Tag: Justin Trudeau

Sorry Brats, the story is dead.

As the headline says, today I received the official word from Global News that there is no interest in pursuing our story.

If I had to surmise why this is such a difficult story for the media to cover, I would have to say that it’s the ignorance that is inherent in the media.

The media for the most part are “Book smart and street dumb”.

The current reporter wouldn’t be the first one to state to me that if there had been a problem in the Canadian Forces, they would have heard about it by now.

We know for a fact that the Canadian Forces has had some rather dubious characters in its employ:
Colonel Russell Williams;
Brigadier General Roger Bazin;
Captain Father Angus McRae;
Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan;
Blackmore;
Private Buckland;
Private Clabby;
Corporal Ryan;
2nd Lt. Sheehy-Tremblay;
Seaman Mitchell;
Corporal Turner;
The gang from Somalia;
And many, many more.
But these were the ones that weren’t quietly swept out of the military.

We also know from the report released by Colonel Tim Grubb in the aftermath of the Colonel Russell Williams fiasco that the review conducted by the Provost Marshal found a “disturbingly higher” incidence of child sex abuse in the defence community”

I asked the reporter I was most recently involved with if Colonel Tim Grubb’s report, along with the 3-year time bar, and the Summary Investigation flaw caused him to have any concerns. He said that he couldn’t see how these were related to one another.

The reporter that I most recently dealt with says that he recently filed an FOI request with DND asking DND how many members of the Canadian Forces were charged with child abuse.

Child abuse is not a crime. No, really, it’s not. And I don’t mean that it’s legal to abuse children. There is no Criminal Code offence called “Child Abuse”. So of course, DND is going to respond that it could find no records.

I told this reporter many times over that if he wanted to look for criminal convictions that he’d have to look for these charges using very specific terms such as “151 – Sexual Interference, 152 – Invitation to Sexual Touching, 153 – Sexual Exploitation” for crimes that occurred after 1985, and Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery for sexual crimes that occurred prior to 1985.

And even at that, DND didn’t start maintaining a database of offences until the early 2000’s. This means that if you wanted to look for sexual crimes committed against children prior to 1998, you’d have to search through every service member’s file held at the Library and Archives Canada. To do so though, you’d need the permission of either the service member or the service member’s next of kin if the service member has been deceased for less than 20 years.

And I know that DND is very deceitful with the information that it releases. Back in 2018 I filed an ATI with DND ” how many cases of child sexual abuse occurred pre-1998 and were brought to the attention of the CFNIS/MP/CFPM port-1998 and declined prosecution due to the 3-year time bar”. DND fought me on this first arguing that this would require them to create new records which they weren’t obligated to. The Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada became involved and DND finally released the information I requested. Or so it appeared. What clued me off that something was amiss was that CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754 was absent from the release of documents. GO 2011-5754 was my complaint against P.S. that I filed in March of 2011.

What I did realize quickly is that DND had released to me a list of “Sexual Assaults”. Sexual Assault is a unique Criminal Code offence that does not include “Indecent Assault”, “Gross Indecency”, “Buggery”, “Sexual Interference”, “Invitation to Sexual Touching”, and “Sexual Exploitation”.

This is something that the media in Canada just can’t seem to wrap their heads around. The media seems to equate “no records can be found” with “no crimes were ever committed”.

I suggested to this reporter that if he really wanted to see just how big of a problem sexual crimes committed against children had been back in the days prior to 1998 that Global perhaps run some spots during its nightly news broadcasts asking viewers to call in to Global to report if they were ever the victim of child sexual abuse on a Canadian Forces Base. This doesn’t accuse the Canadian Forces or anyone with the Canadian Forces of having committed anything. It’s just a request for victims to come forward. Once the victims come forward, then you listen to their stories. Once you have their stories, then you pick a common theme. Once you have that common theme, then you start hammering away on DND until DND owns up to the skeletons in their closet.

Sitting around on your arse, waiting for the Minister of National Defence or the Chief of Defence Staff to come forward and say “Hey look, we had a problem, we fucked up”, is going to waste a lot of time.

If you want an organization like DND to respond, you need to crank up the heat and make it uncomfortable for them.

The media also seems to equate the lack of victims willing to go on record as an indication of their honesty. Many former brats that I’ve spoken to, whom came from dysfunctional families on base, are for the most part terrified of saying anything against the Canadian Forces. Then there are the brats who are terrified of saying anything out of fear of some of the members of the base brat groups on Facebook.

I know for a fact that a lot of the Facebook groups for base brats will censor my posts and will remove them. So no, the base brat groups cannot be viewed as being a cross section of typical former brats, as the views espoused in some of these groups are very sanitized.

I’ve been trying to garner media attention since way back in 2011 when I first learnt of the connection between my babysitter, P.S. and Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae.

