Chief of Defence Staff – Child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces

Going to Case Management

Yesterday I received a phone call from my lawyer who is representing me in my class action against the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence.

The Department of Justice has responded and has agreed to take the matter before a case management judge.

My lawyer expects the judge to agree to allow this matter to proceed as a class action.

This should occur around October.

If everything goes as planned, the real action will start in the spring of 2022.

This case won’t be a slam dunk.

You can bet that the Department of Justice, the Canadian Forces, the Department of National Defence, and the office of the Minister of National Defence will do everything in their power to portray myself and all of the other class members as money hungry liars out to squeeze the poor military for a quick buck.

The Department of Justice will also do everything in their power to keep this matter hushed. My matter only deals with Captain Father Angus McRae who served on four different Canadian Forces Base and Stations from 1973 until 1980. At the time the Canadian Forces had over 60 defence establishments in Canada. Each with its own Catholic chapel. Granted, not all chaplains were sexually attracted to children. But let’s say that 10 to 15 percent of all military chaplains molested children during their service careers between the 1950s and 1998. That’s potentially a lot of sexually abused children. And that’s potentially a lot of other class action lawsuits.

How many members of the Canadian Armed Forces involved with the Catholic Chapels am I aware of that were investigated for sexually abusing children?

Captain Father Angus McRae;
Brigadier General Roger Bazin;
Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan.

Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan was the member of the Canadian Forces who had been booted out of the military in 1985 for molesting a group of early teens on CFB Gagetown. The problem with Sullivan is that he was being actively investigated in the 1970s for molesting young boys in the Ottawa area when he was involved with the Boy Scouts. How did Sullivan join the military if he had been under investigation? Your guess is as good as mine. Sullivan was convicted and sentenced to prison in 2019 for molesting the kids in the 1970s. The Ontario Crown prosecutor knew nothing about Sullivan’s conviction in a court martial for the molestation of the teens on CFB Gagetown. Sullivan’s convictions in 1984 were removed from his service record by the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada due to technicalities with the case, not because he was innocent.

How many other child molesters joined the Canadian Armed Forces bypassing the military’s obviously lax background checks?

Alexander Kalichuk comes to mind.

Military children whom had been sexually abused on base by either service personal or other military dependents had to depend on a defective “disciplinary ” system for justice. A system that had some very horrific flaws. These children would sometimes end up in the care of the Canadian Forces military social workers much like I did.

In my case it turns out that the Chain of Command on CFB Namao decided to not call in the RCMP because amongst other issues, they believed that my babysitter, P.S., was only 12 years old in 1980. P.S. was born in June of 1965.

And don’t forget, rank very much carries a lot of privilege in an organization such as the Canadian Armed Forces. No private or corporal is going to make allegations against a master warrant officer for molesting their kid. No master corporal or sergeant is going to make allegations against a captain or lieutenant colonel for molesting their kid. No commanding officer is going to allow a “flirtatious or promiscuous” 12 year old to ruin the military career of his outstanding master warrant office. And these were all well documented flaws known to exist prior to major amendments to the National Defence Act which occurred in December of 1998.

How many military parents would have allowed their male children to be involved with any child sexual abuse investigation if it meant that their son or sons were going to be tarred with the brush of “homosexuality”? That’s what the Canadian Armed Forces termed male child sexual abuse to be when the abuser was also a male. “Acts of homosexuality “. It also didn’t help the matter much the the Criminal Code offence of “Buggery” (anal intercourse) was considered to be a victimless offence with both parties equally to blame.

With the military police unwilling to investigate my matter, and with the civilian police unwilling to investigate my matter, and with my care at the hands of the military social worker burnt into my mind, and with my father’s opinions of the abuse burnt into my mind, I kept my mouth shut until 2011.

How many other former military dependents kept quiet over the years? I’d say there’s quite a few. I have spoken personally with some former dependents who are still terrified all these years later of anyone discovering that they had been sexually abused on base. Sadly, all of this silence has worked to the advantage of the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence.

When my father was interviewed by the CFNIS in 2011 he gave a statement to the CFNIS that was so devoid of reality that it wasn’t funny. Was he coached or coaxed into giving his statement? Did the Canadian Forces threaten his pension or his medical plan? Did he make a deal with the military back in 1980 that in trade for his silence in the P.S. / McRae matter that he’d receive a favour in kind? Is that why his statement is so easily torn asunder by various legal records? And let’s be clear, he didn’t just make one or two misstatements. He practically gave the CFNIS everything they would’ve asked for.

Fred Cunningham was very concerned in 2011 that I not tell anyone what he had told me. He seemed to be implying that there would be very serious consequences if anyone found out what he had told me.

Anyways, enough for now.

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.

“There are no military bases in Vancouver Centre”

Dr. Hedy Fry, the member of Parliament for Vancouver Centre has determined that because there are no military bases in Vancouver Centre, that she can’t help people who were sexually abused as children.

