain of command within the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal ensured that the 2015 through 2018 portion of CFNIS GO 2011-5754 stayed concerned only with the four exact concerns that RCMP Inspector Akrum Ghadban had raised. This meant that the CFNIS excluded just about anything else that had been brought to their attention. Other victims, potential witnesses, details about the 1980 investigation, these were all excluded from the 2015 – 2018 investigation.
This explains why the Sgt. Tenaschuk bascially re-submitted Sgt. Hancock’s investigation to the Alberta Crown. Excluding all of the new evidence ensured that the Alberta Crown was just going to give the same answer they gave to the flawed 2011 investigation.
This means that the 2015 through 2018 portion of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754 was just yet another dog and pony show that was never meant to wake up long dead ghosts.
It will be very interesting to see where the current MPCC review goes. It’s abundantly clear that the Canadian Forces do not want to revisit anything from 1980. And considering how narrow and restricted the review process is, I have no doubt that the MPCC will have absolutely no choice but to find in favour of the CFNIS just like the last time.
And unless the powers of the MPCC have been improved since my last go round, the Provost Marshal holds all of the cards.
What could possibly be the reason that the CFNIS has been unable to bring charges against P.S. ?
Liability.
As I mentioned previously, if P.S. were to be criminally charged he would have to be charged under the Juvenile Delinquents Act (JDA).
The JDA didn’t really allow for any type of prison sentence for youths between the age of 14 through 18 as the JDA was more concerned with rehabilitation of the youth.
And as I’ve since learnt, children between the ages of 7 to 14 could be charged for criminal code offences, but to do so the Crown would have had to prove that the child knew right from wrong and understood the outcome of their actions.
P.S. has already had numerous convictions in his adult life for child sexual assaults. By facing more charges it’s not like he’s going to suffer any further loss of liberties or freedoms or further harm to his reputation.
The problem for the Canadian Forces is thus:
Captain McRae was found guilty by means of a courts martial for molesting P.S. on a defence establishment.
The Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence at the time were responsible for all aspects of security and access control to the Defence Establishment.
Captain McRae at the time of the abuse was a member of the Regular Forces and was subject to the Code of Service Discipline around the clock whether he was on-duty or off-duty.
If the CFNIS were to get serious about locating all of the children from CFB Namao who were sexually abused by P.S., how many children would they find? Would the Alberta crown still turn a blind eye if it became aware that P.S. had molested over a dozen children on his own?
We know that P.S. was abused by Captain McRae. Was P.S. abusing the children he was babysitting as a direct result of the abuse he was suffering at the hands of Captain McRae?
It is also conceivable that P.S. was either requested or coerced by Captain McRae into bringing younger children over to the chapel to be molested by Captain McRae and possibly P.S.
If P.S. had been charged and brought in for questioning and in his defence he made statements to the effect that Captain McRae had forced him to bring young children over to the base chapel to be abused, that opens up a whole new can of worms for the military, especially if it came out the the military police or the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit in 1980 were aware, or should have reasonably been aware that Captain McRae was forcing or inducing P.S. to bring children over to the chapel for Captain McRae’s pleasure.
I did raise the possibility of interference in the CFNIS investigation due to the potential for civil liability during my Judicial Review. And yes, the Justice did say that this wasn’t a valid assumption as I had no idea who the P.S. was in the Court of Queen’s Bench action against the Minister of National Defence.
However, as of July 2015, I have verification from P.S. himself that P.S. is the person who filed the $4.3 million dollar action against the Canadian Forces. P.S. would only confirm the action was his, but he would not speak to the settlement.
If P.S. was found in a court of law to have molested myself, my brother, P.G., D.O., S.O., M.O., J.P., and the other numerous John and Janes Does, would this establish a direct link between the victims of P.S. and the Department of National Defence by way of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae?
With the laying of charges against P.S., linking the abuse we suffered at the hands of P.S. on CFB Namao to the actions of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae would be a very trivial matter in much the same sense that P.S. was able to link the abuse he suffered on CFB Namao to the Minister of National Defence.
