CFNIS – Page 2 – Child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces

The Military Police Complaints Commission

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DND acknowledged my original request on July 30, 2018.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some examples of these descripancies:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why, yes, our grandmother did live with us.

Yes, there was a babysitter.

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

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

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

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

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

That’s not what I said.

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

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

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

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

This is not an accident.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DND and the art of hiding stuff

I might have the ear of a news reporter that is willing to look at my matter.

This reporter is more interested in some of the results I have recevied from the Department of National Defence in response to my various Access to Information requests.

The most recent results I recevied were from an Access to Information Request that I filed with the Department of National Defence in 2019.

In April of 2019, I had been contacted by the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada. I was told by the OIC that DND had released documents to another party that were the same documents that I had been requesting since 2012 and therefore I should submit a new request for the exact documents that DND had just released.

The records that I had requested were for the July 18th, 1980 court martial of Captain Father Angus McRae.

I made an application for these documents on April 3rd 2019. DND acknowledged this request a few days later.

In July of 2020 I finally received the documents that I had requested.

This is the cover page of the documents.

The second page is a photocopy of the file folder from the office of the Judge Advocate General.

The coverpage of the Judge Advocate General file folder

The third page states that pages 2 to 266 are being exempted under the privacy act section 19(1).

Everything has been exempted to protect Captain McRae’s privacy, who has been dead since May of 2011.

So, basically, I recevied three worthless but very humorous pages from DND.

The interesting thing about this information is that a Toronto Star reporter had access to this information back in 1990 for a news story he was writing about Captain McRae having been busted for molesting more children at a Scarborough Ontario church.

Kevin Donovan, Toronto Star
Feb 11, 1990
Page A 14

Also, an instructor with the Canadian Forces College had access to these documents.

Dr. Chris Madsen
Canadian Forces College

So, why am I not being given access to McRae’s court martial records?

In plain and simple terms. There’s a coverup under foot.

The DND Access to Information Office, the Judge Advocate General, the Provost Marshal, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, they all work under the same minister.

This is the same minister that must be sued in any civil action brought against a current or former member of the Canadian Forces.

This is the very same Minister that asked me “What my angle was”, and “What game was I playing” when I went to speak with him in 2016 at his constituency office in Vancouver.

There is nothing in the language of the National Defence Act whch exempts the Judge Advocate General, the Provost Marshal, or anyone in the Canadian Forces Military Police Group from Section 83 of the National Defence Act.

Chapter N-5, Section 83
National Defence Act

What does this have to do with the refusal of DND to release the requested documents to me?

During the 2nd portion of CFNIS investigation GO2011-5754, the investigators with the CFNIS noted that although my name wasn’t mentioned in CFSIU investigation DS-120-10-80 they would ask me a series of questions to see if my answers matched details within CFSIU DS 120-10-80.

Excerpt from GO 2011-5754
The first report would be CFSIU DS-120-10-80 which commenced on May 12th, 1980
The second report would be the base military police investigation of P.S. for what he had been doing with younger children on the base.

I was never asked any questions.

The goal was never to connect me to P.S. or Captain McRae.

The goal was a “Dog and Pony Show” investigation that wouldn’t lead to any charges against P.S., but would give me the feeling that something had been done.

Yes, P.S. would never face a court martial. But you have to remember that at the start of this investigation back in March of 2011, Angus McRae was alive and well.

The CFNIS had to structure the investigation around the fact that even if P.S. were to implicate Captain Angus McRae, the Canadian Forces would never be able to bring charges against Captain McRae due to the 3-year time bar that existed pre-1998.

The Minister of National Defence, the Judge Advocate General, and the Provost Marshal do not want to establish that I or any other child from CFB Namao were involved with the P.S./ Captain McRae child sexual abuse scandal on CFB Namao.

The decision was made in 1980 to only charge Captain McRae with committing “Acts of Homosexuality” against P.S. as P.S. was the only boy above the age of 14.

14 was the age of consent in 1980.

And as was explained in the Court Martial Appeal Court ruling in the matter of Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan vs. Regina, the Canadian Armed Forces have the right to conduct a court martial for “Gross Indecency”, “Indecent Assault”, and “Buggery” so long as consent could have been a consideration.

Regina vs. Sullivan
Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada

This implies that if consent wasn’t given, then the Canadian Forces couldn’t conduct a service tribunal. The matter would have to go before a civilian court. And in a civilian court, the Department of National Defence would have a much harder time throwing a “wall of secrecy” around the matter.

It must be remembered that at the time in 1980, 14 was the legal age that a child could consent to sexual activities.

1970 R.S.C. Chapter C-34
Criminal Code of Canada
Section 140 – Consent
Children under 14 cannot consent.

This is why the Chain of Command, according to Fred Cunningham, dropped all of the charges against McRae except for the charges related to P.S.. P.S. was the only boy over the age of 14. Instead of this being a matter of child sexual abuse, now this was a matter of “homosexuality”.

P.S., being the only boy over the age of 14 would have been the only one who could have possibly “consented”.

If the Canadian Armed Forces had tried to charge Captain McRae with molesting the children that were between the ages of 4 and 14 that both he and P.S. molested both individually and together, the Canadian Armed Forces would have lost the ability to conduct a court martial against Captain McRae.

The problem this posed for the Canadian Armed Forces is that Captain McRae was the first officer in the Canadian Armed Forces investigated for molesting children.

In a court martial, the Minister of Defence may allow the proceedings to be moved “in-camera” and thereby keep an embarrassing situation out of the media.

If the Canadian Forces had charged Captain McRae with molesting the children under the age of 14, McRae would have had to be prosecuted in civilian court.

To move a court martial “in-camera” is far easier than it is to try to move a civilian court case “in-camera”.

This also explains why the base military police and the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit were not allowed to call in the RCMP to deal with P.S..

If P.S. had been investigated and charged with molesting the children he had been babysitting, he would have been dealt with under the Juvenile Delinquents Act.

There was an odd section of the Juvie Act which allowed for the adult that contributed to the delinquency of a minor to be found guilty on summary conviction.

Had the Chain of Command in 1980 allowed either the base military police or the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit to call in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to deal woth P.S., the Canadian Forces would have lost all ability to control the narrative of the eventual investigation into Captain McRae.

By keeping things “in house”, the Chain of Command knew they could keep a very embarrassing situation out of the local media.

The problem that created is that any of the children being molested by P.S. and Captain McRae would be forever denied acknowedlegment or justice.

40 years

During the July 30th interview at VPD headquarters, one of the investigators kept mentioning that this case would be tough due to the 40 years that have passed.

Well, this isn’t exactly true.

Former Canadian Armed Forces corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan was convicted in 2019 for molesting numerous boys from the Ottawa area in the mid ’70s.

Sullivan had been a boy scout leader when the Ottawa police in the ’70s started to get complaints.

Sullivan disappeared off the radar so to speak. The police couldn’t find him.

Turns out he had joined the Canadian Armed Forces.

However his stint in the Canadian Forces wasn’t enough to disaude him from molesting young boys.

In 1984, he was given a court martial for his assaults against the boys.

In 1985, he tried to appeal his conviction via the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada.

The CMAC ruled that the Canadian Armed Forces had the legal right to conduct a court martial for the crimes of “Gross Indecency”, “Indecent Assault”, and “Buggery”.

The interesting thing about Sullivan’s court martial conviction is that it did not show up in his civilian records and was not taken into consideration during his sentencing in 2019.

When I brought Sullivan’s military convictions to the attention of the reporter covering the 2019 convictions, he passed this information on to the Ontario Crown.

The Crown was not too pleased to hear this.

Below are a sampling of historical child sexual assault cases from the 1970s and 1980s.

All I searched for was “canada man charged for sexual assaults in the 1970s”

1970’s sexual assault from group home

Group home sex assaults from the ’80s

Historic assault from the ’80s

Child sex assault from 1972

Hockey Coach from the ’70s

Teacher sex assaults from the ’70s

Vancouver swimming coach 1980s

1960s badminton coach

There’s the ongoing saga of Gordon Stuckless from Maple Leaf Gardens in the ’80s who to this day is still facing more charges as more adults keep coming forward.

There’s also the curious case of Kenneth Estabrooks from St. John, New Brunswick. Mr. Estabrooks died in the early 2000’s. After his death, numerous people came forward with complaints that Mr. Estabrooks had abused them while they were in his custody in the juvenile detention system.

The City of St. John hired a private investigator to look into these complaints. The investigator came to the conclusion that Estabrooks had in fact sexually abused well over 260 children that had been placed into his care.

Even though Estabrooks is long since dead, the city is facing numerous lawsuits and in fact is facing a class action lawsuit.

Estabrooks Class Action

So, why would the CFNIS make such a big deal about the fact that the abuses I reported occured from 1978 to 1980.

It’s obvious that smaller civilian police departments without the budgets or the manpower of the Canadian Armed Forces have absolutely no problem bringing charges.

If I had to guess, I would assume that the risk or potential for civil actions arising out of the actions of former employees of the Department of National Defence plays a major role in determining whether or not charges will be laid.

Again, the investigators with the CFNIS are still subject to the Chain of Command. There is no language in the National Defence Act which exempts investigators with the CFNIS from section 83 of the National Defence Act.

Yes, the CFNIS and the CFNIS investigators are supposed to be independent of the Chain of Command. But, there is no language in the National Defence Act that exempts the Provost Marshal, the Military Police Group, or the CFNIS from the Chain of Command.

A simplified outline of the Chain of Command in the CFNIS hierarchy is :

Minister of National Defence -> Chief of Defence Staff -> Vice Chief of Defence Staff -> Provost Marshal -> Commanding Officer CFNIS -> Regional Commanding Officer CFNIS -> CFNIS investigator.

In March of 2001, when my former babysitter, Mr. P.S. sued Angus Alexander McRae, P.S. was obligated to sue the Minister of Defence as at the time McRae abused P.S., McRae was a member of the regular force.

The Canadian Forces did accept legal liability for the abuse that P.S. had endured at the hands of Captain McRae on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

At the time of my Federal Court appeal in October of 2013, I didn’t have access to the Department of Justice paperwork from when the Department of Justice defended the Canadian Forces in P.S.’s civil action.

However, now that I have that paperwork, I know that a settlement was reached.

If the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service had brought charges against P.S. for the abuse he committed against myself, my brother, P.G., M.O., and the other 25 children that McRae and P.S. were known to have abused on CFB Namao from 1978 to 1980, this would have opened up a civil action Pandora’s box.

So, how will my matter with the “man in the sauna” conclude?

Well, first off the only witness to the abuse in the sauna was P.S..

Depending on how the CFNIS approach P.S., he may or may not be willing to talk.

Under the current Minister of National Defence, Harjit Sajjan, I can’t see the CFNIS being permitted to approach P.S. as a witness.