The media see absolutely no conflict of interest with having a “police” organization such as the CFNIS conduct investigations which may subject their superiors to civil actions. There were 25 children who had been sexually abused on Canadian Forces Base Namao by Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae and his altar boy P.S.. McRae taught P.S. how to sexually abuse children. McRae encouraged P.S. to abuse children. McRae requested that P.S. escort children over to the chapel to be abused by both Captain McRae and P.S. after administering alcohol to the children.

P.S. sued the Minister of National Defence in March of 2001 and settled out of court in November of 2008 with the Minister of National Defence after the Department of National Defence accepted General Legal Liability for the personal damaged that P.S. endured at the hands of McRae. I can’t say if P.S. settled with the Archdiocese of Edmonton or the estate of Angus McRae, but I can’t see DND absorbing all of the costs when P.S. had named all three parties. If each party shared 1/3 of the liability, this means that P.S. walked away with close to $600,000.00. Not bad for someone who wasn’t as innocent as the Canadian Forces portrayed him to be back in 1980.

Because the Department of National Defence accepted legal liability, the chain of liability has well been established. If P.S. were to admit that (a) he sexually abused the children he was babysitter while he was 14 years of age and older, and (b) that he acted upon Captain McRae’s instructions and brought the children he was babysitting over to the chapel to be sexually abused by both Captain McRae and himself, the victims of both Captain McRae and P.S. would have a very simple time arguing in court that they were entitled to at least the same amount of compensation that the Department of National Defence agreed to compensate P.S.. Now, let’s say that there were in fact 25 children being sexually abused by Captain McRae and P.S.. And lets say that P.S. had been awarded the maximum that the Canadian Forces Director of Civil Claims and Liabilities is authorized to sign for, which is $200,000.00. That’s five million dollars in payouts at a minimum.

Why don’t I just sue the military on my own? Suing the military without a direct connection being established between myself and P.S. would be an extreme exercise in futility, especially seeing as how the 1980 CFSIU investigation established that P.S. was in fact the only victim of sexual abuse and that there were no other victims. This is also why suing P.S. for civil damages would be out of the question as well. Surely if P.S. had been molesting children and assisting Captain McRae with his devious schemes back in 1979 to 1980, the military police and the CFSIU would have handed P.S. over to the RCMP, right?

The media seems to like to think of the members of the CFNIS as being police officers just like civilian police officers. The CFNIS and the Provost Marshal operate completely different than any civilian police force. CFNIS investigators do not run their own investigation. SAPMIS, the record keeping system used by the military police is not secure. The investigator’s superiors running the investigation aren’t necessarily trained in law enforcement and may not even have training in the field of the investigation being undertaken. And more alarmingly, there are no provisions in the National Defence Act which exempt CFNIS investigators from section 83 of the National Defence Act. This means that investigators with the CFNIS are bound by the National Defence Act to obey all lawful commands of their superiors upon threat of life in prison for disobeying the lawful command.

The Chain of Command for the CFNIS looks kinda like this:
Minister of National Defence –>
Chief of Defence Staff –>
Vice Chief of Defence Staff –>
Provost Marshal –>
CFNIS commanding officer –>
CFNIS regional commanding officer –>
CFNIS investigator.

You can see why this is a bad arrangement and you can hopefully see why the CFNIS need to be disbanded. The RCMP, as troubled of an agency as they are, are completely outside of the command influence of the Canadian Forces chain of command.

The sad thing is that the media can’t see this conflict of interest.

In the next little while, I’m going to start naming all of the reporters that I’ve dealt with since 2011.

Global has shown no commitment.

CBC has shown no commitment.

CTV has shown no commitment.

And to be honest, media consolidation in this country has probably been the single largest contributing factor which explains the media’s lack of interest.

All I know is that these reporters and these news agencies are helping the Canadian Armed Forces keep their dirty little secrets hidden and buried in the past. I’ll be 49 in a few months. Statsically speaking, I have 20 years or so left to live So if it takes another 10 years to find a news agency willing to get off its high-horse and actually start doing some investigative work, I might be 65 by the time this story hits the headlines.

And that’s all the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence have to do is simply wait us out.

Most of the brats that lived on base during the ’50s are starting to pass on.

Next to go will be the brats that lived on the bases in the ’60s.

All DND has to do is wait until 2040 and most of the kids who were in their teens during the ’70s will start passing away.

By 2050 DND won’t have to worry about former sexually abused military dependants making noise.

There’s a reason why DND transferred control of the PMQs to an independent arms length agency in the 1990s

There’s a reason why the number of family PMQs on base are dwindling and why DND and the Canadian Forces are encouraging members to buy homes and live in the civilian world instead of in the PMQ patches on base.

There’s far too much liability and risk in running company towns. Especially when you’re the employer and you provide the security services.

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.

