Tag: Harjit Sajjan

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.

Sgt. Hancock

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?
Intake form from November 1981.

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.

Hello Media……..

Below is a copy of a letter that I just sent off to a member of the Canadian media after having read their story about the growing calls for the Catholic church and the various Archdiocese in Canada to release the names of the Catholic clergy that the church knew or suspected of having molested children in the various Archdiocese across Canada.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there were more members of the catholic clergy on base abusing their rank and going after the children of junior rank and NCOs knowing full well that their word as a captain carried far more weight than the word of a private or a corporal.

Hello Media,

Do the names Angus McRae, Roger Bazin, or Donald Joseph Sullivan ring a bell?
No?
I don’t blame you for not knowing them.

McRae and Bazin were both officers in the Canadian Armed Forces. Captain Angus McRae and Brigadier General Roger Bazin to be exact.
Sullivan was a corporal.

There connection is that they were all involved with the Catholic Clergy on the bases.

Captain McRae was investigated for “acts of homosexuality” in 1973 while he was at the Royal Military College in Kingston. RMC Kingston is attached to CFB Kingston. Captain McRae ended up at CFS Holberg where apparently he had an interaction with a teenage boy on Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island. In May of 1980, Captain McRae was investigated by the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit on the suspicion of having molested over 25 children who were living in military housing on Canadian Forces Base Namao. Due to certain flaws that existed in the National Defence Act prior to December 1998, the number of charges brought against Captain McRae were severely reduced and he was dealt with by courts martial instead of facing a civilian judge. Major Roger Bazin was flown out from Ottawa to assist Captain McRae with his personal matters.
In February 2010, retired Canadian Armed Forces officer Brigadier General Roger Bazin was arrested and charged with having sexually abused a young boy who was living on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1974. Brigadier General Roger Bazin was a captain in 1974.

Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan was given a courts martial for committing acts of gross indecency with numerous boys on CFB Gagetown. In 1986, Cpl Sullivan appealed his court martial sentence. From the Court Martial Appeals Court decision.

2 The facts are not in dispute. All of the charges involved teenaged boys. At the time of the offences four of those boys were fourteen or fifteen years of age and one was eighteen years of age. The appellant had met the boys through his position as an instructor of altar boys at the Base Roman Catholic Chapel and through his position as a counsellor in social youth organizations in a town nearby the Base. The four younger boys were children of service personnel stationed on the Base. The offences took place at the accused’s quarters on the Base where the boys visited with the accused regularly.

3 As to the first count, the facts were that the appellant and the boy had been acquainted for two years and during that time the boy would go to the appellant’s residence twice each week. On the particular occasion, after the boy arrived at the appellant’s residence, he was given alcoholic beverages and was shown a pornographic movie. At the appellant’s suggestion the boy changed into his gym shorts and subsequently removed all of his clothing after which the appellant encouraged the boy to masturbate and then the appellant masturbated the boy and performed fellatio on him.


Reading further on in the decision, one can see the logic by which the Canadian Armed Forces was able to try child sexual assaults via military tribunal.

8 Counsel for the appellant contends that while the court may have jurisdiction to try the appellant, in the circumstances it should not have done so having regard to recent changes in the National Defence Act with respect to jurisdiction which are the result of amendments made to the Criminal Code of Canada. The reference was, of course, to changes in s. 60 of the NationalDefence Act which takes away the jurisdiction of a Court Martial to try cases of sexual assault if committed in Canada. The section provides:

60. A service tribunal shall not try any person charged with any of the following offences committed in Canada:

(a) murder;

(b) manslaughter;

(c) sexual assault;

(d) sexual assault with a weapon, threats to a third party or causing bodily harm;

(e) aggravated sexual assault; or

(f) an offence under ss. 249 to 250.2 of the Criminal Code.