In 2011, when the CFNIS became aware of the direct connection between P.S., Captain McRae, and 5 distinct visits that P.S. had taken me on over to the chapel, the CFNIS outright refused to change the scope of the investigation from investigating P.S. as the main suspect to investigating P.S. as another victim of Captain McRae who had used P.S. to bring young children over to the chapel for McRae to abuse.

In the current investigation of the man in the sauna, it is apparent that whoever this man was used P.S.. Therefore P.S. is not a suspect in this investigation, nor should he be considered a suspect.

However, I have no doubt in my mind that the CFNIS will not be permitted to approach P.S. as a witness.

The CFNIS will approach P.S. in a manner guaranteed to make sure that he is as uncooperative as possible.

This way, when this investigation concluded, the CFNIS can shrug their shoulders and say “We tried, but 40 years is a long time, there’s nothing we could do” thereby ensuring that no civil actions can be brought against the Canadian Forces.

Another Interview

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?

Toronto Sun Article

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.

Insubordination

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.

A Petition

Well, I finally have a sponsor for my petition.

Anyone who is a Canadian Citizen can sign this petition.

This petition will have to reach 500 signatures in order for it to be brought to the attention of Parliament.

https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-2537

Actual Petition from the House of Commons website.

You can sign this petition by clicking the link below:

https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Sign/e-2537

In this petition I am asking that Parliament strike an inquiry to look at this issue of child sexual abuse that occurred on the Canadian Forces bases in Canada. Child sexual abuse occurred at least as frequently on base as it did in the civy world. Because of that you’d expect to see some sort of statistics that indicate this. But DND has no numbers available. DND can’t (or isn’t willing to) publish statistics for sexual assaults committed against children on the bases.

Taking into account the unwillingness of DND to share these numbers. And taking into consideration that in 2011 Colonel Tim Grubb stated that there was a disturbingly higher incidence of child sexual abuse within the defence community, there should be some sort of numbers to indicate this.

DND has nothing.

And even when DND did offer up information, it was wrong. For instance, recently I asked in a Freedom of Information request for a spread sheet indicating how many charges were laid per year for sexual crimes committed against children.

What I received instead was a tally of all of the sexual assaults prosecuted through the military justice system since 2002. DND and the Provost Marshal have no records from prior to 2002.

To be quite frank, the number of sexual assault charges was alarming, as was the number of “unfounded” investigations. But that’s a windmill for someone else to tilt at.

The following charges are not “Sexual assault” as defined under the both the 1970 and the 1985 Criminal Code of Canada:
Gross Indecency;
Indecent Assault;
Buggery;
Sexual Interference;
Invitation to Sexual Touching;
Sexual Exploitation;
Incest.

Prior to 1985, the Canadian Forces could not conduct a service tribunal for “Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape”. The above charges are not rape. From 1985 until 1998 the Canadian Forces could not conduct a service tribunal for “Murder, Manslaughter, and Sexual Assault”. The above charges are “sexual offences”, they are not “sexual assault”.

As such, these charges are considered to be “Service Offences” and they are charges that not only can the CFNIS and the military police investigate, but they are charges that can be dealt with in a service tribunal.

I have since submitted to DND an Freedom of Information request for a list of investigations and prosecutions for the specific charges indicated above.

It has been explained to me by the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada that the SAMPIS record keeping system that the CFNIS and the base military police use is very limited in how it can be searched and the type of data that it can provide. Sounds like a defect by design.

Also explained to me by both the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada and the Library and Archives Canada is that DND and the CF had horrific to almost non-existent record keeping prior to the early 2000’s.

This is why an external inquiry completely free of the encumbrances of the Department of National Defence is the only way that the truth will be allowed to come out.

As a matter of policy DND maintains no records of former military dependants that live on the bases in Canada. The only way to have former military dependants come forward would be to make an official public request. DND and the Canadian Armed Forces aren’t willingly going to go and find all of these former military dependants. Yes, there are base brat groups on Facebook. However, it is apparent that the number of former brats in the base brat groups on Facebook is a very small drop in the sea. Also, as I’ve noticed, some brat groups tend to censor sensitive posts.

Making further amendments to the National Defence Act is also something that I am asking for via this petition. I think that it is absolutely ridiculous that a 3-year time bar can effective prevent any form of criminal investigation from being commenced against a person who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline prior to 1998. The Criminal Code of Canada has no equivalent “statute of limitations” for indictable offences.

I am also asking for amendments to be made to the National Defence Act that would render null and void any decision by a commanding officer to dismiss charges that had been brought against their subordinate for crimes that amount to child sexual abuse. The idea that a person with no legal training, and no duty to uphold the Criminal Code of Canada is somehow capable of deciding whether or not their subordinate should face charges is absurd.

You can download a copy of Legislative Summary LS-311E using the “Download” button below.

LS_311E Download

2(a)(1) on page 12 talks about the implications of the 3-year time bar and why it had to be removed in 1998. I know the 3-year time bar affects modern day CFNIS investigations as Sgt. Damon Tenaschuk told me in 2018 that due to information from his legal an investigation would not be commenced as charges could not be laid due to the 3-year time bar which existed when the Criminal Code offence of Obstruction is alleged to have occurred.

2(d) on page 18 talks about the Summary Investigation flaw and how commanding officers could dismiss charges that they wouldn’t have been able to try the accused on. 2(d) also highlights that once a commanding officer dismissed charges related to a service offence that those charges or similar charges arising out of the same or similar facts could never be brought against the accused at a later date.

Again, here is the link to sign the petition

https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Sign/e-2537

Just another posting

Just another posting. Nothing too serious.

The MPCC investigation into my complaint against the CFNIS is still ongoing. Unlike last time around, I was able to file an Access to Information request prior to making my final submission to the MPCC.

What this means is that unlike my previous complaint to the MPCC, I have all of the paperwork from the 2015 to 2018 portion of CFNIS investigation GO# 2011-5754.

This helped a lot as I was able to confirm what the CFNIS did and didn’t do in the second portion of the investigation into my complaint against P.S.

We still have to remember that the Provost Marshal holds all of the cards in a MPCC review.

I’ll admit that I was pretty naive the last time I made a complaint to the MPCC.

Dealing with the CFNIS in 2011 was really my first time ever having any dealings with any type of police agency. And during my dealings with the CFNIS I honestly had no idea of the historic issues facing the military police within the Canadian Forces. I also had absolutely no knowledge of the historical flaws in the National Defence Act. I just thought that it was so cool after having twice before been told that the military police couldn’t investigate P.S. because he was a military dependant that all of a sudden, here was the CFNIS ready and willing to investigate P.S.

But when Sgt. Cyr opened his mouth on May 3rd, 2011 and spilt the beans about the sordid details from back in 1980, I realized that the justice train had come off the rails before it even left the station.

I knew on November 4th, 2011 when PO Morris told me that the CFNIS couldn’t find any evidence to indicate that P.S. was capable of the crimes I had accused him of, that something had really gone wrong with the investigation.

The statement PO Morris made to me on November 4th, 2011 became all the more laughable in August of 2012 when I came across the Edmonton Journal article that detailed P.S.’s three criminal convictions for child sexual assault prior to September of 1985.

When RCMP Inspector Akrum Ghadban recommended that the CFNIS re-open the 2011 investigation and concentrate of four areas that he thought needed improvement I decided to keep detailed notes and records right from the word go.

All of these records and details were submitted to the MPCC.

So, we’ll have to sit back and see where this goes.

As I said at the start, I fully realize that the MPCC doesn’t have a lot of investigative powers during a review. The MPCC can’t subpoena documents or witnesses during a review. The MPCC can’t administer oaths during a review. The MPCC pretty well has to function with what the Provost Marshal gives to them.

I know the Provost Marshal has a very dim view of my request for a review of the CFNIS investigation. The Provost Marshal has already informed me that he considers my complaint to be baseless. The Provost Marshal has also stated that he considers the 2012 MPCC review to be sufficient and that he doesn’t believe that a second review of the same investigation needs to be undertaken. What the Provost Marshal is ignoring is that the 2011 portion of GO #2011-5754 is very distinctly different from the 2015 to 2018 portion of GO #2011-5754. The Provost Marshal even stated that he refused to review the video of my statement that I gave to RCMP Inspector Akrum Ghadban in September of 2015.

So, here’s hoping that things are different this time around.

One lesson that I did learn from my previous trip to Federal Court is that you can’t introduce “new evidence” into a hearing for judicial review. What is “new evidence”? New evidence is anything that wasn’t before the Military Police Complaints Commission during the review of a complaint against the military police.

And believe me, I am fully aware that not everything that was before the CFNIS manages to make it to the MPCC.

😉

MPCC review part deux.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

I think I know how the Provost Marshal and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS) intend to play the game this time around.

I gained that insight with a question the registrar of the MPCC recently asked me. The registrar asked me if I had disclosed the documents and informations that I recently shared with the MPCC to the Provost Marshal as well.

This seems to indicate that maybe the Provost Marshal didn’t release all of the documents to the Military Police Complaints Commission.

This is pretty well the same way I got played by the Provost Marshal the last time.

Let me explain.

During my previous involvement with the MPCC it was only after I had made my application to Federal Court for judicial review that I was able to see the documents that the Provost Marshal had supplied to the Military Police Complaints Commission for the MPCC to review.

The Provost Marshal excluded quite a bit of information and many documents from their submission to the MPCC.

During the last MPCC review, it became apparent that the CFNIS spent pretty well the entire 2011 portion of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754 trying to make me out to be the bad guy.

According to the CFNIS, I was a societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the Canadian Forces who couldn’t hold down a job, and who was only going after P.S. for money.

The CFNIS excluded any mention of Captain Father Angus McRae from the investigation paperwork. The CFNIS excluded any mention of the well known connection between P.S. and Captain McRae. The CFNIS also steered very clear of any mention of my foster care / social service records which highlighted issues with my father, and which also indicated that our grandmother was living in our house. The CFNIS also didn’t mention to the MPCC that P.S. had sued the Minister of National Defence and that the Minister of National Defence had settled out of court with P.S. in November of 2008.

As I learnt during my last appearance in Federal Court, by the time a person makes an application for judicial review in Federal Court it is too late to introduce “new” documents or informations as evidence as these documents and informations will be struck from the proceedings as being “new” evidence that wasn’t before the commission you are seeking judicial review of.

Yes, you read that right.

If the Provost Marshal has documents in its possession, and it fails to give those documents to the MPCC during the MPCC review, and the MPCC finds in favour of the Provost Marshal, you as the applicant cannot introduce those same documents into the Federal Court.

The documents and informations that were struck from my last application for judicial review were documents and informations that were in the possession of the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal.

The Department of Justice was able to have the justice reviewing my application for judicial review strike most of my evidence because the Department of Justice lawyer was able to argue that these documents weren’t brought before the MPCC.