The Complete lack of Interest from the Media

The mucky-mucks at National Defence Head Quarters must be really pleased with how extremely disinterested the media is with the topic of child sexual abuse that occurred on the bases in Canada.

I first had dealings with this reporter back in the summer of 2019. They seemed interested in the story, but they just couldn’t find the time. Other things kept popping up, other issues kept taking precedence.

This reporter, like many before them, laments the lack of people willing to come forward, or if they do come forward, they won’t go on camera and they won’t allow their names to be used.

And to be honest, this isn’t the first reporter that strung me along with a tenuous interest in the story that I had to tell.

For me it’s not that hard to understand why people would be unwilling to come forward and go on camera.

Back in the ’90s and even up to the mid 2000s, if you told me that I had been sexually abused, I probably would have told you to go fuck right off. There was no way on Earth that I was going to admit that I had been abused on CFB Namao and then again on CFB Downsview primarily at the Denison Armouries.

If you were a male military dependant, and you were buggered on base, you kept your damn mouth shut. When I was growing up on base, the general attitude was that only queers, fags, and homos took it up the ass. And yes, by the time my family was posted from Canadian Forces Base Greisbach to Canadian Forces Base Downsview, I fully understood what homosexuality was, and I fully understood from Terry that homosexuality was a mental illness and that I was going to get electroshock treatments at the Alberta Hospital if I kept it up. I was 9 when we moved to CFB Greisbach from CFB Namao. I was 12 when we left CFB Greisbach for CFB Downsview.

Terry was the “counsellor” that I started seeing after my arrival on CFB Greisbach. Terry was helping me to work though my attraction to other boys that I had exhibited when I was caught being buggered by a teen who was almost twice my age. It was August of 2011 when I learnt that “Terry” was actually Captain Terry Totzke, a military social worker with the Canadian Armed Forces. And I have no doubt that what Captain Terry Totzke was doing would in this day and age be called “conversion therapy”.

It was the military after all. It has been written that in the Canadian Forces men were sometimes buggered in an attempt to humiliate them or to “fix” disciplinary issues, or to simply “knock ’em down a peg or two”. After all, it seemed that as long as you were the person doing the buggering, you weren’t seen as being gay. If on the other hand you were the person being buggered, well that just opened up a whole can of worms.

When I had been sexually assaulted by Earl Ray Stevens while I lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview, one of his threats was that if I ever told anyone that I would be kicked out of cadets. Even though I wouldn’t learn about CFAO 19-20 until around 2015 I fully understood that gays and lesbians were not welcome in the Canadian Forces. Somehow Earl knew that my father was in the Canadian Forces, and Earl would remind me that if I ever told anyone, that my father would find out, and that if my father found out there would be dire consequences. And after having lived through those consequences on Canadian Forces Base Greisbach, I didn’t want to live through those consequences again. So, I pleasured Earl whenever he wanted it. It was just easier that way. Besides, as Earl had quipped once or twice, that by giving me money it was a fair trade.

The more I wonder about Earl the more I wonder how many other children he molested on military bases during his career in the Canadian Armed Forces. After all, the first time he assaulted me, he wasn’t at all shy or coy about it. His hand didn’t accidentally brush against my crotch behind closed doors. He grabbed my crotch knowing full well what he was doing. He also knew that by my lack of response, that I was an easy mark.

Homophobia in the military back in the ’60s through ’80s was nothing new. It was just a reflection of the attitudes of society, but it was amplified via the machismo that is typical in military organizations. And unlike general society, the Canadian Forces filter out who gets in and who doesn’t. So after awhile the military becomes nothing but a massive echo chamber of like minded attitudes.

The official policy of the Canadian Forces towards gays and lesbians was dictated by Canadian Forces Administrative Order 19-20 which concluded that homosexuality was a “sexual abnormality” only further reinforced homophobic attitudes in the military and normalized these attitudes.

My father always had a warped sense of humour. But it was typical for the guys he hung out with. When we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview he asked me once if I knew what Gay stood for. I looked at him kinda puzzled. He replied with a laugh “Got Aids Yet”. Another time he asked if I knew what AIDS stood for. Again another puzzled look to which he replied “Anally Injected Death Sentence”.

And with homophobia being as wide spread in the Canadian Forces as it was back then, I wasn’t the only military dependant that had to endure it. How many male children on the bases were abused and kept their mouths shut due to the rampant homophobia in the military?
We’ll probably never know.
How many male children ended up committing suicide due to their abuse on base and the fear of being labelled “gay” or “queer”?
Again, we’ll probably never know.

I’ve submitted Access to Information Requests to DND looking for any type of studies that DND may have undertaken to look at the lives of military dependants. There never were any. And this makes sense, after all we were nothing more that DF&E.

Another problem that reporters with the media seem to have understanding is that there is no directory of military dependants. The Canadian Armed Forces keep absolutely no records of us aside from possibly our birth certificates in our serving parent’s file.