Right now, the Minister of National Defence and the Provost Marshal have more reasons than not to scuttle any investigation into P.S.
In November of 2008 the Canadian Forces Director of Civil Claims and Liabilities accepted General Legal Liability for the Personal Damages that P.S. had suffered as a result of his abuse on CFB Namao at the hands of Captain McRae.
If P.S. had been charged by the CFNIS for molesting children on CFB Namao, would P.S. have plead innocent due to the duress that Captain McRae had placed him under due to the sexual abuse that McRae was inflicting upon P.S.?
This would have opened up the path for civil actions to be brought against the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence, and the Minister of National Defence by the victims of both P.S. and of Captain McRae.
Remember, in civil court you only have to prove your argument based on probability.
If P.S. had never been abused by Captain McRae, would the victims of P.S. have ever suffered sexual abuse on that base?
The children that lived on CFB Namao were there at the pleasure of the Canadian Forces. Everyone on that base who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline were employees of the Canadian Forces.
If we were abused by P.S. and as a result of the attitudes in the Canadian Forces that resulted from military policy CFAO 19-20 and the Canadian Forces tried to cure us of our apparent “homosexuality” by the use of conversion therapy, is the Canadian Forces further liable? Don’t forget, the social workers that we were paired up with were regular force members of the Canadian Forces who were subject to the Code of Service Discipline.
Without charges being brought against P.S., the Department of Justice could argue in civilian court that we had never been abused, that we were either just lying, or that we were confused.
The Department of Justice could further argue in court that only P.S. was sexually abused on CFB Namao as he is the only person that Captain McRae was ever charged with molesting. And surely if other children were being sexualy abused by Captain McRae, then the military police and the CFSIU would have obviously heard about that, right?
Neat how that works out, eh?
And then there’s the other problem.
The Catholic Clergy within the defence community.
The Canadian Forces deemed male-on-male child sexual abuse to be “acts of homosexuality”.
Captain McRae had been investigated for “acts of homosexuality” in 1973. That’s seven years prior to his conviction in 1980.
If it were found out that the Canadian Forces were moving the kiddie-diddling clergy around just like the civilian churches were doing from the ’50s to the ’90s, what repercussions would that have for the military’s public image, not to mention the odds of a successful civil action against the Canadian Forces?
The Department of Justice on behalf of the Canadian Armed Forces wouldn’t be able to argue that the Canadian Forces had no idea of what Captain McRae was capable of before they posted Captain McRae to CFB Namao. The Canadian Forces investigated McRae for “acts of homosexuality” in 1973 at RMC Kingston. Subsequently the Canadian Forces investigated and prosecuted Captain McRae for Acts of Homosexuality on CFB Namao in May of 1980.
Captain McRae’s court martial isn’t the only one that I’ve seen where the military refered to male-on-male sexual abuse involving persons under the age of 18 as “acts of homosexuality”.
If a pattern emerged which indicated that the Canadian Forces were moving known kiddie-diddlers around from one base to the next in the hopes that the problem would go away, would this make the Canadian Forces even more susceptible to civil actions from former military dependants whom were sexually abused in the walled-off company towns that the Department of National Defence ran across the country?
Respect the Federal Privacy Act my ass. More like help the Canadian Forces avoid compensation lawsuits.
The Canadian Armed Forces obviously were concerned enough about the lawsuits being brought against the Catholic Archdiocese in Canada to change their rules to the point that they made it much more difficult for a victim of Canadian Forces military clergy to prove that they were a member of the Catholic church.
I was baptized at the base chapel on CFB Shearwater in Nova Scotia. The Military Ordinariate has never responded to my two requests.
And this isn’t by accident either. If I can’t prove that I was baptized, then why would I have any involvement with the church? When grandma came to live with us at CFB Summerside, she enrolled me in Sunday Bible school. While we were stationed at CFB Namao, Grandma took my brother and I to Sunday service every Sunday. I had my first communion at the base chapel on CFB Namao. I remember going into the confessional for the first time and talking to father McRae through the funny little window. McRae said one of his jokes and made me laugh. Even when we got punted down to CFB Greisbach, Grandma took my brother and I to Sunday service at the base chapel. After Grandma moved out, Sue promised my brother and I that we’d never have to go to church again. I don’t think my father was very religious at all. I can’t speak for my mother. And I really don’t think Sue was that much into religion.