And why weren’t these documents brought before the MPCC?

Because the Provost Marshal controlled which documents were and weren’t released to the MPCC. Sure, I probably could have submitted the documents and informations that I had in my possession to the MPCC the last time during the previous MPCC review, but I had no idea how the MPCC worked or how the review process worked either. At the time I had assumed that the MPCC would be reviewing the entire investigation from start to finish. At the time I didn’t realize that the MPCC only reviews the documents supplied to it by the Provost Marshal.

And besides, as I’ve previously stated. The investigators that came to interview me really weren’t interested in what I had to say. They had already sided with the Provost Marshal.

Neat how that works, isn’t it?

It’s almost as if the MPCC is designed to be a feel good exercise in futility.

And I have no doubt that this is the game the Provost Marshal will play. Because I didn’t “disclose” to the Provost Marshal documents that the Provost Marshal already had, I wasn’t following “due process” and therefore I wasn’t being fair to the Provost Marshal.

The CFNIS had collected these documents and informations from me as part of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754.

However, I think that the Provost Marshal neglected to pass these documents on to the MPCC. Hence why the MPCC asked me recently if I had disclosed these documents to the Provost Marshal.

And this folks is how the Provost Marshal is able to play the MPCC like a cheap violin.

The Provost Marshal had access to all of these documents and informations as they reside on DND’s servers and other computer infrastructure. The existence and the content of these documents and informations should have been documented and recorded in the SAMPIS record system employed by the military police group which includes the CFNIS.

By wilfully neglecting to release these documents, the Provost Marshal is able to set the narative to a narative that portrays the CFNIS in a very positive light.

The Provost Marshal is fully aware, as is the Judge Advocate General, that the MPCC does not have the legal authority to compel the Provost Marshal to turn over documents to the MPCC during a review.

During a review, the MPCC can only ask the Provost Marshal for documents. It is only during a Public Interest Hearing that the MPCC has the legal authority to subpoena documents and witnesses.

And as former chairperson Glenn Stannard said during an interview which occurred in 2015, the MPCC has never been given access to the manuals that dictate how the CFNIS operate, and as such the MPCC doesn’t know what documents that it should be requesting from the Provost Marshal during a review.

Does the MPCC fully understand the implications that Section 83 of the National Defence Act has for the supposed independence of the CFNIS investigators from Chain of Command influence?

Does the MPCC fully understand the organizational structure of the Canadian Armed Forces?

Minister of National Defence -> Chief of Defence Staff -> Vice Chief of Defence Staff -> Provost Marshal -> Divisional Officer Commanding CFNIS -> Detachment Officer Commanding -> Investigator Supervisor -> CFNIS Investigator.

P.S. sued the Minister of National Defence in March of 2001 for $4.3 million dollars. The Canadian Forces Director of Civil Claims and Liabilities settled with P.S. for an undisclosed sum of money in November of 2008.

As of right now, myself and the other victims of P.S. and Captain Father Angus McRae have no avenue to seek compensation from the Minister of National Defence due the the CFNIS being unable to find any evidence to bring against P.S..

And the flawed 1980 CFSIU investigation into Captain McRae not only minimized the true number of sexual assault victims on the base, it also anointed P.S. as being the sole victim of Captain McRae, hence why he has been the only person to date who was able to sue the Minister of National Defence.

Yes, I have said time and time again that I do not want to sue for money. But it’s not that simple. There were over 25 other kids the military police knew of in 1980. I can’t promise the Mininster of National Defence that they won’t sue.

P.S. also lived on CFB Petawawa from the summer of 1980 until sometime around 1984. How many children did P.S. molest on CFB Petawawa? If those kids found out that P.S. had been corrupted by Captain McRae, could these kids in turn sue the Minister of National Defence for damages should the CFNIS be able to prove that P.S. molested children on CFB Petawawa?

You can bet your bottom dollar the the Department of Justice and the Judge Advocate General have informed the Minister of National Defence that by agreeing to settle out of court with P.S. that the Canadian Forces Director of Civil Claims and Liabilities has set precedent for any other child who had been sexually abused on a Canadian Forces base by a member subject to the Code of Service Discipline or who was sexually abused by another military dependant so long as there was a connection to someone who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline..

Yes, some of the 25 children from CFB Namao may have only been abused by P.S. and not by Captain McRae. However, I don’t think that any lawyer worth their salt would have any trouble at all linking the sexual deviancy exhibited by P.S. as being caused by Captain McRae.

Even the Juvenile Delinquents Act made the adult responsible for a child’s delinquencies legally culpable for those delinquencies

Revised Statutes of Canada
Chapter J-3
Juvenile Delinquents Act

How hard would it be for the Minister of National Defence to make it known via the Chain of Command that he does not wish for his office to be sued, or for the reputation of the Canadian Forces to be tarnished? Very easy. The MoD makes the rules.

Under section 83 of the National Defence Act, ALL subordinates must obey the lawful commands of their superiors.

And yes, there is a stark difference between the word legal and the word lawful.

A commanding officer has the authority to issue any command they see fit to their subordinate. The subordinate is required to obey that command. However, the subordinate is placed in a precarious position. The subordinate has the legal and moral responsibility to ignore commands that are obviously illegal, such as opening fire on unarmed civilians or killing unarmed prisoners of war. For anything else though, the subordinate is expected to follow the lawful commands of their superior without question. How well do you think the Canadian Forces would function if subordinates were consulting legal officers at the office of the Judge Advocate General every time a commanding officer issued a lawful command?

During the Fynes Public Interest Hearing, the Fynes argued that the CFNIS were biased in favour of the CF and conducted the investigation in such a manner as to protect the CF’s institutional reputation or interests.

This is not what I am alleging.

I am alleging that the Chain of Command, starting with the office of the Minister of National Defence, has run this investigation in such a manner as to avoid raising the spectre of historical child sexual abuse which occurred on the bases in Canada prior to the passage of Bill C-28 in 1998 prior to which the National Defence Act contained two outrageous flaws which allowed child sexual abuse to be minimized and hidden on the bases.

It must be remembered at all time that the investigators with the CFNIS do not “own” the investigations they are charged with investigating. The investigation “belongs” to the chain of command. The chain of command will determine the scope and directions of a CFNIS investigation. The chain of command will determine who is interviewed and who isn’t. The chain of command will determine what evidence is collected and what evidence is discarded.

The fact that CFNIS investigators don’t “own” their investigations serves to illustrate why interferance complaints are unheard of. There can be no interferance if the investigation isn’t yours to run as you see fit.

During the Fynes Public Interest Hearing, the lawyer employed by the Fynes was able to access critical documents and witnesses as this lawyer was a former Judge Advocate General in the Canadian Forces and knew how the military police operated.

Because of this we know that the SAMPIS record system is not all that secure and can be edited at anytime and that there is no record of the changes made.

We know that the superiors of one investigator involved in the investigation of Cpl. Langridge’s suicide “edited” the investigator’s final report for “clarity” while coincidentally removing any mention of “suicide watch”. The investigator was told to place his signature upon the “clarified” version of his final report.

We also know due to the Fynes Public Interest Hearing that the supervisors and superiors of the CFNIS investigators were calling the shots during the investigation, but they lacked the necessary training and experience required to make the proper and correct decisions during the investigation.

Are the limitations of the MPCC fixable. No, they’re probably not. The MPCC was created by an Act of Parliament. The committee that drafted the bill that created the MPCC probably consulted and listened to those involved in law enforcement as government mucky-mucks tend to believe that only the police can oversee the police. The Department of National Defence would have also had a significant amount of input into the creation of the MPCC as who else could be trusted to better understand the unique needs of the military.

The fact that the MPCC is required to hire retired police officers to act as investigators shows that the entire MPCC Review process is prone to being captured by those with a bias towards law enforcement.

I honestly don’t know how this review will work out this time around.

I don’t even want to guess.

I know that the Provost Marshal is dead set against this review as he responded to me that the MPCC had already reviewed the 2011 portion of GO 2011-5754 and that no further review was require and to that extent he didn’t bother to review the video interview that was conducted in September of 2015 at the UBC RCMP detachment.

I’m just waiting to see exactly how the Provost Marshal, the Judge Advocate General, or even the Department of Justice spring into action to stop or curtail the current MPCC review.

Liability.

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.

How embarrassing it must have been.

I can only imagine how terrified the brass within the Canadian Armed Forces were at the prospect of the Canadian public discovering that the military couldn’t protect children living on secure military establishments.

This was contained within the Department of Justice paperwork from when the DOJ represented the Mininster of National Defence in P.S. vs. The Mininster of National Defence.
Page 315 of Access to Information Request A-2016-01717

Just imagine for a minute that you’re Colonel Dan Munro, and that you’re the base commander of Canadian Forces Base Namao. Imagine that you have been informed by the base military police that a military dependant living on the base has just implicated your direct subordinate in a child sexual abuse scandal.

Imagine that you have to instruct your other subordinate, Captain David Pilling, to instruct Acting Section Commander Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham, to investigate your direct subordinate, Captain Father Angus McRae, for having committed “acts of homosexuality” with teenage boys on the the base that you command. These are the children of the men and women ultimately under your command.

I wonder if Munro went over to the Lamplighter Pub to down a few good stiff ones first before he made that dreaded phone call to Ottawa.

Now imagine that you’re in Ottawa, and you’re on the other end of that phone call. Can you imagine what it was like inside the hallowed halls of the Major-General George R Pearkes building in Ottawa to discover than an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces was molesting children on a defence establishment. And not just one or two children, we’re talking 25 children.

This must have activated the damage control machinery at National Defence Head Quarters. Captain Jim Grey seems to have been the media spokesperson designated to deal with the media on this matter.

I can only wonder what the Chaplaincy branch was doing. After all, as it turns out, the Catholic church was well aware of what its priests were up to during the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. And if the Catholic church was aware, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Canadian Forces Chaplaincy branch was well aware. This probably explains why DND removed all of the rectories from the base chapels in the late ’80s.

The first thing DND did back then was to “throw a wall of secrecy” around the entire Captain McRae matter. This was unusual because court martial hearings were supposed to be open to the public. Sure, the court martial occurred on a defence establishment, and DND could control access to the court martial by controlling access to the defence establishment. But the public were supposed to be admitted to the court martial. Yes, P.S. was a juvenile, but there were ways that his identity could have been shielded from the public and the media. This was a common occurrence during public trials which involved children.

ALL courts martial SHALL be public and the public SHALL be admitted.
Unless of course you want to hide something so hideous and unspeakable.
Then by all means throw a “Wall of Secrecy” around the tribunal and seal all the evidence.

This wouldn’t be the only time that DND and the CF hauled out the P.R. machinery in relation to this matter.

In January of 2000, P.S. tried to commit suicide. It was after this that P.S. realized that the abuse he suffered at the hands of Captain McRae might have been at the root of all of the legal problems that P.S. was enduring up to that point in time.