There are many groups on Facebook for former military dependants. But these groups seem to be filled with brats who came from functional families and who didn’t encounter any abnormal issues while they lived on base. Myself, I wouldn’t be in any of these groups if it wasn’t for my desire to find other former brats who had problems on base.

Some of the brats that I know are only in one group out of the many groups on Facebook for base brats. And they’re usually only in the one particular group because they were looking for someone very specific.

There is a department manager where I work. This manger runs one of the larger and more important departments at this operation. This manager had Googled my name a few years ago and had discovered my blog. This manger pulled me aside and confided in me that they too had been a military dependant and they too had been sexually abused on base. But this manger asked me to never divulge to anyone that they had been a military dependant. They said that they were ashamed of having been a dependant and that they didn’t want anyone at work to judge them based upon their childhood.

In my professional life, when I’m asked where I’m from and where I grew up, I just say my birth province. It’s far much easier that way.

Until the media step up to the plate and start actively looking for these other sexually abused military dependants, none will come forward.

And I think sadly this is the last reporter that I will ever be able to approach about this topic as the people whom I’ve placed this reporter in contact with have asked for me to stop giving their contact information out as these reporters never want to listen to what they’re being told, and these reporters keep pressing these other former military dependants to allow their names and faces to be used.

One former dependant was all ready to go a couple of years ago, but the reporter running with the story back then reneged on their promise of allowing this other victim to use an alias and to sit behind a screen while the interview was being conducted. This other reporter assured this other military dependant that their face would be pixelated during the post process. However, this meant that there would be a video recording of this dependant’s face.

A lot of former military dependants that I’ve spoken with are literally terrified of the Canadian Forces. Very little, if anything was done for them when they were abused. Some, but not all, came from dysfunctional homes where the father was abusive and the base MPs would often turn a blind eye.

And some, like me, would go on into their adult lives believing what they had been told when they were children living on the various Canadian Forces Bases. That they were responsible for what had happened, that they liked what had happened because they let it go on for so long, and that they had a mental illness because they were having sex with other boys twice their age.

It kept us silent.

The media’s deafness ensures our silence stays in place.

The Sgt. Kalichuk Files

Here are all of the files relating to the documents that I received from the Library and Archives Canada.

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00001-a0062418.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00076-a0062420.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00146-a0062421.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00148-a0062422.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00212-a0062423.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00261-a0062425.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00330-a0062426.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00351-a0062427.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00437-a0062428.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00582-a0062429.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00682-a0062431.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00751-a0062433.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00822-a0062435.pdf

https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/00943-a0062436.pdf

These should make for some rather interesting reading.

Enjoy.

I Missed it……

The Military Police Complaints Commission has recently been in contact with me regarding documents and other forms of information that I have in my possession from the 2015 through 2018 portion of the CFNIS investigation into the acts of P.S. on CFB Namao from 1978 until 1980.

In preparation for sending the pertinent information to the MPCC, I’ve been reviewing the documents. And I realized something. The second investigation was designed to fail from the word go.

In the summer of 2015, after I had spoken to J.S. and then subsequently his son P.S., I wrote a letter to the Chief of Defence Staff and I sent a courtesy copy to Bob Paulson who at the time was the commissioner of the RCMP. Within a few weeks I was contacted by RCMP Major Crimes Investigator Akrum Ghadban. Mr. Ghadban was on secondment to the CFNIS and was responsible for reviewing major cases. Mr. Ghadban said that he had reviewed the 2011 CFNIS investigation and that he had concerns about the investigation and that he was going to instruct the CFNIS on areas that he thought they could improve.

This led to a new interview being conducted between myself, RCMP Inspector Ghadban, and Sgt. Tenaschuk of the CFNIS. This interview took place on September 22nd, 2015 at the RCMP detachment at the University of British Columbia.

Just prior to the interview, Inspector Ghadban met with me. He said that he had concerns about aspects of the 2011 CFNIS investigation. He said that the 2011 investigation was not up to “contemporary policing standards”.

During the interview, Inspector Ghadban said that he was going to instruct the CFNIS to concentrate on four specific areas of the investigation.

First is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to track down and locate P.S.’s younger brother who also has the initials of P.S.. For clarity I will call P.S.’s younger brother P.S.2.

Second is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to track down Doug Schwirtz who in 1980 would have been around 9 years old and lived at PMQ 13 on 12th street and had potentially seen the kids on the front lawn of the S. PMQ attack me when I came out of P.S.’s PMQ after P.S. had been discovered buggering me in his bedroom.

Third is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to talk to retired Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham to find out what Cunningham knew about the 1980 investigation into Captain McRae. After all, both J.S. and Fred Cunningham indicated that the investigation into Captain McRae was commenced due to the complaints of numerous parents on CFB Namao about the interaction of P.S. with their young children.

Fourth is that Inspector Ghadban wanted the CFNIS to ascertain that I did in fact mention during my initial interview with the CFNIS in March of 2011 that I had tried reporting P.S. to the military police in 1984 and in 1990. This was specifially to counter Alberta Crown Prosecutor Jon Werbicki’s concern that I hadn’t tried reporting these crimes to anyone before.

True to CFNIS form, when Sgt. Tenaschuk tried locating P.S.2 he contacted the family again. The same very protective family that closed ranks around P.S. during the 2011 CFNIS investigation. When Tenaschuk contacted these family members, they all claimed that P.S.2. lived out on the West Coast and that they had lost contact with him years ago and they didn’t know how to get hold of him. As it turns out P.S.2. lives in London, Ontario which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Fort Erie, Ontario where his father J.S. and his older brother P.S. both live.

Tenaschuk tracked down Doug Schwirtz. I have no idea what questions Doug was asked. According to Sgt. Tenaschuk, Doug remembers absolutely nothing from back then.

I have no idea of what Sgt. Tenaschuk did so far as trying to locate records of me having tried to report P.S. to the military police in 1984 and 1990.

Sgt. Tenaschuk then contacted Fred Cunningham. According to Sgt. Tenaschuk he asked Fred Cunningham what he remembered about our telephone call on November 27th, 2011. Fred said that he couldn’t remember anything.

So, here’s what caught my eye. Tenaschuk wasn’t asked to talk to Fred Cunningham about our telephone call on March 27th, 2011. Sgt. Tenaschuk was instructed to talk to Fred Cunningham about the 1980 investigation into Captain McRae.

Sgt. Tenaschuk avoided asking Cunningham about the 1980 investigation, such as why did the base military police interrogate P.S. in his family’s PMQ in May of 1980? Why had Fred Cunningham been tasked with investigating Captain Father Angus McRae?

What did Fred Cunningham remember on November 27th, 2011? Quite a lot. What Fred Cunningham told me that day has been verified by Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit file DS 120-10-80 and by two separate Canadian Forces Fire Marshal reports.

During our brief phone call on November 27th, 2011 Fred identified another boy, younger than P.S. named F.A., as a “prolific pyromaniac”.

And what a pyromaniac he was. The Canadian Forces Fire Marshal identified F.A. as having been responsible for two separate house fires on CFB Namao. One of the Fire Marshal reports even goes on to identify this boy named F.A. as having been friends with P.S. and that P.S. had been at F.A.’s house earlier in the day prior to one of the fires and that both F.A. and P.S. had been playing with fire on the stove in the F.A. household.

The Fire Marshal’s report also indicated that this boy named F.A. wasn’t attending school as he had just recently been released from psychiatric care.

It was also noted in the most recent Fire Marshal report that F.A. seemed to like to play the role of the “hero” by “discovering” the fire and alerting people to the fire.

According to Fred Cunningham, when the charges stemming from F.A.’s complaint against Captain McRae were dropped by the “brass”, the boy named F.A. thought that P.S. had stabbed him in the back. Fred Cunningham said that the boy named F.A. had no idea that it was the “brass” that dropped all of the charges against McRae except for the charges related to P.S..

Fred Cunningham said that there had been a massive falling out between F.A. and P.S.

I asked Fred if this pyromaniac named F.A. had anything to do with the June 23rd, 1980 house fire at P.S.’s family’s PMQ.

Fred Cunningham said is that he wasn’t going to speak to that.

As I have the CF Fire Marshal’s report for the June 23rd, 1980 fire at the S. PQM, I know that Colonel Dan Munro’s signature was the final signature on the Fire Marshal’s investigation report for June 23rd, 1980 fire. In the Fire Marshal’s report, Colonel Dan Munro declines the need for further review of the cause of the fire.

I also learnt that someone did actually die in that fire. An Edmonton area civilian gas fitter employed on base by the Canadian Forces named Sam Stelter died as a result of trying to shut off the gas to prevent a major fire. Sam died of a heart attack in the basement of the S. family PMQ.

The Alberta Fire Marshal ruled that the house fire was due to a defective brass gas line behind the stove. I’ve often wondered since November 27th, 2011 just how hard it would have been for someone to have given that already defective gas line a simple tug. Someone with a grudge against a resident of the house. Another opportunity for someone to play the hero maybe?

Pure speculation I know.

Colonel Dan Munro was also Captain Father Angus McRae’s commanding officer.

Was Colonel Dan Munro the “brass” that dropped all of the charges against Captain McRae except for those relating to P.S.? Or was it someone higher up the chain of command?

In 2018, Sgt. Tenaschuk said that he wouldn’t be able to talk to Colonel Munro due to the 3-year time bar that existed in the National Defence Act prior to 1998.

It should be noted that the term “brass”never referes to a non-commissioned officer. If you were in the military, you would never call a Master Warrant Officer “the brass”. And you would almost certainly not call a junior rank officer “the brass”. It’s generally not until you get into the senior officer ranks that you start referring to officers as “the brass”. Colonel is the highest rank senior officer.

Above Colonel are the General / Flag officers. These you can call “the brass” as well.

Tenaschuk spooks the S. clan by contacting them and asking them for contact information for P.S.2 becuase he wants to talk to P.S.2 about what P.S. did in 1980. That family is extremely protective of P.S.. They view P.S. as the sole victim of Captain McRae. They obviously view the children that P.S. was abusing as being of no consequence. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the S. clan blame all the children that P.S. abused on CFB Namao as being the driving force behind P.S. attempting suicide in January of 2000. See, we’re not victims, we’re ruthless cold hearted killers who won’t leave poor misunderstood P.S. alone.

During the 2015 through 2018 CFNIS investigation, I provided the CFNIS with the names of other victims of P.S.. The CFNIS took their statements, and kept them separate from my investigation. According to Tenaschuk, this was a decision by his superiors.

The Crime Stoppers appeal that was run in November of 2016 provided “numerous” tips with others coming forward with complaints about P.S.. None of this information was forwarded to the Alberta Crown in 2018.

Sure, my father died in January of 2017, but the CFNIS had a whole year and a bit to interview him again. The statement that he gave to the CFNIS in 2011 does not reflect the reality of my family as it was back in the late ’70s and early ’80s. More specifically my father’s statement to the CFNIS is 100% at odds with the answers he gave me when I examined him for Federal Court in 2013. I provided Sgt. Tenaschuk with the pertinent sections of my foster care / Alberta Social Service records as well as a copy of my father’s answers to my written examination. From what I’ve seen that was provided to the Alberta Crown in 2018, Sgt. Tenaschuk made no mention at all that he had any concerns about the validity of my father’s statement to the CFNIS in 2011. My father’s statement would have had a very negative effect on the Crown’s decision.

In 2018, in the same letter that Sgt. Tenaschuk informs me that he can’t talk to Colonel Dan Munro due to the 3-year time bar, Tenaschuk informs me that the P.S. “investigation is still with the Crown Prosecutor” and that he viwed this as a “positive note”.

Weeks later the 2015 through 2018 investigation goes down in flames.

Sgt. Tenaschuk informed me in 2018 that the Alberta Crown was declining to recommend charges as it wasn’t in the public interest.

In late 2018 an agency of the Alberta government reviews the 2015 through 2018 portion of the CFNIS investigation and can’t find any evidence that any type of criminal code offence occured.

From the documents that I’ve seen from another agency of the Alberta government, Sgt. Tenaschuk basically resubmitted Sgt. Hancock’s 2011 Crown Briefing.

I don’t think that it was Sgt. Tenaschuk’s decision. Someone within the chain of command within the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal ensured that the 2015 through 2018 portion of CFNIS GO 2011-5754 stayed concerned only with the four exact concerns that RCMP Inspector Akrum Ghadban had raised. This meant that the CFNIS excluded just about anything else that had been brought to their attention. Other victims, potential witnesses, details about the 1980 investigation, these were all excluded from the 2015 – 2018 investigation.

This explains why the Sgt. Tenaschuk bascially re-submitted Sgt. Hancock’s investigation to the Alberta Crown. Excluding all of the new evidence ensured that the Alberta Crown was just going to give the same answer they gave to the flawed 2011 investigation.

This means that the 2015 through 2018 portion of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754 was just yet another dog and pony show that was never meant to wake up long dead ghosts.

It will be very interesting to see where the current MPCC review goes. It’s abundantly clear that the Canadian Forces do not want to revisit anything from 1980. And considering how narrow and restricted the review process is, I have no doubt that the MPCC will have absolutely no choice but to find in favour of the CFNIS just like the last time.

And unless the powers of the MPCC have been improved since my last go round, the Provost Marshal holds all of the cards.

Two dog and pony shows for the price of one.

The Military Police Complaints Commission

It should be no secret that I’ve already filed a complaint with the Military Police Complaints Commission, which I’ll refer to as the MPCC from here on in. This complaint is for the 2015 through 2018 portion of CFNIS investigation GO 2011-5754.

From a job posting located at
buyandsell.gc.ca
buyandsell.gc.ca is a Government of Canada website run by Public Works and Government Services Canada

Yes, the MPCC is supposed to be an “arm’s length” agency, but bear in mind that all employees of the MPCC are government employees who may wish to move upwards in the governmental hierarchy, and who will more often than not act in such a manner as to not jeopardize their ascension up the ranks.

The Military Police Complaints Commission is charged with reviewing military police investigations. Generally the MPCC may conduct two styles of investigation. The MPCC may conduct a “Review” or the MPCC may conduct a “Public Interest Hearing”.
For now I’ll talk about a “review” and in a subsequent posting I’ll talk about a “Public Interest Hearing”

An MPCC REVIEW

The first style of investigation the MPCC may conduct is a “Review”.

Due to the design of the review process, findings against the military police are very rare.

During a “Review” the MPCC can only review the documents supplied to it by the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal.

During a review, the MPCC cannot administer oaths. There is no risk of penalty for uttering false statements to the MPCC.

During a review, the MPCC cannot subpoena documents or witnesses. This means that during a review, the MPCC can only take what the Provost Marshal has decided to give to the MPCC. Also, because witnesses cannot be forced to talk to the MPCC during a review the MPCC may find itself unable to interview key personnel.

During a review, the complainant cannot cross examine the witnesses.

During a “Review”, the MPCC does not “test” the evidence to see if it was possible to come to a different conclusion, thereby calling into question the investigative ability of the investigator or the supervisory ability of the investigator’s chain of command. All the MPCC does during a review is a basic check list.

Did Mr. Bees make a complaint?

Was the complaint investigated?

Did the investigator reach a conclusion that was within a range of resonable conclusions?

The Provost Marshal knows exactly what your complaint is about as you have to first submit your complaint to the Provost Marshal.

It can be seen then that the Provost Marshal can submit favourable documents to the MPCC that paint the CFNIS in a very favourable light. You as the complainant will have absolutely no access to any of these documents until AFTER the MPCC have rendered their final decision.

The biggest flaw with this is that any evidence that you intend to introduce at the Federal Court level in an application for Judicial Review is considered “New Evidence” and will be struck from the Judicial Review.

It’s almost as if the Canadian Forces created the MPCC and the review process to be defective by design.

Yes, Parliament would have crafted the legislation which created the MPCC, however, the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Forces, the Provost Marshal, and the Judge Advocate General would have had their input into the design of the MPCC. There would have been no representation from parties from which complaints could be expected to be received.

In the summer of 2015, MPCC chairman Glenn Stannard told the Globe and Mail during an interview that the MPCC has never been given the documents required to truly understand how the Canadian Forces Military Police and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service operate. Mr. Stannard said during this interview that without those documents, the MPCC doesn’t even know what it should be requesting from the Provost Marshal.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/outgoing-military-complaints-chair-stresses-need-to-fix-ottawas-oversight/article23676643/

From the Globe and Mail
March 27th, 2015
by Gloria Galloway

Not very reassuring, now is it?

Yeah, and about the findings of the MPCC. The Canadian Forces Provost Marshal can still tell the MPCC to go piss up a rope if it doesn’t like the findings of a review. Reviews are non-binding and have no legal weight.

During a review, the MPCC cannot subpoena witnesses, the MPCC cannot subpoena documents, and the MPCC cannot administer oaths. The fact that statements given to the MPCC are not taken under oath means that there is no threat of consequences for perjury.

During an MPCC review, participation is voluntary.

Access to Investigation Paperwork

It would seem that it would make common sense for a complainant to have access to the paperwork from their investigation. This is apparently not how it works in Canada. Very few police review boards require that the complainant have access to documents that would be critical for the success of a complaint.

During an MPCC review, the complainant is not given access to the investigation documents, nor is the complainant given access to copies of the documents that the Provost Marshal submitted to the MPCC.

Yes, one could submit an Access to Information Request for copies of the documents and files related to a CFNIS investigation. I did. I submitted an ATI back in July of 2018.

As of today December 29th, 2019 this request has not been fulfilled.
Still awaiting an investigator.
apparently there is a considerable backlog at the Office of the Information Commissioner

Why is access to the CFNIS investigation documents necessary?

It allows the complainant to counter statements in the CFNIS investigation and prove errors committed during the investigation.

Did Sgt. Cyr fly down to Victoria, BC and meet with me personally to discuss this investigation as he told the MPCC investigators? No he didn’t.

Did “some lady from across the street” keep an eye on my brother and I from time to time? No.

Was I expelled from school in the spring of 1983 or was I kept at home to avoid being apprehended by Alberta Social Services for my father’s non-compliance with the family counselling program? It was the latter, which was all contained in the social service documents.

Did Sgt. Cyr properly record into his occurrence reports the details of our conversation on May 3rd, 2011. No he did not. Me telling him that I can remember P.S. taking me on 5 different visits to the chapel but that I can’t remember anything after being given “sickly sweet grape juice” is definitely not that same as “Mr. Bees stated that he remembered going to the church with P.S. but that nothing ever happened”. In fact being given the part about the “sickly sweet grape juice” isn’t in his occurrence report.

When Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock submitted his case summary to the Alberta Crown, why did Sgt. Hancock see fit to remove “anything he had been involved in as a youth has already been handled by the military” from the record of P.S.’s phone call to Sgt. Hancock in August of 2011. Why didn’t the MPCC pick up on this detail?

All of these issues I could have easily raised with the MPCC during my interview had I been given access to the CFNIS investigation paperwork. But I wasn’t. And as such when I went before the Federal Court with my application for judicial review, all of the copies of telephone bills and copies of emails between myself and Sgt. Cyr were struck from the proceedings as being “new evidence”.

The MPCC Investigators

The investigators conducting the MPCC review are retired police officers, which means that there is a serious bias from the get go. The thin blue line is not an urban legend. It’s a well known phenomenon that exists within police culture.

https://buyandsell.gc.ca/cds/public/2019/07/25/0d38f34724b285f00295da165d24b5ac/2019-07-15_-_revised_sow_en_annex_a.pdf
From the Government of Canada website

In my teens I worked for three Metropolitan Toronto Police officers that owned a amusement machine company as a side business. From dealing with these three I learnt quickly that police see themselves as being different from the civilians they protect. It’s bound to happen in organizations like the police.

Out here in Vancouver during the late ’90s we had a serial killer that was preying on women from the Downtown East Side. The serial killer was Robert Pickton.

As Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal concluded, the police didn’t really put any effort into protecting the women of the DTES because the police, both the RCMP and the VPD, viewed these women as “throwaways – unstable, unreliable.”

Wally Oppal was never a police officer. Wally Oppal had been a judge for most of his life. He then became the Attorney General for the province of BC. He was never tainted by the thin blue line. Which explains why he had no qualms about letting both the VPD and the RCMP wear the shame of the Pickton fiasco.

A few year ago, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP looked at the desirability of police investigating police.

The document may be found here:
https://www.crcc-ccetp.gc.ca/en/police-investigating-police-critical-analysis-literature

A copy may be downloaded from here:
https://cfbnamao.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/police-investigating-police_-a-critical-analysis-of-the-literature-_-civilian-review-and-complaints-commission-for-the-rcmp.pdf

Here are some excerpts from that document:

I was interviewed by the MPCC on July 19th, 2012. I left the interview stunned and nauseated. I was so stunned in fact that I went for a walk and just kept walking. I didn’t stop walking until just after midnight. The two investigators didn’t really listen to what I had to say, they already had their mind made up that the CFNIS investigators had gone above and beyond their requirements and conducted a stellar investigation.

Even back in 2012, I was still able to amass sufficient documentation to show that the 2011 CFNIS investigation left a lot to be desired.

The investigators with the MPCC referred to my documents as if they were trivial in nature and of dubious quality. The investigators with the MPCC even outright ignored the Social Service observations of my father.

Take for example where the MPCC investigators noted that my father told the CFNIS investigators that my grandmother only looked after my brother and I until her husband died. The CFNIS recorded my father’s statement in such a manner that it made it sound as if my grandmother only looked after my brother and I for a very brief point in time on CFB Namao and that “some lady from across the street would keep an eye on my brother and I from time to time”. My grandmother raised my brother and I from the spring of 1977 until about the spring of 1981. Her husband, Andy Anderson, didn’t die until sometime around 1985. Except for a very brief period of time in the spring of 1978 our grandmother was our primary care giver and raised my brother and I for just over four years.

In 2006, when I talked to my father about what had happened on CFB Namao, my father named the babysitter himself. I didn’t have to tell my father the babysitter’s name. My father blamed my grandmother for hiring the babysitter even going so far as saying that he warned my grandmother not to hire him. He also said that I should have told someone what the babysitter was doing and that it was partially my fault that it went on for so long and that I had no business allowing the babysitter to mess with my younger brother.

During my interview with the MPCC investigators, I made sure that the MPCC investigators understood the significance of my family’s social service records, especially the part where the psychologist hired by the Canadian Forces to interview my father determined that my father accepted no responsibility for his family, blamed others for problems with his family, expected others to solve the problems with his family. In turn the MPCC only recorded in their findings that my social service records indicated that I was depressed as a child.

There were other records that indicated that grandma was still living with us in 1981 and there were records that indicated that my father blamed grandma for issues that my brother and I were having.

Alberta Social Services indicate two key findings about my father. First, my father often told conflicting stories from one meeting to the next. Second, my father was found to tell people that he perceived to be in positions of authority what he thought they wanted to hear.

When I introduced my family’s social service records into Federal Court to dispute the observation of the CFNIS, this evidence was struck because it was “new evidence” that had not been before the MPCC during the review.

I believe that the inability of the two investigators assigned to the previous MPCC review to listen to what was being said was due to their police culture bias.

In my next blog entry I will discuss the “Public Interest Hearing” and how the Provost Marshal and the CFNIS are at a complete disadvantage.