How could the CFNIS have known anything about P.S. in 2011 when the abuse occurred back in 1978 through 1980? That’s the thing though. Sgt. Hancock knew about P.S. when Hancock interviewed me in March of 2011. Sgt. Christian Cyr knew about P.S. when Cyr talked to me on May 3rd, 2011.
A basic CPIC records check would have told the CFNIS quite a bit about P.S., but I don’t think this was the case in my matter.
In the information age, it would be very easy for the Canadian Forces to run some sort of database that sends alerts or flags when specific names are entered into their systems. A name like P.S. when entered into their CFNIS could be set to trigger alerts that tell the CFNIS to consult with the Judge Advocate General for example, or to contact a specific lawyer at the Department of Justice.
I don’t think that P.S. was bullshitting when he said to Sgt. Tenaschuk on August 11th, 2011 that “anything he had been involved in as a youth has already been handled by the military”. I think that by way of the out of court settlement reached with P.S. that the Minister of National Defence has agreed to handle things for P.S..
When I made friends with an RCMP Officer back in 2012, I gave this RCMP officer a copy of the Edmonton Journal newspaper article from 1985 which indicated that P.S. had been arrested and convicted in 1984 for molesting a boy in Manitoba, and that he had also been arrested and convicted in 1985 for molesting two boys, one on CFB Namao and one in the City of Edmonton. The RCMP constable ran P.S.’s name through CPIC. The RCMP officer wouldn’t say much more than that P.S. was on a sex offender’s registry, and that P.S. had numerous more charges and convictions between 1985 and the year 2000 for child sexual assaults, assault, and robbery.
P.S. tried to commit suicide in January of 2000.
This got me thinking. What if those child sexual assault charges weren’t new charges? What if the majority of charges related to Sexual Assault that P.S. faced between 1985 and the year 2000 were related to children from Canadian Forces Base Namao?
What if P.S. tried to kill himself because he realized that there were potentially so many children from CFB Namao that could possibly bring charges against him that he would never be free of the constant and ongoing investigations and charges?
Mr. P.S. lived on CFB Petawawa from the summer of 1980 until about 1985 when his father was posted back to CFB Edmonton. How many kids did he diddle on CFB Petawawa?
What if the Minister of National Defence, in agreeing to settle P.S.’s action out of court, also agreed that the military police would no longer bring charges against P.S. for assaults that P.S. had committed on CFB Namao?
Immunity Agreements are not unheard of. Procedures exist at both the Federal and Provincial levels.
Maybe it wasn’t an immunity agreement.
After all, members of the CFNIS are subject to section 83 of the National Defence Act and must obey the lawful commands of their superiors.
As was found during the Fynes Public Interest Hearing, investigators with the CFNIS do not run their own investigations. CFNIS investigations are directed and overseen by the chain of command.
Maybe it was just a good old fashioned order from somewhere up the chain of command that P.S. was not to ever be charged again for crimes that he committed on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
Maybe this was why the CFNIS were so eager to grab this case.
The CFNIS had absolutely no problem handing my complaint against Earl Ray Stevens over to the Toronto Police Service. The TPS was successful in bringing six charges of sexual assault against Mr. Stevens in a matter of weeks.
Why?
Mr. Stevens at the time he was molesting me was not an employee of the Canadian Armed Forces. The Canadian Armed Forces bear absolutely no responsibility for the actions of Earl Ray Stevens. If I wanted to sue Mr. Stevens, I would have to go after Mr. Stevens himself.
This is why the CFNIS were more than happy to let the TPS get involved and let the TPS bring charges against Earl. It was no skin off their teeth.
Years ago, when I started one this journey, I tried to get a grasp on the very opaque military justice system in this country. I downloaded a bunch of Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada decisions from the WestlawNext library.