By “realizing” in 2000 that the abuse he “endured” at the hands of Captain McRae had effects on him, P.S. managed to reset the hands of the clock for the Crown Liability and Proceeding Act 6 year time period.

P.S. contacted a lawyer in Edmonton, AB. This is because you have to sue in the jurisdiction that the crimes occurred in. This alone probably explains why more military dependants haven’t ever tried to sue their abusers.

In March of 2001, Mr. R.P. Lee, on behalf of P.S. initiated a $4.3 million dollar action against the Minister of National Defence et. al. in the Alberta Court of Queens Bench.

P.S. initiated his claim in March of 2001.
Normally the Crown Civil Liabilities Act should have prevented this.
But P.S. “realized” in 2000 that the abuse he endured at McRae’s hands affected him.
This “restarted” the 6 year time limit for civil claims against the Crown.

The Department of Justice automatically springs into action whenever and type of action is taken against any department of the Federal Government.

This means that the Government of Canada is able to use tax payer money to bury people like me. The only reason P.S. was successful in his action against the Minister of National Defence et. al., is that he was anointed as the sole victim of Captain McRae by both the base military police and the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit in the spring of 1980.

The pages below come from the paperwork from the Department of Justice. It should be noted that almost all of the paperwork in the DOJ file is redacted. Out of close to 6,000 pages released, I think that less than 200 pages were un-redacted.

The first thing that the Canadian Forces Director Public Affairs Planning and Operations did was to remove the names of the Criminal Code offences from the press release. Why would they do this? Simple. To sanitize the crimes and to minimize triggering anyone else coming forward.

Here is the original draft of the press release before the “Director Public Affairs Planning and Operations” got a hold of it.

Unless you love reading through the various acts, you would never know what sections 155, 156, and 157 were, would you? Most people without a legal background would have easily understood that buggery meant anal intercourse, or more specifically that a 50 something year old Captain in the Canadian Forces placed his penis inside the rectum of a 14 year old boy. Gross indecency and indecent assault may not have been well known, but there were more than likely enough Canadians who would have known that basically Captain McRae was giving and receiving oral sex to and from a 14 year old boy.

Where as, if you strip away the descriptions of the offences and just tell Canadians that Angus McRae committed the indictable offences of 155, 156, and 157, then it doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

Why did they remove “Buggery, Gross Indecency, and Indecent Assault” from the press release?

So, here is the “cleaned up” version that was released to the Canadian Media. Did you happen to notice that the Canadian Armed Forces give no indication of the age of the victim? For that matter, they also don’t mention the age of Captain Father Angus McRae. Nor do they mention that Captain McRae outranked each and every parent of the children he had abused. And unlike during the original CFSIU investigation in 1980, this press release makes no mention that Captain McRae was convicted for committing homosexual acts with teenage boys.

We know from the findings of the External Review which was conducted by Madame Marie Deschamps that the Canadian Forces never really took sexual assaults seriously, let alone accusations of sexual assault. So I have to chuckle at the insistence in the press release that the military “takes all allegations of sexual assault very seriously”.

They forget to mention that Captain McRae was sentenced to four years in prison, but that his sentence kept getting cut down to the point he actually served less than ten months total.

The Canadian Forces also forgot to mention that Captain McRae had gone on to molest more children after he left the Canadian Forces.

Oh well.

Unfounded / Founded Not Cleared.

I submitted an Freedom of Information request with the Department of National Defence in July of 2018. I was looking for “copies of any reports, memos, letters, emails, or any other documents and communications indicating how many cases of child sexual abuse occurred pre-1998 and were brought to the attention of the CFNIS / MP / CFPM post 1998 and declined prosecution due to the 3-year time bar which existed pre-1998”

In August of 2018, DND responded to me that (a) their record keeping system was limited in its functionality, and (b) creating a tally of these crimes would be “creating new documents” which runs counter to the ATIP Act.

The above email reached me prior to the official letter which is below.

Two things are learnt from the above letter. The first being that the military police record keeping system was much different prior to 2002 than it is now.
Second, the Access to Information office won’t “create new documents’, and by that they mean if they go through the records as they exist prior to 2002 and created a spread sheet to track what charges there were for child sexual assaults, this would be considered to be the creation of new documents. And due to how records were maintained prior to 2002, creating a new tally sheet would be the only way to meaningfully count the number of sexual assaults in question.

The Information Commissioner of Canada did get involved and DND did finally agree to release some information to me.

On January 2nd, 2020 I recevied my response from DND.

The letter that accompanied the DVD explained that DND has released to me the information that I have requested, but only from the period of 2001 to current day as the Canadian Forces Military Police crime database does not go back prior to the year 2000.

This letter also explained that there is no data available for the years of 1998 to 2000. When DND says they never had a problem with child sexual abuse on the bases, they can say it with a straight face as they have no data due to piss-poor record keeping.

DND also explained that the information is “Invalidated raw data”. Whatever that means.

The data set can be down loaded from here.
https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/a-2018-00779.pdf

Between 2001 to 2019 there were 2,804 sexual assaults reported to the Canadian Forces Military Police.

In 782 of the cases, charges were recommended. One thing to remember is that these cases only resulted in charges, there’s nothing to indicate if a conviction resulted due to the charges.

From page 70 of the “External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces” which was conducted by retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Madame Marie Deschamps.

423 cases were closed as being “Unfounded”.

From CBC news article
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/military-sexual-assault-unfounded-1.4831424

881 cases were closed as being “Founded Not Cleared”

171 cases were subject to “Departmental Discretion”.
I’m still waiting for an explanation for this one.

52 cases were investigations for sexual crimes involving children. The fact that these cases are being investigated by the CFNIS means that Lt. Gen. Christine Whitecross wasn’t stating the facts before the Defence Committee when Randall Garrison asked her who had the jurisdiction for child sexual assault investigations on Canadian Forces Bases in Canada. The response from Lt. Gen. Christine Whitecross was that matters involving children are always handed off to the outside civilian authorities. This would be a very similar response to what I was told by Lt. Col. David Antonyshyn of the Office of the Judge Advocate General.

However, one thing became very apparent while I was reading this data set.

This data set is only for “Sexual Assault”.

Sexual assault is a very specific charge under the Criminal Code of Canada.

So, I filed off another Access to Information request.

One of the key elements of the criminal justice system in this country is that a person being charged with a criminal code offence has to be charged under the criminal code that was in place at the time the alleged offence occurred.

If someone sexually assaulted a child in 1981, and they were investigated today, they would have to be charged under the 1970 Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter C-34, Criminal Code.

If someone sexually assaulted a child in 1986, and they were investigated today, they would have to be charged under the 1985 Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter C-46, Criminal Code.

Sexual assault as a charge did not exist prior to 1985. Prior to 1985 sexual assaults against female children were usually dealt with by Sections 146, 148, 149, 150, 153, 155, and 157. Sections 143 and 145 were rarely used when female children were sexually assaulted. When male children were sexually assaulted, the charges used were usually Sections 155, 156, and 157.

With the new Criminal Code, rape was removed, so there were no longer charges specific to the victim’s gender.

From 1985 onward, persons who sexually assaulted children were usually charged with Section 151, 152, 153, and sometimes Section 159.

Sexual assault in regard to adults is usually dealt with in the 1985 Criminal Code under Section 271, 272, and 273.

We’ll have to wait and see what DND’s response is to my latest request.

A peculiar thing.

One thing that has struck me as odd is the editing that was applied to a document that formed part of the briefing that was sent to the Alberta Crown, first by Sgt. Hancock in 2011, and then by Sgt. Tenaschuk in 2018.

Back in 2011, the CFNIS attempted to contact P.S. though his father. But retired Sgt. J.S. told the CFNIS that he was not going to allow the CFNIS to interview his son and that his son had already paid for “things he did 20 to 30 years ago”

Well, lo and behold, P.S. did in fact contact the CFNIS of his own volition.

P.S. called Sgt. Hancock on August 9th, 2011.

P.S. said that he wasn’t going to participate in the investigation and that “anything he had been involved with as a youth had already been handled by the military” and that if charges were brought against him “a lawyer would handle that”

This is what was captured in the SAMPIS database during the investigation.

I don’t know about you, but if I was an investigator and a suspect said this to me, I think I’d want to investigate this a little further.

What I find odd and peculiar is that when Sgt. Hancock submitted his brief to the Alberta Crown in 2011, either he or one of his superiors edited the SAMPIS record of the telephone conversation that Sgt. Hancock had with P.S.

This is what was submitted to the Alberta Crown in both 2011 and 2018.

The question is, who elected to remove the potion “anything he had been involved in as a youth had already been handled by the military”
What was P.S. “involved in as a youth”
How did the military “handle it”?

As we know, the Minister of National Defence settled out of court with P.S. in November of 2008. And I know from talking directly to P.S. in July of 2015 that there was an “agreement” that went along with this settlement.

Oddly enough, what was passed on to the Alberta Crown was the opinion of the CFNIS investigators that I frequently changed jobs, had a very unstable employment history, was constanly in trouble at school, only called my father when I needed money, and that I was a societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the Canadian Armed Forces.

There was no mention of the fact that I was in foster care, or that my family was a social services magnet from one side of the country to the other with “parental concerns” being a constant factor for our involvement with social services, or that my father didn’t really live with us on CFB Namao due to his frequent absences due to training exercises.

Also missing from the crown brief was the fact that P.S. molested an 8 year old boy on a Canadian Forces Base in Manitoba in 1984 and that P.S. had been kicked out of his family’s PMQ on CFB Edmonton in the spring of 1985 for having molested a 9 year old boy on CFB Namao.

Sure, as some with more familiarity with the criminal justice system may say, P.S. having numerous convictions for sexual assaults involving children doesn’t automatically prove that he molested me, my brother, or the four other children I saw him molest. But it does prove that he does in fact have a predilection for committing sexual acts with children. This should have intensified the investigation into P.S., this should not have resulted in Warrant Officer Blair Hart telling the RCMP that my case was likely to go nowhere due to a lack of evidence.

Communication between Warrant Officer Hart of the CFNIS and Cpl French of the RCMP.
At this point in time, the investigation had been only going on for 3 – 4 months, not 6.

It’s almost as if the CFNIS had an agenda. An agenda that didn’t involve bringing charges against a multi-time convicted child molester who just happened to reach an out of court settlement with the Minister of National Defence in November of 2008.

In other words, the CFNIS had a mandate, and this mandate didn’t involve waking up a sleeping giant from the 1980s which could possibly expose the Minister of National Defence to the potential of multiple civil actions from those who as children had been victims of P.S. and Captain Father Angus McRae.

Richard Gill vs. Reality

Seeing as how Richard died back in January of 2017, we’ll never get to know the truth about his interview with the CFNIS on June 9th 2011.