Prior to this change the relevant limitation had been to charges of rape. Sexual assault includes the former offence of rape, the former offence of indecent assault against females and against males by either a male or a female. But the offence of gross indecency is not an included offence in sexual assault nor is sexual assault an included offence in gross indecency. An important distinction between the two offences is that the absence of the consent by the victim to the act is an element of the offence of sexual assault but is not an element of the offence of gross indecency. Counsel submits that the change which prohibits prosecution of a broad range of sexual offences should be regarded by us as a policy against prosecution by a service tribunal of other offences of a sexual nature in favour of prosecution in the criminal courts of the land. The short answer to this is that Parliament has not disturbed the jurisdiction to prosecute some acts of gross indecency. The jurisdiction in relation to these acts remains as it was, so that charges of gross indecency may be tried by court martial if the crime was committed in Canada.

14 While Parliament has taken away the jurisdiction of the military court to try some offences against the person, it has not disturbed the jurisdiction to try other offences which have a real military nexus or service connection.

15 In this case the offences were committed by Sullivan who was a serviceman and they were committed in service quarters on the base against the children of service personnel who lived there. The case had all of the elements present in Belford. It offended morale and discipline and struck deeply at the integrity of the military establishment. In my opinion, there was indeeda real military nexus or service connection within the meaning of the cases referred to. This ground of appeal fails.

As a side note, there’s a reason why the military loved to place special emphasis on the age of fourteen. At the time, fourteen was the age of consent. If the military had charged Sullivan with molesting anyone under the age of 14, that not only changed the optics of the crime in the eyes of the public, but that also means the military loses the ability to prosecute via service tribunal as no one under the age of consent can consent to sexual relations. This is why in the case of Canadian Forces officer Captain McRae, the military reduced all of the charges against McRae to only the charges related to a teenaged boy with the initials of P.S.. P.S. was 14 when McRae was charged. P.S. was the only boy over 14. The rest of the children McRae was known to have abused were ages 5 to 13.
So, this brings up the question. How many other military chaplains were convicted of child molestation and quietly dealt with in house by the Canadian Forces disciplinary system.

It should be noted that after Angus McRae was booted from the military, he ended up going for treatment at Southdown. After that Angus McRae ended up in Scarborough Ontario where he was arrested and charged with molesting two brothers. Angus McRae was initially going to plead innocent, but changed his plea when the Crown informed him that they had complaints from 10 other children.

In  2005 Roger Bazin paid the family of an Ontario teen $24,000 to settle out of court with the family. It was alleged that Bazin had sexual relations with the family’s teenaged son.

As an officer in the Chaplaincy Branch, Bazin would have been involved with the prosecutions of other kiddie diddling members of the catholic clergy on the bases in Canada.

And as Anus McRae illustrates, the Canadian Forces simply moved their troubled clergy from one base to another.
The Canadian Armed Forces KNEW they had a problem with the Catholic clergy on the bases in Canada.

The chapels on base all had rectories.
These rectories were all systematically removed in the late ‘80s.

Raising funds

After my informal conversation with the ex-JAG lawyer a few days ago, I came to the realization that much like the Army Cadets from the grenade incident in 1974 at Canadian Force Base Valcartier, and the multitude of gays and lesbians that were booted out of the military in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and 80s’, civilian persons who were sexually abused on military bases prior to 1998 are also stuck in a “legal void”.

The Canadian Armed Forces had the “legal” mandate to discharge homosexuals from its ranks prior to the abolition of Canadian Forces Administrative Order CFAO 19-20. Of course, ethical and legal are two different animals. The Canadian Armed Forces could have easily quashed the class action lawsuit brought against it by those who were ensnared by CFAO 19-20. But the Canadian Forces and the Federal Government chose not to, more than likely out of fear of a negative public reaction.

In 1974, an officer with the Canadian Armed Forces was conducting range safety training with a group of 200 teenage boys. This officer, through negligence, allowed a live hand grenade to be brought into the impromptu class room. This officer of the Canadian Armed Forces allowed the pin to be pulled from the grenade. 6 young boys died immediately, with more than 50 sustaining life altering injuries. In 2011, the Minister of National Defence requested the Canadian Forces Ombudsman look into the matter. The Ombudsman was appalled by the fact that the Officers with the Canadian Armed Forces who were wholly responsible for the deaths and injuries that day were allowed to collect compensation from the Department of National Defence, yet the young boys were all barred from receiving any manner of benefits or compensation as they were not members of the Regular or Reserve Forces. Sure, some parents had the fortitude to sue the Government of Canada. But most of the parents lacked the financial resources to take on the Department of Justice and The Department of National Defence. The Department of National Defence quickly settled with the former cadets.