The cases I had picked weren’t arbitrary. I was given the names of very specific cases to look for.
One of the Court Martial Appeal Court cases I downloaded was for a man named Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan. In 1986 Mr. Sullivan was appealing the guilty finding of both of his 1985 courts martial.
Mr. Sullivan had been charged and prosecuted by the military justice system for committing acts of Gross Indecency with teenage boys on CFB Gagetown.
The CMAC ruling explained why the military could legally conduct a courts martial for certain sexal assaults against children, while not being to conduct a courts martial for other sexual assaults against children.
Basically, the Canadian Forces were relying on the “age of consent” laws in Canada. The Canadian Forces seemed to prosecute cases of child sexual abuse when the victims were over the age of 14. When the victims were under the age of 14 it appears that the military would simply drop the charges and proceed with other “serious” charges against the service member.
This explains why the “brass” dropped all of the charges against Captain McRae except for the charges relating to P.S., whom was the only boy over the age of 14 in the entire Captain McRae child sexual abuse fiasco.
By prosecuting Captain McRae and Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan for comitting sexual acts with children over the age of 14, the military could portray these as homosexual acts that the teenage boys would have obviously consented to, therefore the crimes were not as serious as if the boys involved had not consented.
Anyways, when I first received the transcript of the CMAC decision for Corporal Sullivan’s appeal, I conducted a few Google searches for Donald Joseph Sullivan. Nothing ever came of these searches.
Just recently I was going through these WestlawNext files when I came across Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan’s file. I decided to Google Mr. Sullivan’s name again.
Well, this time I got a hit.
There was a Donald Joseph Sullivan in an Ottawa court on August 13th, 2019.
He had been charged with sexually abusing numerous children while he had been a Scout Leader during the ’70s.
According to the news story, this wasn’t the first time in recent times that Mr. Sullivan was in front of a judge to answer for his crimes against children.
In 2005, Mr. Sullivan went to jail for 9 months for two counts of sexual interference.
According to the newspaper story, in the ’70s the police investigated him, but charges were never proceeded with at the time.
Right now I’m just waiting for verification that Scout Leader Donald Joseph Sullivan and Canadian Armed Forces Corporal Donal Joseph Sullivan are one and the same.
What are the odds?
And without criminal charges, would anything have prevented Mr. Sullivan from joinging the Canadian Armed Forces?
And if these two Donald Joseph Sullivans are one and the same, this opens up a whole Pandora’s box of questions.
Plea bargains are nothing new in the criminal justice system. The Crown makes deals all of the time. Plea guilty for a lesser charge, avoid the possibility of a substantial prison sentence, and get a shorter sentence, if any.
Sometimes plea deals work really good in the case of a defendant. Take Karla Homolka and the Crown’s “deal with the devil” for example. Sure, it got Paul Bernardo put away for life, but as it turned out Karla wasn’t innocent either.
The following paragraphs are taken from the Final Report of the External Review Authority.
“As with sexual harassment, there is very poor collection of data regarding incidents of sexual assault in the CAF. Since sexual assaults go widely unreported, the data does not in any way reflect the actual rate of occurrence. Even where complaints are laid, the fact of a sexual assault will often be buried in the court record. For example, if the accused pleads guilty to an alcohol related charge, or to conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline, only a careful review of the sentence will, in some cases, indicate that the conduct or underlying issue involved acts of a sexual nature.
Tracking the occurrence and outcome of incidents of sexual assault is essential to determine if the CAF’s policies are functioning to improve the conduct of its members, both on an individual and systemic basis. Yet in the case of sexual assault in the CAF, the relevant data is missing. While it is true that data on sexual assault is difficult to gather, the CAF needs to understand how incidents are impacting its members, and victims are entitled to make an informed decision about whether or not to disclose a complaint. The ERA heard from participants that a number of data banks are in place in the CAF that could be used to improve data collection. For example, if appropriate coding systems were in place, the CFHIS, which is currently used to report injuries, could be refined to also reflect the causes of the injuries—including sexual assaults. Unfortunately, this is not taking place and the failure to keep data on complaints of sexual assault significantly weakens the accountability of the chain of command and impedes the CAF’s ability to prevent future sexual assaults from occurring.”