This interview was conducted with Sgt. Cyr of the CFNIS. Yes, the same Sgt. Cyr who claimed that he flew down from Edmonton, AB and met with me in Victoria, BC.

Yes, the same Sgt. Cyr that couldn’t remember asking me if I knew anything about Captain Father Angus McRae being arrested for molesting children on CFB Namao.

Yes, the same Sgt. Cyr that failed to mention anything about my emails that detailed my visits to the chapel with P.S. to see Captain McRae.

Yes, the same Sgt. Cyr that told me that P.S. was 13 years old when he was caught buggering me in the spring of 1980.

Yes, the same Sgt. Cyr that told me that the church that I indicated to him in an email was a brand new church on the base and that the church that was on the base when I lived there was in a completely different location.

We know that Sgt. Cyr plays fast and loose with the truth.

Richard however also had his own versions of the truth as well.

And as I’ve learnt over the last few years, even if the investigator doesn’t actually have bad intentions, a bad “hunch” can cause the investigator to come down with a case of “tunnel vision” which is sure to run even the best cases off the rails. Take for example the case of “Marie Adler” from Lynnwood, Washington. She had been raped at gunpoint in her apartment. But the police right from the word go latched on to little trivial inconsistencies in her statement. The police also put far too much weight on the personal opinions of her foster parents. The police intimidated “Marie” to the point that she recanted her statement and agreed with the police that she had made the entire story up. The police ended up charging Marie with making a false report. She was fined by the city of Lynnwood and sentenced to probation. The only problem for the police was that about three years later, as the result of an investigation into a string of sexual assaults in another state, the FBI uncovered pictures of “Marie” that had been taken while she was being raped. The pictures pretty well matched what she had said in her initial statements to the police. The city of Lynnwood settled with her for $150k. Her lawyer suggested they could get more. But all she wanted was the apology and $150k was enough for her to get away from Lynnwood and to start over someplace else.

I’m probably cutting the CFNIS too much slack on this. After all, the CFNIS were bound and determined right from the start to not allow the connection between P.S. and Captain Father Angus McRae to be noted anywhere in the official investigation.

Was Richard taken out for a coffee and donut before he gave his statement to the CFNIS? You know, just so that Richard could be made to understand how I obviously had an agenda to screw the military over for money, and that it would be great if Richard could help set things straight for them.

According to the CFNIS “Pre-Charge Screening Report” this is what my father told Sgt. Cyr during his interview.

This is pretty well the same paragraph contained in the tribunal records that were submitted to me.

Actually, here is my father’s entire statement to the CFNIS:

Item (a)
When Richard was posted to Edmonton in 1978, we resided on CFB Namao from 1978 until 1980. We then moved from CFB Namao in October of 1980 and arrived at CFB Greisbach. I can only wonder if it was Richard or if it was Cyr that intentionally stayed away from using the name CFB Namao. CFB Edmonton was comprised of two separate bases. CFB Namao was the air force base, and CFB Greisbach was the army base. CFB Namao was also where P.S. resided and where Captain Father Angus McRae resided. CFB Namao was not called CFB Edmonton, nor was CFB Greisbach called CFB Edmonton. CFB Edmonton was used for referring to both bases, but each base retained its individual name. Make sense? Thought so. But yes, the fact that CFB Namao was not mentioned in my father’s statement struck me as odd.

This is our telephone listing from the 1979 Ed Tel phone book.
Lancaster Park was on CFB Namao, not CFB Greisbach

This is our telephone listing from the 1980 Ed Tel phone book

This is out telephone listing from the 1981 Ed Tel phone book.
PMQ #70 – 10215 – 138 Ave was on CFB Greisbach.

Item (c)
I talked to my father in August of 2006 about the babysitter. My father knew the babysitter’s name. My father at the time pleaded for me to understand that it wasn’t his fault that the babysitter was looking after my brother and I. My father pleaded with me to understand that the babysitter had been hired by our grandmother. Therefore it was grandma’s fault obviously. Richard said that he had warned his mother about the babysitter, but she wouldn’t listen to him.

Item (g)
Grandma came to live with us at CFB Summerside in PEI. Her and her husband, Andy Anderson, moved into the PMQ on CFB Namao when we moved there in the summer of 1978. Andy Anderson was my father’s step father. Andy didn’t die until sometime early 1985. Andy Anderson, due to a slip and fall in the bathtub, was hospitalized from winter of 1978 until his death in 1985. The long bus trips into the city is why Grandma would hire P.S. as our babysitter when she went to visit Andy in the nursing home. Grandma lived with us from 1978 until 1981. We stayed with grandma in Edmonton over the summer of 1984 and 1985. After Andy died in 1985 we never went to see grandma again. But then again she died in early 1986.

Richard’s actual father lived in Oshawa, Ontario. We visited him for Christmas of 1982. I don’t know when Richard’s father died, as Richard and his father had a very icy relationship. Even when we moved to CFB Downsview in 1983 we never went to see Richard’s father in Oshawa. We would frequently visit Sue’s parents and brothers in Oshawa. We’d often go shopping for groceries at Knob Hill Farms in Oshawa. But other than the visit at Christmas in 1982, we never did go visit Richard’s father again. And to be clear, Richard’s father only lived about 10 blocks away from Sue’s parents.

If I had to hazard a guess, there was no “neighbour” across the street on CFB Namao. Why would we need a neighbour when our grandma was living with us? And what neighbour is going to “keep an eye” on his kids when Richard goes away on a six week training exercise to the arctic? The million dollar question is, did Richard imagine this woman across the street, or was it suggested to Richard that it would help if he remembered the babysitter as NOT having looked after my brother and I. Remember, the CF up to this point had actively been scrubbing any mention of Captain McRae from the investigation.

Item (g).
So far as Richard and any of my school teachers went, he ignored them for the most part. Mr. Bowles, my grade 8 science teacher wanted me to enter my 5mW helium-neon laser into the National Science Fair in Ottawa. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get hold of my father. Mr. Ford, my grade 8 and grade 9 music teacher, wanted to get me enrolled in a extracurricular program for electronics and computers in music. Mr. Ford couldn’t get hold of my father. Mrs. Donskov, my grade 7 music teacher wanted me to play the bass guitar so badly that she even arranged for me to be able to borrow one of the school’s amplifiers and one of the bass guitars. She drove me home, and as expected, Richard blew up at her and threatened to call the military police on her if she ever stepped foot on base again. Mr. Snyder the computer lab teacher at Elia Jr. High suggested that I get either a Commodore 64 or an Apple IIe for home use so that I could join one of the local computer clubs and hang out with the other kids that were interested in computers. Richard had his own ideas about that.

And besides, as the few items below indicate, Richard had a very acrimonious relationship with our school teachers.

In 1980 Richard Gill thought that there was nothing wrong with his kids.

In 1983 Richard Gill was of the opinion that there was nothing wrong with his kids.

Jan 28th, 1983 The school and my counselors are apparently harassing poor Richard.

Richard really didn’t like my civilian child care worker apparently.

Item (i)
So much wrong with this paragraph.
I got cut off by a cabbie that ran a stop sign. ICBC found the cab driver 100% at fault. ICBC rebuilt my motorcycle and paid for all new riding gear. ICBC even paid for a rental vehicle while my motorcycle was being repaired.
Yes, I seized the engine in the Plymouth Horizon. No, my mother never paid for it. I bought a used engine from West Edmonton Pick-a-Part and swapped the engines over the course of a weekend. The engine was $150.00. All the sundry parts were maybe another $150.00. This was in early November of 1990 so I was still living mostly off the money I made at Canshare Cabling in Toronto. The long drive from Wabamum into Edmonton is what convinced me to rent an apartment for December 1st 1990.

Item (j).
Since moving out on my own in 1987, I’ve never asked for nor have I received a single nickle from my father. He invited me to move to Edmonton with him in June of 1990 just after I finished the Canshare Cabling job. As I was flush with cash (over $20k) I paid for my way and a little more during the trip. I bought my car, bought a year’s worth of insurance, and rented an apartment, with my own money. Through the good and bad I’d never turn to Richard for money as I knew that I’d never get it. I learnt well as a child to never ask him for money as he’d promise it to you if you did some chore like mowing the lawn, but then he’d renege on paying by finding some trivial fault.

As a kid, my father would quite often promise things and then never have any intention whatsoever of following through with them. Birthdays, driver’s training, attending award ceremonies, etc. And he always had a handy excuse available. So yeah, you just learnt to not rely on Richard.

Item (k)
Richard was full aware of what I changed my name to. I sent him a very detailed and concise explanation as to why I wanted to change my name and what I was changing it to and why I specifically chose the names that I did.

Item (l)
Richard didn’t ask me for a proper reason in 2006. He knew of the abuse, he just didn’t know how bad it had been. He wanted to know why I let the babysitter abuse my younger brother. I had to remind him of how old I was, how old the babysitter was, and the fact that both he and his mother were usually either angry or drunk. In 2006 this just elicited silence from him and a bit of a mumble apology.

By August of 2011, the CFNIS had been given a copy of my Alberta Social Service and foster care records, which had this to say about my grandmother and her position in my family.

Mr. Gill’s mother was Margret Anderson (nee) Winiandy

Richard said that apparently grandma hid problems from him.

Grandma a threat – authoritarian and oppressive.
Grandma moved out of our house in the spring /summer of 1981

Grandma was a bit of a mixed bag. She had been through Indian Residential school as a child. One of the more notorious ones. Holy Angels in Fort Chipewyan. She lived by the maxims of “Children are to speak only when spoken to” and “Children are to be seen and not heard”. She had a very strong affinity for the church. She had a short temper and was not afraid to use corporal punishment. She drank a lot. When she was drunk she was a “happy drunk”.

I wonder what it is they’re trying to say here?

In the winter of 1983 I stopped going to school. At the time my father said that I had been expelled because I wouldn’t stop kissing other boys. In August of 2011 I learnt that I stopped going to school because Alberta Social Services was on the verge of removing me from the home due to my father’s non-compliance with counselling.

In the spring of 1983 just after we started on the drive to Canadian Forces Base Downsview from Canadian Forces Base Greisbach, Richard said that the reason we had to move suddenly was that he was saving me from the drugs the counselors wanted to give to me to stop me from kissing other boys. Again, another lie. From reading the paperwork from Alberta Social Services they had absolutely no concern about my apparent sexual orientation. Their concern was my home life and my father’s inability to look after his family. The only two people that had a hang up on my sexual orientation, imagined or otherwise, were Captain Terry Totzke and my father.

So…………..

Was my father being creative with the truth?

Was Sgt. Cyr being creative with the questioning?

That’s the $64,000.00 dollar question.

Why didn’t I tell the CFNIS about Captain McRae.

As I’ve said previously, I honestly don’t remember anything about what occured during the visits to the rectory after the “sickly sweet grape juice”.