A while ago, it was suggested to me that maybe I should try the petition route to get my matter before the House of Commons seeing as how the Department of National Defence has no legal obligations towards military dependants.

I submitted the following petition to the House of Commons petition website on April 12th, 2020. I required five supporters. I was able to get the maximum of ten supporters. The way it works is you select ten people that you know will support your petition. The House of Commons will email these people to verify their eligibility to support the petition. The first five people to reply to the House of Commons become the supporters of your petition.

I was notified by email that Dr. Hedy Fry had declined to authorize the petition.
Below is her answer in highlight.

“There are no military bases in the riding of Vancouver Centre”, yep, that’s what she said.

I haven’t really had any dealings with Hedy Fry directly. Most of my dealings were filtered through her assistant Steven Bourne. In one of our meetings, Steven brought up the subject of Hedy Fry and her comments about the KKK burning crosses in Prince George, BC and that how even though she was eventually vindicated, that he’d be very cautious about letting Hedy get embarrassed like that again.

I’ve lived in the West End of Vancouver since 1992. That’s coming up on 27 years now.
Hedy has been my member of Parliament since then.
I have been her constituent.
Never have asked anything of her before.

However, it appears that because there are no military bases in the riding of Vancouver Centre, she can’t raise an important issue within the House of Commons.

And this got me to wondering.

How many other former military dependants have gone to their respective Member of Parliament for assistance only to have their MP tell them that they can’t get involved because there “are no military bases” in their riding.

How does this affect people who were sexually abused on bases that no longer exist due to budget cuts and downsizing…….. “sorry, that military base no longer exists, I can’t get involved” .

I have tried enlisting the help of MPs in other ridings previously, but unless you reside in their riding, the MP is not obligated to assist you in any manner.

Are former military dependants expected to move to ridings that have military bases if they want to enlist the help of a Member of Parliament?

Do I really have to quit my job and eat into my savings in order to move to a riding that has a military base?

No wonder the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence don’t seem worried. Between Members of Parliament that don’t want to do anything, and Acts that are so vague they can have 20 different interpretations, there’s no reason for DND and the CF to worry about the ghosts from their past haunting them.

The Man In The Sauna

On March 10th, 2020 I was contacted by an investigator with the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service Western Region office at Edmonton Garrison.

This has to do with a second member of the Canadian Armed Forces that my babysitter, P.S., provided me to for sexual purposes.

Who this man was, I don’t know.

Through paper work supplied to me by various Access to Information requests, I think I have a good idea of just who this person might be.

My grandmother had me involved with all manners of sports while we lived on Canadian Forces Base Namao. I was in hockey, I was in 5 pin bowling, I played basketball, and I was in the Red Cross swimmers program. Most of these programs were heavily subsidized to the point of not costing anything outside of the cost of uniforms or equipment.

I had been at the base pool for one of the youth swim nights. I was by myself. Now, this wasn’t a big deal back in the late ’70s, early ’80s for an eight year old kid living on a military base to be at the base swimming pool alone without adult accompaniment.

Sadly though, I can tell you from personal experience that there were perverts in the military back then.

I had just finished showering, and I was heading to my locker when P.S. came up to me and grabbed me and told me there was someone that wanted to see me in the sauna.

This would have just been a few weeks after he had been caught buggering me in his bedroom. In the time after he had been caught buggering me, he had become very physically aggressive and violent and had resorted to making all sorts of threats against me of harm that would happen if I ever told anyone about what he had done to me.

I know this encounter in the sauna occurred prior to the June 23rd, 1980 house fire on 12th street that destroyed the S. family home.

At the time, my father was still mainly living off base with his then girlfriend Susan. He was rarely home at the time. Richard and Susan didn’t move into the house on CFB Namao until August of 1980. My father relied on his mother to raise both my brother and I. My grandmother was usually drunk most of the time. And my grandmother had numerous emotional issues. So no, there was no telling grandma about what was happening.

Unlike the five times that P.S. took me for visits over to the base chapel to visit with Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae, there was no alcohol given to me prior to the sexual acts. So, I remember all of it.

I won’t go into describing the event, but suffice to say, no eight year old should be required to do what I did. And no 15 year old should be facilitating the event. And no Canadian Forces service personal should ever request these types of services from an eight year old child.

I don’t remember too much about this man. I know that he looked like a service member. Sure, he wasn’t wearing anything more than a towel in the sauna, but he had a typical neat and trim appearance. And I doubt that he just wandered onto the base and managed to find the one 15 year old boy that was willing to pimp out other children.

For the longest time, I could never put a name to this man. I honestly had no idea who he was. However, after I received certain documents from DND in 2018, I’m more than certain that I know who this man was, and why he was on the base in that period of time.

So, right now I’m just waiting for the COVID-19 pandemic to be lifted. After this I will be interviewed by the CFNIS.

Do I hold out much hope for anything happening?

Not really. This is the Canadian Forces matter.