It’s no secret that the Canadian Armed Forces Military Police Group has problems tracking sexual assaults. My opinion is that this is not accidental. This lack of proper tracking actually serves the needs of the Canadian Forces Chain of Command. If there’s no data, then there’s obviously no problem, eh?
And if the Canadian Forces are having this much difficulty tracking adult sexual assaults, just imagine how much difficulty they are having tracking sexual assaults involving children living in the defence community.
The ex-JAG lawyer that I spoke with a few weeks ago was under the impression that ALL sexual assaults involving children were always prosecuted through the civilian courts. When I sent him a copy of CFSIU DS-120-10-80 it was apparent by his response to me that he was caught off guard.
Back on February 9th 2015 I had a brief telephone conversation with Lt. Col. David Antonyshyn of the Office of the Judge Advocate General. Mr. Antonyshyn was of the opinion that domestic matters within the PMQs were always handed off to the outside civilian justice system.
Even Lt. Gen. Christine Whitecross told the Standing Committee on National Defence that matters involving child sexual abuse are always handed off to the outside civilian authorities.
But, it would appear that this is not always the case.
And Captain Father Angus McRae wasn’t the only member of the Canadian Armed Forces to have been given a courts martial for sexual crimes against children. I have a couple of CMAC findings in which Canadian Forces personnel who were subject to a courts martial, later appealed their sentences.
The Canadian Forces military justice system was an absolute mess prior to 1998. Commanding officers had far too much sway. Base commanders ruled like kings. The military police and the CFSIU were only independent of the chain of command in fairy tale stories.
So, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there were a significant amount of child sexual abuse cases prosecuted “in-house” by way of courts martial. And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there were a significant amount of child sexual abuse cases plead down to “disgraceful conduct” or “conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline”.
Disgraceful conduct covers Section 92 to Section 98 of the National Defence Act. Section 97 “Drunkenness” has often been used to “excuse” the bad behaviour of service personnel who obviously only committed their offence because they had one too many drinks due to “stress”.
“Conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline” covers Sections 72 to 128 of the National Defence Act. Basically this allows for a person to be dismissed with disgrace from Her Majesty’s service for being drunk or insubordinate.
By allowing a member of the Canadian Forces to cop a plea to “disgraceful conduct” or “conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline” the Canadian Forces get to sweep the matter under the rug, and sweep the offender out the door where the offender now becomes someone else’s problem.
After my informal conversation with the ex-JAG lawyer a few days ago, I came to the realization that much like the Army Cadets from the grenade incident in 1974 at Canadian Force Base Valcartier, and the multitude of gays and lesbians that were booted out of the military in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and 80s’, civilian persons who were sexually abused on military bases prior to 1998 are also stuck in a “legal void”.
The Canadian Armed Forces had the “legal” mandate to discharge homosexuals from its ranks prior to the abolition of Canadian Forces Administrative Order CFAO 19-20. Of course, ethical and legal are two different animals. The Canadian Armed Forces could have easily quashed the class action lawsuit brought against it by those who were ensnared by CFAO 19-20. But the Canadian Forces and the Federal Government chose not to, more than likely out of fear of a negative public reaction.
In 1974, an officer with the Canadian Armed Forces was conducting range safety training with a group of 200 teenage boys. This officer, through negligence, allowed a live hand grenade to be brought into the impromptu class room. This officer of the Canadian Armed Forces allowed the pin to be pulled from the grenade. 6 young boys died immediately, with more than 50 sustaining life altering injuries. In 2011, the Minister of National Defence requested the Canadian Forces Ombudsman look into the matter. The Ombudsman was appalled by the fact that the Officers with the Canadian Armed Forces who were wholly responsible for the deaths and injuries that day were allowed to collect compensation from the Department of National Defence, yet the young boys were all barred from receiving any manner of benefits or compensation as they were not members of the Regular or Reserve Forces. Sure, some parents had the fortitude to sue the Government of Canada. But most of the parents lacked the financial resources to take on the Department of Justice and The Department of National Defence. The Department of National Defence quickly settled with the former cadets.