I remember the rectal bleeding, but I always attributed that to P.S..

On May 3rd, 2011 CFNIS investigator Sgt. Christian Cyr contacted me. He initially left a message. After checking his message, I returned his phone call.

I checked the message at 12:59
I returned the call at 13:17

It was during this phone call that Sgt. Cyr let slip the fact that Captain McRae had been arrested, charged, and convicted of child molestation.

I literally dropped my cellphone when he said this. I was in shock for a while before I picked up my phone and continued the conversation.

I told Sgt. Cyr about the visits, about how I never remembered anything after the “sickly sweet grape juice” and how the time P.S., myself, and one of the other kids P.S. was abusing vandalized the base chapel now made sense.

Sgt. Cyr had also been creative with what I had told him about the visits to the chapel. I told Sgt. Cyr that I never remembered anything after the “sickly sweet grape juice”. Sgt. Cyr wrote in his SAMPIS occurrence report that “Mr. Bees remembers going to the chapel with P.S., but that nothing ever happened”. That’s not what I said.

Later that evening I would send Sgt Cyr an email message detailing a little more about what I remembered about McRae.

I would discover much to my horror during my application for judicial review that Sgt. Cyr excluded all of the emails I sent him that evening detailing everything that I could remember about Captain McRae.

I would also discover during my judicial review that Sgt. Cyr “forgot” about asking me about Captain McRae.

From MPCC 2011-045
Interview with Sgt. Cyr

Why didn’t I raise the issue of the missing emails during the MPCC review? That’s not how it works.
During an MPCC review, you are not given any access to any of the investigation documents, nor are you given access to any of the documentation that the Provost Marshal supplied to the MPCC.
During an MPCC review, you are literally flying blind.
I will touch on the MPCC in a future posting.

Except, even though Sgt. Cyr excluded all of my emails, he did coincidentally do a Google search for “CFB Namao Molesting Priest”, which is the exact same search string I mentioned in my email the previous day to him.

Also, the next morning were a pair of phone calls involving Sgt. Cyr.
I made the first call to Sgt. Cyr at 07:20.
Sgt. Cyr made a call back to me at 08:18.

Two phone calls on the morning of May 4th, 2011.
One from me to Sgt. Cyr.
One from Sgt. Cyr to me.

Neither of these telephone calls show up in Sgt. Cyr’s occurrence reports or log books. It’s like they just didn’t happen.

During the first call @ 07:20, Sgt. Cyr and I talked about the activities in the chapel, how the visits occurred, and what would happen after the visits.

During the second call @ 08:18, Sgt Cyr said that he did some investigation and that the chapel that I had described to him was the “new” chapel and that the original chapel which was on the base in 1980 was in a different location. Sgt. Cyr also said that there never were any living quarters attached to the chapel, that the chaplain always lived off base.

Now, so far as the chapel goes, the chapel that I indicated in the email to Sgt. Cyr was built in 1956. The chapel also had living quarters right up until 1989 when the living quarters were converted into community space. This I know as I received the blue prints for Our Lady of Loretto Chapel via an access to information request that I had submitted to DND.

Also, to further back up my claim that I had indicated the correct chapel to Sgt. Cyr, on June 25th 2001 the Assistant Judge Advocate General on CFB Edmonton faxed a copy of a map to a claims analyst. On this map the Asst. JAG indicated the RC Chapel. This was as a result of P.S. initiating his action against the Minister of National Defence in the Court of Queens Bench in Edmonton, AB.

How did Sgt. Cyr conclude that being drugged and not remembering anything happening was the same thing as nothing actually happening?

Or, did Sgt. Cyr even write that?

A few things of interest were discovered during the Fynes Public Interest Hearing.

First it was discovered that CFNIS investigators don’t really run their own investigations. The Chain of Command has a surprising amount of say during an investigation. Section 83 of the National Defence Act pretty well ensures that this will occur.

Then it was also discovered that superior officers had re-written a report that was submitted by a CFNIS investigator and that this investigator was told to apply his signature to the new report.

Finally, it was discovered during the Fynes Public Interest hearing that SAMPIS, the military police electronic record system, is not as secure as it should be. Anyone can go into SAMPIS and change or edit entries, and there will be no record of the changes made. Only the edited document remains.

Yes, Sgt. Cyr kept written notes in his notebook. But, a notebook is just that. It’s a notebook. There are no third party verifiable time stamps applied to any of the entries in the notebook. In fact, there’s nothing in his notebook to indicate when exactly his notebook was being filled in.

And this is one thing that I noticed about the notebooks of all of the CFNIS investigators. They’re immaculate. They sure don’t look like they’re being used “on the fly” to record notes and records during an investigation.

If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that it’s more than likely that the investigators with the CFNIS keep two sets of written notes. The “rough” notes contain the actual “real time” notes and records of the investigation. The “final” notes are the sanitized and approved notes that are allowed to be put into them.

When Sgt. Cyr was interviewed by the MPCC, he made a very curious statement to the MPCC. It must be remembered that all statements given to the MPCC are not taken under oath. Sgt. Cyr claimed that he flew out to Victoria, BC and met with me in person.

MPCC 2011-045(BEES)
Interview of Sgt. Cyr

I’ve never met Sgt. Cyr before in my life. I’ve talked to him on the telephone a few times, but that’s it. I’ve never met him or anyone else from the Canadian Forces in Victoria. But, due to the manner in which the MPCC review works, I was completely unaware of this statement during the MPCC review and therefore I was unable to contest this statement.

Captain Angus McRae and Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan

Interesting.

Both Captain Father Angus McRae and Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan were involved with the Catholic church. And both were molesting children. And both had their matters dealt with by military courts martial, and both were sentenced by their respective courts martial panels, and both had their sentences drastically cut by the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada.

And then of course there’s the curious matter of retired Canadian Armed Forces officer Brigadier General Roger Bazin. Bazin was involved with a cash pay off to a teen that he had inappropriate sexual relations with after Bazin had retired from the Canadian Forces. Then in 2010, Bazin is arrested and charged with committing sexual acts involving a child from Canadian Forces base Borden when Bazin was a chaplain on the base with the rank of Captain.

I came to know about the Sullivan matter back in July of 2012 when I had some communications with a person familiar with the military justice system.

As I said previously, I had Googled Sullivan’s name back in 2012, and I came up with no hits.

I recently was looking over the Sullivan files again as I have another reporter interested in the story of how DND and the CF used their flawed and separate justice system to hide child sexual abuse on the bases in Canada.

When I re-read this file I decided to Google Donald’s name again. This is how I learnt about Donald’s conviction and sentencing in August and September of 2019.

And yes, it has since been confirmed that Scout Leader Sullivan and Canadian Forces Corporal Sullivan are the same person.

From my collection of CMAC files, I know that Private Brian Thomas Clabby committed four counts of Gross Indecency and abduction while he was stationed at CFB Lahr in Germany.

Corporal Joseph David Thomas committed two acts of gross indecency on October 4th and 5th of 1985 in Germany and one indecent act between the months of October 1983 and June 1984 when he had sexual relations with a female under the age of 14 in Nanaimo, BC . Note that he wasn’t charged with “rape” for having sex with a female. He was charged with an “indecent” act. This allowed the Canadian Forces to keep this matter out of the civilian courts.

How many other cases similar to these are there?

If I were to postulate, I’d say hundreds, if not thousands.

One of the problems with the Canadian Forces which was mentioned both in a report that looked at spousal abuse within the military community and a Macleans magazine article entitled “CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy”, is that the military had a penchant for moving the trouble makers around from one base to another in the hopes that the problem would go away with a change in the scenery.

Another problem that the Canadian Forces had back in my day is that charges could be plead into other charges, and as Madame Marie Deschamps stated in her final report, only upon careful review of the charge sheet would one be able to determine that the original charges were related to sexual assaults.

In all of the bases that McRae was posted to, how many kids did he diddle there?

How many kids did Sullivan really molest?

How many kids did Sullivan, McRae, and even Bazin molest that never reported their abuse because the children were posted off to another base when their serving parent was reassigned?

How many children of junior rank members were molested by officers and in turn kept their mouths shut because they knew that a Captain or a Colonel far outranked a Corporal?

If you were a kid just arriving at a new base, and you wanted to fit in, you sure as hell weren’t going to tell anyone what the creepy perv at the previous base had done to you. And then after awhile, you don’t say anything out of fear of being blamed for the perv molesting other kids because you didn’t say anything.

In 1973, Captain Angus McRae was investigated for committing “acts of homosexuality” at CFB Kingston.

In 1980 Captain Angus McRae was investigated again for committing “acts of homosexuality”, but this time he was convicted. Much like in the Sullivan matter though, McRae appealed his sentence to the CMAC and had his sentence grossly reduced.

So, it’s clearly obvious that the Canadian Armed Forces considered male on male child sexual abuse to be “acts of homosexuality”.

There were other sketchy service members in the past.

Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk comes to mind. Three weeks before Lynne Harper was murdered in 1959, Sgt. Alexander E. Kalichuk was arrested and charged by the Ontario Provincial Police for trying to lure three young girls into his car. The charges were dismissed, but the judge gave Kalichuk a warning regarding his behaviour.

Around the date of Lynne Harper’s disappearance, Kalichuk’s probation officer advised RCAF officials that Kalichuk was involved in another incident of indecent exposure.

And as it turns out, Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk was also a suspect in the disappearance and death of 5-year-old Susan Cadieux from London, Ontario.

CBC NEWS
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/murder-suspect-died-25-years-ago-1.234995

Former Canadian Armed Forces officer and base commander, Colonel Russell Williams liked them on the young side. What wasn’t made too well known during his trial is that most of the underwear that he stole belonged to adolescent girls. And as if that wasn’t enough, he also had a sizable kiddie porn collection on his computer.

And don’t forget, but there’s the report from former Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, Colonel Tim Grubb, that indicated that the Canadian Forces has a noticeably higher incidence of child sexual crimes than the civilian world. The Canadian Forces tried to downplay this by claiming that the higher incidence rate is due to a higher rate of reporting.

You can download Tim Grubb’s report here:
https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/a0311475.pdf

Here’s the interesting story of Sergeant David Rodwell who was chatting in an internet forum geared towards persons interested incest with someone he believed was a mother with a 3 year-old daughter. Problem was the person Mr. Rodwell was chatting with was a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Rodwell made arrangements to go to the states to have sex with this 3-year-old.

From the National Post
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/member-of-canadian-forces-found-guilty-of-arranging-online-to-meet-three-year-old-u-s-girl-for-sex

But yes, please tell me how children were safe and secure on the bases.

And, as it turns out, the Canadian Forces can’t properly track sexual assaults.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-forces-sexual-assault-convictions-1.3778979

And it shouldn’t go without mention, but the Canadian Forces do seem to have is a much higher “unfounded” rate when it comes to sexual assault investigations.