Back around 2017, I had asked Sgt. Tenaschuk of CFNIS Pacific Region if he could drive on over to Victoria and asked retired Canadian Armed Forces officer Colonel Dan Munro what exactly transpired on Canadian Forces Base Namao after his direct subordinate Captain Father Angus McRae was investigated for molesting numerous children on CFB Namao from 1978 to 1980.

Sgt. Tenaschuk checked with his legal advisor, and this is what the legal advisor told him.

Now, what must be remembered is that all I asked for Sgt. Tenaschuk to do is to talk with <ret> Colonel Dan Munro. I hadn’t accused <ret> Colonel Dan Munro of anything illegal.

In 2010, retired Canadian Armed Forces officer Brigadier General Roger Bazin was arrested and charged for molesting a young boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in the early 1970s when Bazin was a Captain serving as the base chaplain.

In 2010 the charges were dropped just as quickly as they had been brought.

In 1986, the Court Martial Appeal Court found in the matter of Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan, that the Canadian Armed Forces have the right to consider Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery as Service Offences under the National Defence Act. As such the Canadian Armed Forces have the authority to conduct a service tribunal for these service offences, even in the modern day.

The three-year time bar that existed prior to 1998 applied to ALL service offences.

Under the National Defence Act, service members also had the right to request a courts martial to have their charges dealt with.

You see where this is going, right?

And you also hopefully understand why the Canadian Armed Forces have such a squeaky clean record when it comes to child sexual assaults prior to 1998.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the 3-year time bar matter played a significant part in the decision to drop the charges that had been brought against Bazin.

Did Bazin request that his charges be proceed with in a court martial? The National Defence Act allows for the Canadian Forces to charge retired service members with service offences. As the person was subject to the Code of Service Discipline at the time of the offence would this person be able to request a court martial instead of a civilian trial? And if so, then the 3-year time bar automatically comes into play.

Could a retired service member argue in civilian court that because they were subject to the code of service discipline at the time of the offence that they deserved to have the 3-year time bar applied in their matter?

If only the media in this country would start asking these types of questions instead of waiting for DND to bless them with an answer, we might finally see Parliament create legislation that retroactively removes the 3-year time bar from Service Offences that as Criminal Code matters would not have had any type of statute of limitations.

Encryption and the art of hiding things.

If you ever wanted to know why no one has ever really paid attention to child sexual abuse on the various Canadian Armed Forces bases, it’s because the Canadian Armed Forces are good at hiding and obscuring issues.

A couple of years ago I filed an Access to Information to the Department of National Defence. I was looking for copies of any documents or emails between myself and a particular person.

What I received in response blew me away.

It was a copy of an email between Denis Paradis and William Bain of the Ministerial Correspondence Unit.

Paradis was requesting that Bain attach a copy of an email between the Chief of Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, and the Deputy Judge Advocate General, Major Zenon Drebot, to my file.

Denis Paradis is requesting that my file be encrypted, and the subject matter of my file be changed in name to “Concerns with the CAF’.

This would pose sigificant problems to anyone who was ever searching for the existence of my paperwork.

For example, if a media wonk was to submit a request to DND to see if the Minister of National Defence has ever dealt with subjects such as “child sexual abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces”, their request would come back with negative results as the Ministerial Correspondence Unit changed the subject name of my correspondence.

What’s stopping a media wonk from requesting copies of any documents that mention “Concerns with the CAF”?

Well, they’d never get my files as my files are encrypted. And any files they do get might run the gamut from disgruntled vets upset about their pensions to fishers worried about the impact of our submarines on the cod stocks. Concerns with the CAF might yield so many results that DND would be able justifiably turn this request down due to the amount of time to collect all of the results.

I was able to request a copy of the “encrypted files” because I specifically knew they existed and I knew who created the “encrypted files”. The file contains copies of letters that I had sent to the Chief of Defence Staff and the Minister of National Defence. The file also contains 8 pages of documents redacted in their entirety due to Section 27 of the Privacy act. Numerous sections redacted due to solicitor / client privilege. And a whole bunch of back and forth between the Judge Advocate General, the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Minister of National Defence.

Am I being paranoid?

Nope. Not in the slightest.

A high ranking officer was found during the recent fiasco involving the former Vice Chief of Defence Staff Vice-Admiral Mark Norman to have avoided using Mark Norman’s name on documents and internal correspondence in order to thwart access to information requests and discovery requests.

During the Mark Norman pre-trial, it was discovered during the examination of a DND employee that when this employee went to their commander to fulfil an access to information request for documents relating to Mark Norman, the commander told their subordinate “Don’t worry, this isn’t our first rodeo. We made sure we never used his name. Send back nil return”

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/witness-at-mark-norman-hearing-alleges-dnd-attempts-to-keep-files-hidden-from-public-view

It is very apparent that DND is adept at the art of hiding information. And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that they actively use their skills to hide a lot of embarrassing issues from the public eye.