That brings up my recent conversation with an ex-JAG lawyer. He cited a number of legal reasons as to why DND and the CF could never be sued in a court of law by me personnally for the injuries that I suffered as a result of the abuse from Captain Father Angus McRae and P.S., as well as the emotional trauma I endured at the hands of the military social worker.

Now, I will be honest. This is not the first time a class action has entered my mind. A few things have held me back. First, finding class action lawyers with military law experience. Second, finding other victims of military child sexual abuse. Third, money.

I now realize that I don’t have to find a class action lawer with military law experience. I can retain any law firm I wish that specializes in class actions. I just have to retain an ex-JAG to act as a legal adivser for the class action firm.

Also, I don’t have to worry about finding the other victims. That’s what web, print, television, and radio advertising are for. Definitely won’t be cheap, but it will work a lot faster than my blog or the Facebook base brat groups. The Facebook groups contain only a very small portion of the true number of persons who lived on defence establishments as children. There is a manager at my place of work who was a military dependant. They only found out about my being a former military dependant when they over heard me talking to someone about my father having been in the Canadian Forces. This manager runs one of the other departments. They too were sexually abused on one of the bases they lived on. They don’t know what happened to their abused as the manager and her family moved to another base. This manager is ashamed of having been a military dependant and wishes that no one knows about this and they feel quite serious that their ability to manage wold be called into question.

So I know there are a lot more former military dependants out there in the general population than are on the Facebook groups.

That brings me to the money.

I’ve never used a platform like GoFundMe previously, and I’m still not 100% certain of all of the aspects of raising funds in this manner. But I do believe that raising funds in this manner will allow for a class action to be brought against the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence a lot quicker than by relying on me to fund this on my own.

What happens with the funds if I’m not successful? Any money collected but not spent will be given to various children aid societies across Canada. I know that my family wasn’t the only social service magnet hopping from base to base across Canada.

Will $50k be enough?

Most ex-JAGs that I’ve spoken with in the past have asked for retainers between $5k to $20k with the majority being in between $10k to $15k. Most of these ex-JAGs bill over $600.00/hr. So yeah, I expect the ex-JAG to consume the lion’s portion of the funds raised. That said, I believe these funds spent will be a worthwhile investment as the ex-JAG should be able to walk the class-action law firm through all of the grey areas in the National Defence Act and the Queen’s Regulations and Orders that allowed the Canadian Forces to conduct tribunals for crimes that rightfully should have been put before a civilian court.

Don’t forget but as illustrated by the recent ex-JAG, the Canadian Forces were NOT supposed to be conducting service tribunals for members charged with sexual assaults against children. I now have proof that the Canadian Forces were conducting service tribunals for sexual assaults against children. This is a game changer.

Most class action law firms are more than willing to work on a contingency basis, meaning they ask for very little up front, and instead collect their fees at the end. This of course drives the law firm to try to collect a large settlement.

I fully expect the advertising portion to eat up the remaining balance of the funds raised.

How many victims are there?

I honestly don’t know.

The most accurate number I can guesstimate comes from numbers I received from DND. According to DND housing records, there were 20,500 PMQs and 19,500 children living on the bases in Canada in 1997. At the time there were only 31 bases. Less than 10 years prior there were over 80 bases and stations in Canada. By extrapolation I can say with confidence that there were at least 50,000 children living on the bases in Canada each and every year prior to 1987.

According to civilian stats, 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 20 boys will be sexually assaulted before their 18th birthday.

That’s 16,500 girls and 2,500 boys.

However, recent studies have shown that the rate of sexual assault amongst male children is typically even higher with a rate of 1 in 10 to 1 in 6.

I invite you to make a donation to the cause.
Remember, most brats had a good life on the bases, but for those ones who fell through the cracks, they had absolutely nothing in the way of safety nets.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/possible-class-action-against-the-canadian-forces