For the Canadian Forces, time is its best friend.

All DND and the CF have to do is to wait out for another 20 or 30 years for all of us who grew up on the bases during the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s’, and ’80s to die off.

Military Plea Bargains and other things.

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.

SAMPIS and other musings

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.

Canadian Forces Access to Information……..

Why, after a successful investigation and charges have been laid, did the Ontario Crown decide not proceed with charges against former Canadian Armed Forces parde Brigadier General Roger Bazin.

Federal Access to Information laws give Canadian Citizens the rights to see non-classified / non-secret documents. And normally things work out as they should. But quite often, government departments like the Department of National Defence skirt the rules and deny access to information requests through various other tactics.

The various Government agencies have 30 days to acknowledge your request. They’re also supposed to give you a reasonable time frame for you to expect to receive the information you have requested.

As can be seen though from the response from DND, my request A-2018-00781 has been with the Department of National Defence for 15 months now. That’s generally well above and beyond the time frame that the Act allows for a department to respond.

According to the Office of the Information Commissioner, this tactic is called “deemed refusal”. The government department isn’t saying these records don’t exist nor is the government department exempting these records from release. Both of these actions can be investigated by the Office of the Information Commissioner, and sanctions can be called for if it is found out that a government department has been opaque about the status of records.

On the other hand, if a department simply takes too long in the hopes that the requester forgets about the request, this isn’t something that can bring sanctions. It’s just one of those little “oopsies” that sometimes happens.

I did speak with this analyst’s supervisor earlier this week. The big hold up on this document is they can’t figure out how to excise third party information without raising questions about the handling of this matter.

There are generally two parties that could be expected to be the third party in this Access to Information Request. The victim who made the complaint against Brigadier General Roger Bazin, or the Prosecutor.

In Canada, the victim of the sexual assault generally cannot withdraw their complaint once charges have been laid against an accused. Only the Crown Prosecutor can decide to proceed or not proceed with charges.

So, here’s the million dollar question, and this I think is the issue that the Department of National Defence is trying to navigate around. How does DND confirm to me the fact that it was the Ontario Crown that decided to not proceed with charges without revealing why those charges did not proceed.

The CFNIS were obviously able to bring charges against Roger Bazin, and the charges were strong enough that the were able to merit a preliminary hearing.

Bazin did settle a previous accusation brought against him for similar issues, so it’s not like the accusations brought against him were some fanciful fairy tale.

I believe the reason that the Crown dropped the charges against Bazin had to do with the fact that Bazin was subject to the Code of Service Discipline at the time he is alleged to have molested the boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1972. Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and buggery were all Service Offences which the Canadian Forces could conduct a Service Tribunal for, e.g. a court martial. However, prior to 1998, service offences had to be prosecuted within three years of the date of the alleged offence. Even if Bazin were being prosecuted in Civilian Court, he would still have to be dealt with as if he was subject to the Code of Service Discipline. This means that the Crown would have had to take the 3-year time bar into account.

This is what I think is giving the DND Access to Information Office such problems. How does the ATI office release to me the reason the Crown decided to not move forward with charges, without exposing the reason for not moving forward with charges. Don’t forget, DND cannot lie or deceive in their release of information. They can’t for example tell me that the charges didn’t proceed due to a lack of evidence, unless that was the actual reason. Nor can DND tell me that the charges didn’t proceed due to a conviction being unlikely or that a prosecution would not be in the public interest.

If the charges didn’t proceed due to the 3-year time bar, DND would have to release that information. But, this is not information that DND would ever want to release to the public, hence the mental gymnastics.

A problem in the Chapel

A problem in the chapel.

The Catholic chapels on many of the bases in Canada had rectories attached for the padre to reside in.

Blueprints for “Our Lady of Loretto Chapel – Canadian Forces Base Namao”
These plans were used on most other bases as well

Most of these rectories were systematically removed in the late 1980s to early 1990s.

Instructions for removing the bathtub from the rectory and for removing the kitchen partition walls

New layout for former living quarters now re-purposed as worship and absolution areas.

It’s anyone’s guess really as to why the Canadian Armed Forces started to remove the rectories, but I have a guess or two that probably aren’t far from what the true answer actually is.

I think the Canadian Armed Forces were beginning to realize in the ’80s that they were having a problem with the chaplins. It’s no secret that it was during the ’80s that the public started to become aware of the problems facing the Catholic Church and their priests that had a fondness for children.
And all of the military chaplains were supplied by the Catholic church.

This was such a known problem that the Catholic Church even had a recycling facility where they would send the Catholic priests to help them with their issues after they had been found to be sexually involved with children.

In 2006 the Canadian Armed Forces changed the procedure for obtaining baptismal records. In their explanation, they specifically cite the number of lawsuits brought against the various civilian diocese across Canada as being the primary reason for the change in procedure.

If you ask me, I think the reason for this change is to make civil actions against the Canadian Forces for the actions of their kiddie diddling clergy that much harder. If you can’t prove that you were baptised, then how could you have been involved with the padre. I know I was baptised as my grandmother had me take my first communion on CFB Namao at Our Lady of Loretto Chapel. Captain McRae would have been the padre.

When Captain Father Angus McRae was being investigated by the CFSIU for having committed “acts of homosexuality” with teenage boys on CFB Namao, Major Roger Bazin had been sent out from Ottawa to assist Captain McRae with his affairs.

Major Roger Bazin was once a padre on Canadian Forces Base Borden in the 1970s. We know for sure that Captain Roger Bazin was on CFB Borden in 1972. Major Roger Bazin would go on to become Brigadier General Roger Bazin and he would become the head of the chaplaincy branch of the Canadian Forces.

Just before the time of the Colonel Russell Williams fiasco on Canadian Forces Base Trenton a man came forward and made a complaint against Roger Bazin. The complaint was that Roger Bazin had sexually abused this man when he was a child living on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1972.

Bazin was investigated and charged, but the charges were dropped at the last minute. I think the three year time bar played a significant role in the dropping of charges. As Bazin was subject to the Code of Service Discipline at the time of the abuse, and as he had committed the service offences of Buggery, Gross Indecency, and Indecent Assault, these were crimes that could be prosecuted through a court martial (see the court martial of Captain McRae, July 18th, 1980 CM62).

However, as previously discussed, the three year time bar that existed in the pre-1998 National Defence Act meant that the court martial had to occur within 3 years of the date of the offence. As more than 3 years had elapsed, there is no possibility that charges could proceed.

And no, there exists no mechanism to kick these matters over to the civilian courts to get around the 3 year time bar.

Now, this isn’t the first time a complaint had been brought against Roger Bazin.

After Roger Bazin had retired from the Canadian Forces, he became a chaplain in a small parish in Ontario. A boy from that parish came forward with complaints against Bazin. The church convinced the parents of the boy to not bring the police in. Bazin made a cash settlement with the boy, and the matter simply went away.

So, what are the odds that Captain Father Angus McRae and Brigadier General Roger Bazin were the only two padres with a soft-spot for children?

Unlike the Catholic church, the Canadian Armed Forces have their own legal system. The Canadian Armed Forces can choose to deal with the wayward padres however they see fit.

I know that in the matter of Canadian Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae, the Canadian Forces were just as guilty of moving the predator padres around as the Catholic church was guilty of moving the predator priests around.
In 1973, McRae was investigated for “acts of homosexuality” at RMC Kingston @ CFB Kingston.
He was punted off to CFB Portage La Prairie.
He was then punted off to Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island where he became involved with a teenage boy.
He was then punted over to CFB Namao where in less than two years he was investigated for molesting over 25 children.

If the CFNIS were requested by the office of the Minister of National Defence to investigate the military padres during the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, what would they find? Would they have the required skills? What would the point be if charges couldn’t be brought due to the 3-year time bar? How would the Minister of National Defence find all of the former military dependants? What about the ones who committed suicide over the years?

Would the Minister of National Defence ever request this to be done with the knowledge that any evidence of wrongdoing would expose the office of the Minister of National Defence to civil actions much like when Mr. P.S. sued the office of the Minister of National Defence?

Would the Minister of National Defence ever allow this type of investigation to occur knowing full well that it would forever damage the image of the Canadian Armed Forces and probably lead Parliament to overhauling the military justice system.

How many time during the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, did other military dependants come forward with complaints against other military pardes for incidents of sexual assault, only to have charges not proceed due to the 3-year time bar.

How many times in the past did commanding officers dismiss charges that had been brought against the padres?

Remember, as in my case, the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal have a multitude of ways to cover-up the reason why charges didn’t go forward. In my case, Sgt. Christian Cyr intentionally told me that Mr. P.S. was only 13 years old in the spring of 1980 when Mr. P.S. had been discovered buggering me in his bedroom in his family’s PMQ . Sgt Cyr did this for a reason. Under the juvenile delinquents act, a person who had not yet achieved their 14th birthday could not be charged with a criminal offence.

However, Mr. P.S. was born on June 20th, 1965. In May of 1980, Mr. P.S. would have been two months shy of his 15th birthday. Under the Juvenile Delinquents Act he would have been fully culpable for all of the criminal code offences that he committed since June 20th, 1979 while at the same time Captain McRae couldn’t be charged for any crime after May of 1983. (3-year time bar).

And in researching the CMAC records I’ve collected for this blog posting, I came across a CMAC finding that says that the Minister of National Defence functions as the Attorney General for the Canadian Armed Forces and maintains a supervisory role over military prosecutions.
This means that the Minister of National Defence has some involvement in the military justice system.
This serves to further my observations that a conflict of interest exists in allowing the CFNIS to investigate historical matters of child sexual abuse on the Defence Establishments when it is the office of the Minister of National Defence that would be subject to civil actions should convictions result.

The Curious Case of Sub-Lieutenant Jeffery Paul Delisle or how the FBI / CSIS / RCMP excluded the CFNIS from an investigation.

So, is the jurisdiction of the CFNIS really set in stone?
One has to wonder why the CFNIS weren’t involved in this matter.

The matter of former Canadian Forces officer SLt. Jeffery Delisle is an interesting study in the jurisdiction of the Canadian Forces military police and the CFNIS.

On January 13, 2012, SLt. Jeffery Paul Delisle was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for violating the Security of Information Act. His offence was that he had been selling “5 -Eyes” intelligence to the Russians.

5-Eyes is the name of the intelligence alliance comprising of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The information that Delisle had given to the Russians was most damaging to the United States, hence why the American Federal Bureau of Investigations was the first agency to become involved in this matter.

The FBI made contact with the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and informed CSIS of the activities of Mr. Delisle.

From documents released under Access to Information Requests, it became very apparent that the CFNIS was kept out of the loop literally until the last minute.

So the timeline want like such:
December 9th, 2011 CFPM informs the CO CFNIS that an investigation is underway into a member of the Canadian Forces.
January 13th, 2012 Canadian Forces officer Sub-Lt. Jeffery Paul Delisle is arrested by the RCMP.
December 13th, 2012 the RCMP fully brief the Commanding Officer of the CFNIS on the particulars of the investigation.

In a report issued in October 2012 which discussed the matter of Sub-Lt. Delisle,

Was this interesting section:

Basically, this is the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence pouting that their “police” weren’t involved in the investigation of their own officer Mr. Delisle. One can only wonder why the FBI, CSIS, and the RCMP wanted to steer clear of involving the Canadian Forces Military Police Group and the CFNIS .

SLt. Delisle had been sharing “5-Eyes” intelligence that he collected from DND computers, located on DND property, while he was a person subject to the Code of Service Discipline. If anyone was deserving of being investigated by the CFNIS, it was SLt. Delisle.

The National Defence Act even has sections that specifically deal with persons such as Mr. Delisle.

Sections 75(b), 75(c),75(j) would possibly have applied.

Section 78 may be a stretch, but it could still be argued that if Russia is not an ally, then it is automatically considered an enemy.

The Security of Information Act is what Mr. Delisle violated.

4(1)(a) and 4(1)(b) seem to be the sections that Mr. Delisle ran afoul of.

The Security of Information Act applies to all persons who were subject to the Code of Service Discipline when they became aware of the information.

A prohibited place means a military base, or even a building that is used by the military for military business.

Is the incompetence of the CFNIS really that legendary?

In March of 2015, then Defence Minister Jason Kenney said that an MPCC report issued had clearly indicated that the military police were guilty of “wrongdoing and incompetence”.

If the Slt Delisle case does prove one thing, it’s that the “sole jurisdiction” claim of the CFNIS is laughable at best.

Jurisdiction of the CFNIS

Trying to define the jurisdiction of the CFNIS and the military police is about as easy as trying to nail jello to the wall. Sadly, this is more to do with the failure of Parliament to close the holes in the National Defence Act than anything else.

In 1987, the Crown of Canada took a man by the name of John Patrick Nolan to the Supreme Court to try to have his lower court appeal overturned.

The Crown argued that military police are “Peace Officers” and therefore can arrest anyone at anytime. The Supreme Court squashed that.

In the Supreme Court of Canada case Regina v. Nolan, the Supreme Court of Canada declared that the Canadian Forces military police are not a secondary civilian police force and have no jurisdiction over civilians except for when enforcing regulations that specifically apply to civilians located on Defence Establishments.
I have attached a copy of Regina v. Nolan below.

1987scr1_1212 Download

Some key points of Regina v. Nolan are this.
” The military policeman had no authority under s. 2(f)(i) of the Code to demand that the accused provide a breathalyzer sample. That section, which prescribes that “peace officer” includes “officers and men of the Canadian Forces who are appointed for the purposes of section 134 of the National Defence Act “, does not extend the authority of military police to act as “peace officers” throughout a province and in relation to all residents of a province, duplicating the role and function of the civil police. Section 2 of the Code serves only to grant additional powers to enforce the criminal law to persons who must otherwise operate within the limits of their statutory or common law sources of authority. In the case of military policemen, the purposes of s. 134 are clear: the section provides that they may exercise authority over persons subject to the Code of Service Discipline. That is the full extent of the grant of power. Section 2 (f)(i) must be construed, therefore, as extending to persons appointed for the purposes of s. 134 of the National Defence Act the additional authority to enforce the Criminal Code , but only in relation to persons subject to the Code of Service Discipline. “
-and-
” The authority to demand that the accused provide a breathalyzer sample can be derived in this case, however, from the definition of “peace officer” in s. 2(f)(ii) of the Code. Section 2 (f)(ii) establishes that “officers and men” of the Canadian Forces are peace officers when “employed on duties that the Governor in Council, in regulations made under the National Defence Act for the purposes of this paragraph, has prescribed to be of such a kind as to necessitate that the officers and men performing them have the powers of peace officers”. Under s. 22.01(2) of the Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Canadian Forces, made under the National Defence Act for the purposes of s. 2(f)(ii) of the Code, military policemen have the powers of peace officers when they perform any lawful duties “as a result of a specific order or established military custom or practice” when those duties are related to certain matters including the maintenance and protection of law and order and the protection of property or persons. Here, the officer had authority under the Government Property Traffic Regulations to enforce the applicable speed limits against a civilian driving on the base and, having stopped him for the purposes of enforcing the speed limit, the officer derived further authority from s. 28(1) of the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations. This section, which applies to persons not subject to the Code of Service Discipline, prescribes that a military policeman is “authorized to arrest without warrant any person found committing any criminal offence … on or with respect to any defence establishment or whom on reasonable and probable ground he believes to have committed such offence . . . .” A military police officer who has clear statutory authority to enforce the law and who is sent out on a patrol on a base is abiding by “established military practice” in fulfilling his role by attempting to enforce the law and he meets the conditions imposed by s. 22.01(2). Therefore, when s. 22.01(2) of the Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Canadian Forces is read with s. 28(1) of the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations, the arresting officer was a peace officer within the meaning of s. 2(f)(ii) of the Code and he was entitled to invoke the statutory authorization of s. 235(1) of the Code. The fact that the accused was arrested outside the military base did not deprive the military policeman of his authority. Given the instantaneous police warning to the accused to stop his vehicle and the detention immediately outside the gates of the base, there was such a clear nexus between the offence committed on the base and the detention off the base that the military police retained their status and authority as peace officers. “

Long story short, the military police only have jurisdiction over civilians when they are enforcing very specific regulations. Those two regulations are the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulation and the Government Property Traffic Regulation.

The following document is one of many that would seem to throw a monkey wrench into the workings of the military justice system so far as it having jurisdiction over civilians.

Here, the Canadian Forces are admitting that they don’t have jurisdiction over all civilian offences committed by civilians on Defence Establishments. For the CFNIS to claim jurisdiction over a civilian for having committed a criminal code offence on a Defence Establishment, the CFNIS would have to have arrested the civilian within a certain period of time after the offence occured, and within a certain distance from the base. Mr. P.S. molested me from 1978 until 1980 on CFB Namao which is just north of Edmonton. Mr. P.S. currently resides in Fort Erie, Ontario. The distance between Edmonton Garrison, AB and Fort Erie, ON is 2786 km. I think that 30 years and 3k km is stretching CFNIS jursidiction to the extreme.

Another interesting document that casts doubts on the arrest jurisdiction of the CFNIS is the following from CFPM 2120-4-0. This document originated in 1998, just after the creation of the CFNIS. This document was re-issued to all bases and units in 2006.

*NDHQ POLICY DIRECTIVE MILITARY POLICE INVESTIGATION POLICY*
*2120-4-0 (CFPM)*
*Vice Admiral G.L. Garnett, Vice Chief of Defence Staff*

Pretty Straightforward, right?
Wrong.
In December of 2015, when I realized that RCMP Inspector Akrum Ghadban was not going to be involved in the second phase of the investigation into my complaint against Mr. P.S., and that he was stepping aside to let the CFNIS run their show, I filed a complaint with the “Civilian And Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police”.
The CCC-RCMP found in favour of the RCMP.
But for a rather interesting reason.

Basically, unless the CFNIS offer an investigation to the outside civilian authorities having jurisdiction, the RCMP cannot insist that the CFNIS hand over the investigation.

On February 9th, 2015, I had a telephone conversation with Lt. Col. David Antonyshyn of the Office of the Judge Advocate General. In this conversation Mr. Antonyshyn stated that “domestic matters that occur within the PMQs” are always pushed to the outside civilian authorities. Mr. Antonyshyn also stated that the CFNIS do not have sole jurisdiction on the bases for Criminal Code matters, they have at most concurrent jurisdiction.

In 2014, Madame Marie Deschamps was tasked with reviewing the military police, including the CFNIS, to see how they were dealing with sexual assaults amongst service members. Her report was very damning of the defective military justice system. More importantly, her report was accepted by the Chief of Defence staff as being valid and true.

excerpt from
External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces

The full report of the External Review Authority is available here:

era-final-report-(april-20-2015)-eng Download

Important Excerpts are available here:

Excerpts from ERA report Download

Even though Lt. Gen. Christine Whitecross insists that matters involving children and cadets (12 to 18 year olds) are handed off to the outside civilian authorities, and even though CFAO 2120-4-0 says that offences in which the offender is a civilian will be “offered” to the outside civilian authorities, and even though Madame Marie Deschamps stated in her review that offences involving civilians are referred to the outside civilian justice system, and even though Lt. Col. David Antonyshyn states that domestic matters are always handed off to the outside civilian authorities, the CFNIS in my case held on to jurisdiction in a matter of a civilian teenager sexually abusing a civilian child.

This problem arises due to the loosey-goosey language in the National Defence Act. The National Defence Act says who the military police have jurisdiction over. However, the National Defence Act does not state who the military police do not have jurisdiction over.

And that’s a very dangerous precedent.

Basically, the CFNIS chain of command can choose on a case by case basis who they have jurisdiction over and who they don’t have jurisdiction over.

And that leads to the possibility of all sorts of political interference.

I’ll be willing to bet you dollars to donuts that had Mr. P.S. not been anointed the sole victim of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae in July of 1980, and had Mr. P.S. not gone on to sue the Office of the Minister of National Defence in March of 2001, and had the Office of the Minister of National Defence in November of 2008 not accepted General Legal Liability for the personal injuries that Mr. P.S. suffered at the hands of a Canadian Forces officer, I firmly believe that the CFNIS would have handed my matter off to the RCMP in Morinville.

However, as the Office of the Minister of National Defence accepted General Legal Liability and admitted that the sexual abuse that Mr. P.S. endured caused him personal injuries, it could be argued that those personal injuries suffered by Mr. P.S. caused Mr. P.S. to act out his abuse on younger children living on Canadian Forces Base Namao. Therefore, a matter like this would have possibly exposed the Office of the Minister of National Defence to further civil legal action brought forth by the numerous other victims of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae.

So, it should be of no surprise to anyone, that the CFNIS would have kept this investigation away from the civilian authorities. After all, the civilian authorities have no fealty to the Office of the Minister of National Defence.

Remember, there has to be a reason why the CFNIS edited a statement that was given to them by Mr. P.S. in 2011.

Telephone call between Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock and Mr. P.S.
***“Already handled by the military”***

Now, compare what Mr. P.S. stated to Sgt. Hancock with what Sgt. Hancock in turn submitted to the Alberta Crown.

Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock’s submission to the Alberta Crown.

I wonder why CFNIS investigator Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock felt the need for the Alberta Crown to not know that Mr. P.S. considers that the military has handled things for him.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m really curious to know just what exactly the military handled for Mr. P.S., who is a multi-time convicted child molester. And more importantly, why is the military handling things for child molesters?