That brings up my recent conversation with an ex-JAG lawyer. He cited a number of legal reasons as to why DND and the CF could never be sued in a court of law by me personnally for the injuries that I suffered as a result of the abuse from Captain Father Angus McRae and P.S., as well as the emotional trauma I endured at the hands of the military social worker.
Now, I will be honest. This is not the first time a class action has entered my mind. A few things have held me back. First, finding class action lawyers with military law experience. Second, finding other victims of military child sexual abuse. Third, money.
I now realize that I don’t have to find a class action lawer with military law experience. I can retain any law firm I wish that specializes in class actions. I just have to retain an ex-JAG to act as a legal adivser for the class action firm.
Also, I don’t have to worry about finding the other victims. That’s what web, print, television, and radio advertising are for. Definitely won’t be cheap, but it will work a lot faster than my blog or the Facebook base brat groups. The Facebook groups contain only a very small portion of the true number of persons who lived on defence establishments as children. There is a manager at my place of work who was a military dependant. They only found out about my being a former military dependant when they over heard me talking to someone about my father having been in the Canadian Forces. This manager runs one of the other departments. They too were sexually abused on one of the bases they lived on. They don’t know what happened to their abused as the manager and her family moved to another base. This manager is ashamed of having been a military dependant and wishes that no one knows about this and they feel quite serious that their ability to manage wold be called into question.
So I know there are a lot more former military dependants out there in the general population than are on the Facebook groups.
That brings me to the money.
I’ve never used a platform like GoFundMe previously, and I’m still not 100% certain of all of the aspects of raising funds in this manner. But I do believe that raising funds in this manner will allow for a class action to be brought against the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence a lot quicker than by relying on me to fund this on my own.
What happens with the funds if I’m not successful? Any money collected but not spent will be given to various children aid societies across Canada. I know that my family wasn’t the only social service magnet hopping from base to base across Canada.
Will $50k be enough?
Most ex-JAGs that I’ve spoken with in the past have asked for retainers between $5k to $20k with the majority being in between $10k to $15k. Most of these ex-JAGs bill over $600.00/hr. So yeah, I expect the ex-JAG to consume the lion’s portion of the funds raised. That said, I believe these funds spent will be a worthwhile investment as the ex-JAG should be able to walk the class-action law firm through all of the grey areas in the National Defence Act and the Queen’s Regulations and Orders that allowed the Canadian Forces to conduct tribunals for crimes that rightfully should have been put before a civilian court.
Don’t forget but as illustrated by the recent ex-JAG, the Canadian Forces were NOT supposed to be conducting service tribunals for members charged with sexual assaults against children. I now have proof that the Canadian Forces were conducting service tribunals for sexual assaults against children. This is a game changer.
Most class action law firms are more than willing to work on a contingency basis, meaning they ask for very little up front, and instead collect their fees at the end. This of course drives the law firm to try to collect a large settlement.
I fully expect the advertising portion to eat up the remaining balance of the funds raised.
How many victims are there?
I honestly don’t know.
The most accurate number I can guesstimate comes from numbers I received from DND. According to DND housing records, there were 20,500 PMQs and 19,500 children living on the bases in Canada in 1997. At the time there were only 31 bases. Less than 10 years prior there were over 80 bases and stations in Canada. By extrapolation I can say with confidence that there were at least 50,000 children living on the bases in Canada each and every year prior to 1987.
According to civilian stats, 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 20 boys will be sexually assaulted before their 18th birthday.
That’s 16,500 girls and 2,500 boys.
However, recent studies have shown that the rate of sexual assault amongst male children is typically even higher with a rate of 1 in 10 to 1 in 6.
I invite you to make a donation to the cause. Remember, most brats had a good life on the bases, but for those ones who fell through the cracks, they had absolutely nothing in the way of safety nets.
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.
Child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces 