I don’t often put my iPhone on random play, but I did today.
And as I was walking home from Gastown a song that I hadn’t heard in a very long time came on.
It was “Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me” by the Australian band TISM (This is serious Mum).
It’s got a cute flash video with an animated bunny…….
Well?
And this got me to thinking.
How many times in my life have I actually had sex with another person?
And it turns out not too many time really.
I’m not going to include the times with P.S., Captain McRae, the man in the sauna on CFB Namao, the guy from CFB Griesbach, Earl Stevens.
From the time I moved out of the house when I was 16 (1987) until 1998 when I lived in Surrey I had sex with absolutely no one.
I did meet a guy in the Westend around 1996. When we got back to his place he asked me if I was HIV+, I told him no as I wasn’t. He said that he was HIV+ and that he was hoping that I’d agree to sex without a condom as a condom was like trying to eat a chocolate bar with the wrapper still on. I got dressed and left.
In 1998 I decided to try my luck at one of the gay bath houses in New Westminster on Columbia street. Got a hand job and that was that.
Next time I had sex with another person was actually around 2002. Met a woman named Ilona. She moved into my apartment. Initially we had separate beds. She didn’t like that. So we moved the beds together. The sex was interesting so long as I could block out seeing what P.S. had done to the blonde haired girl on CFB Namao. Ilona really wanted kids. I really didn’t want kids, guess that’s a Gill thing. I spent a lot of time going for long walks. Wasn’t her fault. Just I couldn’t handle the depression, the anxiety, and all of the memories from CFB Namao. We broke up sometime around 2004.
Around 2011 my counsellor that I was seeing at the time said that I should try to have relationships with other people.
Now, not being the type of guy to go out for drinks in a bar or to go for a coffee and talk, I tried another gay hang out on Pender street and a few that were up around Davie street.
Just never got into it.
Couldn’t relax.
Couldn’t enjoy it.
In the back of my head I’d always hear Captain Totzke telling me that he had the base military police watching me and that I’d be going to a mental institution because I had a mental illness called “homosexuality”. I’d hear my father threatening to break my fucking neck if he ever caught me kissing another boy.
I guess it comes down to the fact that when you don’t know what you are it’s really hard to know what you like.
I’ve always found sex to be dirty and disgusting.
Is P.S. all to blame for this? Is Earl Ray Stevens to blame for this? Is Captain Terry Totzke to blame for this? Is the man in the sauna to blame for this? Is the man from CFB Griesbach to blame for this? Are the other men that took advantage of me as a result of Earl’s grooming?
Is it my major depression?
Is it my severe anxiety?
Is it my fear of other people?
I’ve always found sex to be about power imbalances. One party forcing the other party to do something they didn’t want to do. P.S. knew that he had full power and control over me and my brother as he was our babysitter. Earl knew that he had full power over me as he had been in the Canadian Armed Forces himself and he knew that I knew that I’d be terrified of the Military Police or my father finding out about what we were doing as I would be in just as much trouble as he would be in.
And with my memories of 1978 through 1987 always haunting me, I don’t think that sexual relationships of any kinda were ever going to be in the cards for me.
So there you have it.
My sex life has really been non-existent.
Not homosexual.
Not heterosexual.
Not anything sexual.
Just no sexual.
People assume that I’m gay because I don’t have girl friends.
Well, just completed another 365 day orbit around the sun.
So far I’ve been on this planet 18,358 days
Or 50 years, 3 months, 4 days.
Or 603 months, 4 days.
Or 1,586,131,200 seconds
Or 26,435,520 minutes
Or 440,592 hours
Or 18,358 days
Or 2622 weeks and 4 days
It has been an interesting existence. Definitely hasn’t been short on the surprises.
From start to finish we move in one direction, and that’s from birth to grave.
On that journey we encounter different branches along the tangent.
Where those branches go is anyone’s guess.
I don’t know what the next year will have to offer me.
I’ll find out what the recommendations are from the committee reviewing the further amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada to legalize medical assistance in dying for psychiatric issues. Their recommendations are supposed to be ready for Parliament in March 2022. If the government survives and approves the recommendations then they should be passed into law by March 2023. To be honest, it will probably take a year or two to navigate the system to get my prescription.
In the coming year I don’t really expect much in the way of interest from the media. And that’s fine. Just have to face the fact that the DND and the CF have much larger PR budgets than I do and that the DND and the CF can tell the media what the truth will be.
I do expect much more calmness in the coming year. 40 years of untreated major depression and severe anxiety have taken their toll. But the escitalopram has somewhat tamed the depression and the anxiety. And the fact that I now have a road map for my future means that I no longer have to worry about any uncertainty. And it was this uncertainty I think that was driving so much of my anxiety.
I honestly don’t mind anyone knowing that I’m on medications. It is what it is. Absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. It’s like the fact that after a lifetime of “eagle eyes” I now find myself requiring strong glasses to read anything small than 30 point text.
It doesn’t look as if COVID is going to let up any time soon. But after having been alone for my entire life, being isolated has been easy to deal with. They often say that “base brats” have a certain resiliency to adverse conditions due to the conditions and environment that we grew up in. And it’s not like I’ve been locked in my room. I still go for bike rides and go for long walks. But by myself.
My civil action against the former commissionaire is proceeding. There will be a preliminary hearing for discovery coming up in March. This is a good sign.
My civil action against the Canadian Forces is proceeding slow and steady. We’ll see if I’ll hang around for the end of this.
My doctor is still urging me to go see a head shrinker. But as I’ve told him, due to the environment I grew up in, and my previous experiences with military and civilian head shrinkers I honestly don’t think that anything productive will come of any counselling.
It’s been an interesting couple of years being the Chief Engineer at work.
I have absolutely no plans of going to the new hospital.
I’ve had in depth consultations with the designers, the architects, and the Professional Engineers designing the power plant of the new hospital, so in a way my contributions will be around long after I’m gone.
The dedicated fibre optic network for the HVAC and Building Automation was put in at my insistence. This network will be completely separate from the hospital IT network and as such it will be easier for the hospital to allow contractors on to the network from the outside as the network won’t have patient records, personal information, or medical diagnostic equipment on it.
I pushed for a dedicated freight elevator from the plant workshops and offices on the P2 level, up to the energy centre on the 4 & 5 floors, and then up to the roof. I pushed for this so that moving chemicals and large motors and pumps and anything else wouldn’t hinder the patient and staff elevators.
The new hospital will be ready in about 6 or 7 years.
The current hospital is probably about 7 to 10 years away from shutting down.
7 to 10 years is far too long for me.
But at least I know that I’ll have secure employment right up to the end.
” In the end Senua, it isn’t the gods that cause us so much suffering, but those closest to us.”
In 2013 when I showed my brother our father’s statement that he gave to the CFNIS 2011 my brother wasn’t sure what to say.
My brother said that I needed to give Richard the benefit of doubt. He said that the Canadian Forces or the CFNIS might have “leaned” on Richard to get him to state what he did.
Might be some truth to this. I know that Fred Cunningham was terrified of speaking to the CFNIS in 2016 and would only speak to the CFNIS “off the record” and without notes. Kinda an odd request for a former military police officer. But hey, what do I know?
And it’s true that the CFNIS did have the court martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork from the 1980 Captain Father McRae fiasco. And yes, in 2011 the CFNIS, the Provost Marshal, and the JAG obviously realized the liability problem this posed for the Canadian Forces if Richard had identified P.S. as my babysitter. So yes, as my brother said, there was the motive for the CFNIS to “lean” on Richard to get him to say what the CFNIS wanted him to say.
But having my social service records from Nova Scotia, PEI, Alberta, and Toronto I know that Richard had issues. And Richard wasn’t averse to throwing people under the train to make himself look good.
Let’s look at his “Will Say” statement.
Statement taken from my father, Richard Gill, by Master Corporal Christian Cyr and Master Corporal Jodrey on June 9th, 2011 at 13:50.
a) We lived on CFB Namao from August 1978 until October 1980. We lived on CFB Griesbach from October 1980 until April of 1983.
b) Richard had my address. He also had my phone number.
c) This telephone conversation occurred in August of 2006. Richard named the babysitter by himself, pleaded with me to understand that it was his mother that hired the babysitter, that he had nothing to do with it.
d) At various times that we lived on CFB Griesbach and on CFB Downsview, Richard would remind me that my brother was “out of control” because of what I let the babysitter / P.S. do to my younger brother.
e) Yes, I attended the Guthrie school on CFB Namao, and the Major General Griesbach School on CFB Griesbach, but Richard seems to forget to mention that I was transferred to the Westfield program for emotionally disturbed children in June of 1982 when he signed the paperwork admitting me into the Alberta Foster Care system.
g) Due to creative wording, it is made to sound as if Grandma only stayed with us for a very short time on CFB Namao. Grandma lived with us pretty well for the entire time that we lived on CFB Summerside. She was with us from 1977 until 1978. She moved back to Edmonton in the spring of 1978. In July of 1978 Richard received a compassionate posting from Captain Lynda Tyrell at CFB Summerside to move to CFB Namao. Grandma lived with us for the entire time we lived on CFB Namao. Grandma lived with us until the summer of 1981 on CFB Griesbach. Richard would drop us off with Grandma over the weekends from the summer of 1981 until we moved from Edmonton in April of 1983. Richard’s step father, Roy William Anderson didn’t die until 1983.
h) As Richard said to me in August of 2006, “HE” didn’t hire the babysitter. Grandma hired the babysitter. The babysitter molesting my brother and I was grandma’s fault, not his. He warned grandma not to hire the babysitter, but she wouldn’t listen to him. There were times that grandma didn’t have the money to pay the babysitter, so he had too. Also very convenient that he can’t remember the address or the names of the people he’d trust to look after his kids.
g) I actually met one of my childhood friends from CFB Shearwater. She was the daughter of the kindergarten teacher at Hampton Grey Memorial. Jennifer was my main playmate on CFB Shearwater. As it turns out, Jennifer’s mother was the kindergarten teacher. If I had been any trouble at all I would never have been allowed to play with Jennifer. On Summerside Richard was rarely home after I started grade 1.
h) is very interesting. When I examined Richard for Federal Court in 2013, I asked him if he remembered who Captain Terry Totzke was. Richard replied that he had never heard of this name. Captain Totzke is the military social worker that I became involved with on CFB Griesbach just after our arrival. Captain Totzke sent Richard, my brother, and I to a psychiatrist for evaluation. I was found to be terrified of men, I was certain that my father was going to kill me, I didn’t like being touched, and I was found to be well beyond depressed and suffering from anxiety. My father was found to accept no responsibility for his family, blamed others for problems with his family, expected others to solve problems with his family. Captain Totzke was more concerned with the homosexuality that I had exhibited on CFB Namao when I was discovered being buggered by the 15 year old babysitter. Captain Totzke said that I had a mental illness, and that was homosexuality. In November of 1981 our teachers and principal at Major General Griesbach School were so concerned with the inaction of Captain Totzke in regard to my brother and I that they called in Alberta Social Service.
i) I have never called Richard asking for money. It was far easier to squeeze blood from a stone than it was to ask Richard for money. It was also far less humiliating to starve and sleep in homeless shelters than to ask Richard for money. Around 1996ish Richard called me at work and said that my brother was in the Vancouver area and that he wanted me to help my brother with his car. Richard promised me that he’d send me something for my time. Nothing ever came.
My motorcycle, a 2001 Triumph Sprint RS, was written off in an accident that ICBC found the other party to be 100% responsible for. ICBC paid to rebuild the motorcycle and paid for all new riding gear. But, somehow me calling Richard after the accident to let him know that I was okay had somehow become me wanting money.
My car at the time, a 1981 Plymouth Horizon, blew the lower rad hose while I was driving to work one day. I bought a used engine from West Edmonton Pick-a-part. I bought all brand new hosing from Chrysler. I used Art’s garage out on the acreage to swap the engine. All in all this cost me about $500 to do. This was at the point in time when I still had the majority of my $30k from the Canshare Cabling contract job in Ontario.
My brother likes to say that I’m imagining Richard’s hatred of me. But this was far from imagined. Richard is one of those guys that could carry a grudge like Atlas carried the world. I know that it wasn’t my name change that pissed him off. I know it was my involvement P.S. that pissed him off. Apparently I fucked with his military career. I also willing to bet that I just reminded him too much of Marie. Whatever it was, the fucker absolutely despised me.
j) again, no.
k) in 2008 after I had received my paperwork stating that my name change was official and after I had received my new birth certificates, I sent Richard a brief letter stating why I had changed my name and that I was hoping with the name change that I’d be able to get a fresh start in life and leave the whole CFB Namao fiasco behind. He called me and told me to never contact him again.
l) from 1980 onwards Richard would blame me for any behavioural issues with my brother. I let the babysitter molest my brother so therefore my brother’s misbehaviours were my fault. During our time with Captain Terry Totzke, Richard and Totzke would often tell me that if I didn’t like what had occurred on CFB Namao that I wouldn’t have allowed for it to go on for so long. Richard was furious that I had been caught kissing another boy on CFB Griesbach stating that “that shit from Namao has to fucking stop” and that if I ever kissed another boy that he’d break my fucking neck.
I was in kindergarten on CFB Shearwater. Jennifer’s mother, the kindergarten teacher laughed at this. He never sent me to a psychologist in Edmonton. That was Captain Totzke. Richard is noted in the Alberta Social Services paperwork as being very non-compliant with their recommendations. I was not “hyperactive”. I was beyond depressed, beyond despair, and severely anxious. I was terrified of men, and I hated being touched. Richard was the one found by the psychologist hired by the Canadian Forces to be unwilling to take responsibility for his family. Richard was also found to be prone to blaming the problems with his family on others. Alberta Social Services found that Richard would often change his stories from one meeting to the next (he lied) and that he often told people that he perceived to be in positions of authority what he thought they wanted to hear (I wonder if this is what happened here) I dealt with the “Canada’s Wonderland” issue before. This statement is completely laughable. As my brother said, Canada’s Wonderland was Richard’s discount babysitting service. We had no choice if we wanted to go or not.
1978 he received a compassionate posting to CFB Namao. In October of 1980 he was moved from CFB Namao to CFB Griesbach. In April of 1983 he fled the jurisdiction of Alberta so as to avoid my apprehension by Alberta Social Services.
2011 two years previous would have been Richard calling me to tell me to never call him again because of the name change.
Anyways, after I read my father’s statement I was floored. So I took advantage of the Federal Court rules and I sent him a written examination. Even though the Justice wouldn’t allow this to be entered into the proceedings, they’re still a part of my applicants filings and they’ll be on record with the court.
My written examination of Richard
And here are Richard’s answers. Note that the Attorney General of Canada, Department of National Defence, the Minister of National Defence, and the Federal Court of Canada all have copies of these questions and answers, but not a single agency cared.
Richard’s Answers.
1 & 2 – He agrees with everything that is noted in the “Will Say” that I supplied to him. 3 – We were at #11 – 12st from August 1978 until October 1980 4 – We were at 10215 – 138 Ave from October 1980 until April 1983. 5 – Roy Willian Anderson did not pass away until October of 1983 so I have absolutely no idea who passed away in 1980.
6 – Seems to be okay, but Grandma had actually been out to Shearwater numerous times to look after my brother and I when Richard and Marie were having problems. 7 – This is the first and probably only time that Richard has ever publicly admitted that his mother was First Nations. 8-9 – Can’t say whether he knew or not either way. 10 – This is weird. My brother would have been far too young to have been involved in most activities I was involved in. 11- Again this is weird.
Me, with no interest in sports apparently.
12 – Aurther Herman Gill is correct. Even though we lived in Toronto from April 1983 until July of 1990 he never once went to see his father in Oshawa even though we frequently visited Sue’s parents in Oshawa. 13 – This is correct, Uncle Doug would stay with us when he was home from the oil fields. 14 – Doug definitely would not have slept on the couch. Especially when he’d bring women home to spend the night with him. Doug had a cot and a sleeping area set up in the basement of our PMQ. 15 – Makes sense. That’s why Grandma was living with us. Richard was often away on training exercises or staying with girlfriends off base. 16 – 3 & 4 are wrong. Grandma would take the military shuttle bus from Namao to Griesbach and then transfer to the City of Edmonton busses. This is why we needed the services of P.S. in the first place. Grandma would have been recommended P.S. by Captain McRae himself as McRae had driven Grandma to the hospital a couple of times in a military motor pool car. 17 – This is correct. Grandma lived with us 24/7/365. Richard was rarely home. 18 – They knew what my problems were. That’s not why I had to attend the Westfield program. 19 – There were times that we wouldn’t see Richard for months on end. The average length of his training exercises was about 6 to 8 weeks. 20 – ? 21 – ? 22- This is where Richard throws his mother under the bus again like he did in 2006. Now there is a babysitter in the house unlike what he said in 2011, and lo-and-behold his mother hired the babysitter. 23 – August of 1980 according to the Social Service records, but only one month off, so not too bad. 24 – Not even going to try to make sense of this gibberish. 25 – Wow. We went to session after session with Captain Totzke at his office in the base HQ building. At the time I had no idea that he was in the Canadian Forces, but you can bet your bottom dollar that me father knew. 26 – 1 & 2 were notes in my social service records that indicated that Richard wanted very little involvement with his family and blamed the problems with his family on my mother, his mother, the teachers at school. 27 – So apparently I could flip between hyperactive and suicidally depressed. I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to realize that Richard was a special kinda of “fucked up”. 28 – Kinda correct. Our teachers and our principal were getting frustrated with Captain Totzke’s lack of progress, hence why the call was made to bring Alberta Social Services into the picture. 29 – This was my apprehension. According to the Social Service paperwork Richard blew up because of the decision to remove me from the house and to place me into residential care or foster care. 30 – He’s just being stupid here. According to Captain Totzke when he spoke with my child care worker on January 28th, 1983, my father had just been transferred immediately to Ontario. That’s two days after Alberta Social Services wanted to pull me from the house. After this Richard pulled me from school. At the time he told me that I had been expelled for kissing another boy. In reality he would have pulled me from the school as this school was off base and Social Services could grab me at anytime. As log as I stayed on base, Social Services would need Captain Totzke’s permission to enter on to a Defence Establishment to remove me. 31 – A check with PEI reveals that Richard only made an application to the courts for custody, but that it never went any further, and the courts never awarded him custody. 32- According to my social service paperwork both my father and Captain Totzke promised Alberta Social Services that I was supposed to be placed into the Sick Kids hospital in Toronto for psychiatric care. Sick Kids has no records of me ever having been brought in for an evaluation. 33- Of course he can’t. It’s more of his made up bullshit. 34 – No teacher is going to consider a child not being allowed to go to an amusement park as “child abuse”. Richard sure loved to play the victim, didn’t he? 35 – Alberta Social Services had given the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto a “heads up” that my family was moving to Toronto. 36 – sounds okay except for #3. October 23rd, 1969 was the largest naval peacetime disaster in the history of the Canadian Navy. 11 members of the Canadian Navy died as a result of the explosion of one of the Kootenay’s gearboxes. Richard had previously served on that ship. He personally knew three of the men killed in the engine room. He was with the Sea King squadron that was accompanying the ships that day. He would have been involved with the removal of the dead and injured from the Kootenay. 37 – Richard did’t talk. Richard yelled. Richard bellowed. 38 – Projection much? This is exactly how he was described in the Alberta Social Services paperwork. 39 – No? Fuck me. On our way to the counselling sessions that we did attend, both Richard and Totzke would tell me to be quiet and not to answer Pat and Wayne’s questions as they would twist my words and make it sounds as if I said things that I didn’t say. 40 – This was Richard’s infamous temper tantrum meltdown in which he caused significant damage to the PMQ and required 3 military police officers to restrain him. This domestic appears to have been triggered by Marie’s request for him to sign the divorce papers to allow her to marry Art Wudrich. 41 – No. See the social service paperwork for an explanation of what home life was like. 42 – the result of the IQ test was 136 +/-6 43 – is correct, I’m a grade 8 drop out. 44 – this is incorrect. I moved out of the house in January or February of 1988 just after I had turned 16. 45 – Not bad. 46 – Since September 5th, 2005. 47 – 4th Class Power Engineering. 48 – He named P.S. himself various times between 1980 and 1988. He also named P.S. by himself and without any prodding in August of 2006 when I called him. 49 – Massive house fire, but okay, maybe he didn’t notice the burn marks up the front of the PMQ and the fresh plywood over the windows. 50 – He knew who McRae was. 51 – 52 Seem to be correct. This was a one-room school house apparently. 53 isn’t exactly correct. He only had grade 8. He had to take an upgrading course to join the Navy in 1963. It was through this course that he met Albert Dagenais and this is how he met my mother.
Below are some of the observations about my father made by the psychologist hired by Captain Terry Totzke to evaluate my family. Also are some of the observations made by Alberta Social Services.
Richard Gill has issuesThis is the Richard Gill that I grew up with.
Well, that’s a problem. I don’t really “love” anything or aspire to anything. That was beat out of me a very long time ago.
Another thing that I realized a long time ago is without family support, you can have the greatest business ideas, but you won’t get anywhere.
You never hear about the small business failures.
You only hear about the successes.
Bobbie, if you just tried, you could be the next Bill Gates. He started off from absolutely nothing. You like computers, right?
Won’t go off on a Bill bashing tangent, but he came from “old money”. Musk’s family was involved with an Apartheid era Emerald Mine in South Africa. Jeff Bezos had easy access to about $250k in the early ’90s when Amazon almost went bust. Sure, they had innovative ideas, but they also had the family and the money to back them.
And no. I don’t like computers.
I use computers. I can RTFM (read the fucking manual). And I can set them up.
But I don’t like computers. That ship fucking sailed when I was in my teens. I never developed an interest in computers after that.
But what about a small business Bobbie? You seem to like lighting effects and lighting systems. You installed and wired up a BOSE sound system by yourself and installed the DMX lighting system by yourself and impressed the pants off the owner of the lighting & sound company that supplied the equipment.
That’s true. But to start up an even modest lighting company you need funds. And you need guarantors for your loans.
I would rather smash my testicles with a ball-and-peen hammer than ever have approached Richard for any type of loan or help securing a loan.
As Richard would often tell his friends, Richard kept my brother and I solely to control the costs. If he had given us to our mother, he’d have to pay child support, and that wasn’t something that he was ever going to do.
So no, there was no manna from heaven with Richard. It wasn’t that Richard was cheap really. He had the money. And he could indulge himself and Sue whenever he saw fit. The problem is he had such a hard on hatred of Marie. And seeing as how he couldn’t discharge his hatred on Marie he vented his hatred upon my brother and I. The “Heathcliff” phenomenon.
And no, my stepmother would never have been an option. She made it very clear early on that we were not hers.
My mother? Between September of 1982 and July of 1990 I had absolutely no contact with her. From July of 1990 until February of 1992 I had contact with her, but she was unemployed for a good stretch of that. And then I had no contact with her from February of 1992 until November of 2013 when I had to track her down to ask her about who actually had legal custody of my brother and I.
Extended family? Nope. Our family was far too fractured.
So no, there was no financial backing available.
Bobbie, start small then.
Even if you do start small, you need cash.
Okay, fine Bobbie, maybe you don’t go into lighting production. Do something else like cars.
I hate cars. I despise cars. I haven’t owned a car since 1998. I only got into working on cars as I thought that it would be a way to bond with Richard. Man was I ever fucking wrong.
When I lived in Edmonton and I was unemployed from the summer of 1991 until I moved to Vancouver in February 1992 I did some cash work for a bodyshop on the south side of Edmonton. Man did I get fucked over by those two brothers. But there’s a lot of that in the automobile repair business. All I can say is be very fucking wary of buying a car from a bodyshop.
Electronics, why don’t you start an electronics shop? Again, money.
And I turned my back on electronics when I was younger because of what an employer had said to me. Both Bruce and Ed at Rainbow games turned me down for pay raises because although I could beat a DeVry certified technician, the fact that I didn’t have an electronics certificate meant that they couldn’t justify paying me what they paid an electronics tech that was qualified.
Yeah, I’ve used electronics to open doors for me into jobs that I normally wouldn’t have been hired for. But once in the door I scale back what I’m willing to do. I’ll do enough to make up for my major depression and my severe anxiety, but nothing more. But that’s more so that I don’t piss anyone off at work. It sucks that I have to play dumb in order to get along with others. But that’s the way it works out for the “unticketed” and “unqualified”.
So, it’s not that I haven’t tried. It’s not that I didn’t have hopes and dreams. It’s just that those options were never available to me.
Well, it snowed yesterday. Apparently this is only the 4th time in the last 100 years that Vancouver has had a “white xmas”.
Davie and Burrard
Jervis and PacificThis morning at Pacific and Jervis The “Barge on the Beach” is still here.
All I can say is that I am so happy that I haven’t driven in Vancouver since back in the ’90s. It’s bad enough that due to a general lack of traffic enforcement car driving skills have gone down the drain, but now you have everyone driving around on snow with summer tires.
Walking around in Vancouver in the snow is interesting.
While it looks nice, we never get too cold. Vancouver, except for the rare cold snap, seems to hover around 0C. Daytime the temps will go up to about +5C, but come night time the temps will drop to about -5C
So that means that while the snow might stick around for a few days, more often than not it starts turning into a slushy mess that freezes overnight when the temperatures dip.
There was one year, around 2015 I think, where the snow turned to slush in the daytime and then froze into ice when the temps dropped to about -10C. Everyone in the Westend who live at the bottoms of the steep hills was having to take the long way around to walk up the less steep hills. Jervis, Bute, and Thurlow were almost impossible to walk up. Everyone was heading over to Burrard and even Hornby to walk up to Davie.
Another Vancouver phenomenon is that using an umbrella is required during the snow. Here in Vancouver it never really gets cold enough for the outer layer of jackets to really get cold. So what ends up happening is you get soaked just as if it was raining because the snow melts as soon as it touches your jacket. In Edmonton, or Toronto, or even the Maritimes, when it snows it’s usually cold enough outside that the snow stays frozen when it hits your jacket. So yes, while it may seem odd to someone from Alberta that Vancouverites use umbrellas when it snows, we do it because our snow is literally just sub freezing rain.
I’m thinking that I might actually try to get up Grouse Mountain in the next year or two now that my anti-anxiety meds seem to be working. Last time I was up was in the early 2000s. I thought I was going to die of a heart attack in the gondola. Things might be more relaxed this time around.
It would be kinda a bucket list thing.
Yeah, last time I was up there I was in a hurry to “see” things and get back down. I guess that was still the effect of Richard in my head. Doing the “touristy” thing was never something Richard was good at. He’d take us places as kids, and we’d have to race through it as quick as possible because time was too important and he had too many important things to do.
Anyways, time to head off and pick up my prescription refill.
The investigative platform that doesn’t like to investigate.
There are other victims of military child sexual abuse out there.And another former victim
So, if you’ve ever wondered why the CBC has never shown an interest in a news story about how the Canadian Armed Forces were inappropriately investigating the sexual abuse of military dependents on Canadian Forces Bases in Canada, let me shed some light on this.
The CBC isn’t immune to petty politics and retribution.
Back in 2016 I first made contact with Jenn Blair the of CBC’s Go Public news program.
Jenn seemed very interested in my story.
Even to the point that she had a cameraman over to my apartment to film an interview between herself and I.
I put Jenn in contact with other victims of military child sexual abuse.
In subsequent telephone calls, Jenn was very certain that from what the other victims had to say and from what I was saying that this would be a very damning story against the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence.
Then in early January 2017 I received disturbing information from Jenn Blair.
All the time that Jenn had been investigating my story, she was only a “temp” at CBC Go Public and she was bidding on a position with CBC Go Public that eventually went to Rachel Ward.
The story of how the Canadian Armed Forces hid and buried child sexual abuse on the bases after Rachel Ward became involved. The people running are other military dependents fleeing back to the safety of anonymity.
Pretty well on the same day that Jenn notified me that she didn’t get the position that she was bidding on, Rachel Ward contacted me.
Right off the bat Rachel informed me that she didn’t like the direction that Jenn had been moving in and the she was scraping the video interview. Rachel thought that the story, instead of being broadcast, would work better as an “interactive time line” that visitors to the CBC Go Public website could click on to see key events.
I told her that this story was how the Canadian Armed Forces through flaws in the National Defence Act had hidden and buried child sexual abuse on the bases in Canada. I told her that her target audience was in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s and that they weren’t going to be trolling the internet looking for interactive time lines to play with.
These people had literally been put through hell by the Canadian Armed Forces and their defective military justice system and more often than not blamed for their own misfortunes. These other victims were going to need to know that it was safe for them to come forward and that the Canadian Forces would not be able to hurt them any longer.
Nope. Rachel wasn’t budging on her “interactive timeline”. Besides, it was her opinion that the military had changed and that there was no need to keep dragging the military through the mud.
I had been contacted by Randall Garrison’s office just before the Defence Committee hearing in which Randall Garrison was going to ask Lt. Gen. Christine Whitecross who exactly had jurisdiction to investigate child sexual abuse that occurred on the bases in Canada. I contacted Rachel and let her know, she called me back and told me to call her as soon as I had heard any information from this committee.
After the hearing, I was contacted by Randall’s office and told that the hearing was over and that as this was an official hearing that it would be available on the Parliamentary archive. They emailed me the link.
I viewed the video and I almost fell out of my chair.
Lt.Gen. Christine Whitecross said to the National Defence committee that the Canadian Forces have ALWAYS handed off matters involving child sexual abuse to the outside civilians.
I called the number that Rachel had given me.
All I got was a message stating that this customer has not set up their voicemail and that when I see the customer next I should remind them to set up their voicemail.
I called the office number she gave me, but the extension number kept responding with a generic automated message that most systems will give when the user’s greeting message hasn’t been recorded.
I called the CBC Calgary office and by randomly trying different extension numbers I was able to get someone who had heard of Rachel, but they weren’t sure how to get hold of her as her name was in the employee directory, but it wasn’t associated with any office or any extension.
I sent Rachel some email requests that she contact me.
Rachel eventually did get back to me.
The thing that threw me for a loop was when Rachel announced that she was going to have to file FOI requests with DND to get some information. She also asked my what I thought that Lt. Gen. Christine Whitecross meant when she said that DND and the CF always hand matters of child sexual abuse off to the civilian authorities. Rachel suggested that maybe Randall and I misunderstood what Lt.Gen. Whitecross meant.
I told her what Randall Garrison had said about the Office of the Minister of National Defence interfering with his attempts to set up a meeting between himself and Rear Admiral Bennett. Rachel actually asked me what I thought that Randall might mean when he said that.
This was gong absolutely nowhere and fast.
My telephone calls with Mrs. Marchitelli left a LOT to be desired.
I found her to be a very unpleasant person to deal with. Not what I would call a “people person”. She was like one of those middle managers that didn’t like to hear bad things about their subordinates because they’re worried about their superiors finding out and then questioning their leadership abilities.
Rosa wasn’t too understanding at all as to why some of the other victims of military child sexual abuse weren’t willing to go on camera. “If they want to make claims, they have to be willing to stand up”. Nope. Sorry. There are a lot of former military dependents that are terrified of the Canadian Armed Forces and fear the retribution that they could face.
Do I fear retribution?
No, I’m the person who has wanted to die since he was 8 years old. I’m not afraid of DND or the CF solely for that reason. If death comes, it comes. No use being afraid of it.
Rosa was almost of the same opinion of Claude Adams from Global News. That if what I was alleging was such a problem, then we’d know about it my now because surely the “others” would have come forward by now.
So, here we are in 2021 going into 2022.
In 2020 the Military Police Complaints Commission confirmed in writing that the CFNIS knew all along about the connection between P.S. and Captain Father Angus McRae -and- the CFNIS in 2011 knew that P.S. had been investigated by the base military police for molesting children on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
Minister of National Defence Anita Anand has ordered ALL sexual abuse investigations, including my complaint against the Canadian Forces officer in the sauna at the base pool in 1980, be moved into the civilian justice system. This came as a result of the recent review of the military justice system and the subsequent recommendation that the CFNIS and military police be excluded from sexual assault investigations.
I was recently in contact with Ashley Burke of the CBC. I sent her a copy of an email that I had recently received from the Victim Services coordinator of the Canadian Armed Forces acknowledging that my sexual assault complaint against a different former officer of the Canadian Armed Forces was in the process of being handed over to the civilian authorities as per the order of Anita Anand, the new Minister of National Defence.
Ashley emailed me back pretty quick and wanted to know if I would consent to talking to her in a confidential telephone call. I passed her my telephone number and my contact information. Never have heard back from her. She won’t even return subsequent emails.
If I was a gambling man I’d be willing to wager that after my encounter with Rachel Ward and Rosa Marchitelli that my name is on some sort of black list at the CBC.
I can’t see the CBC willingly colluding with the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces to hide stories about child sexual abuse involving military personnel from the eyes of the Canadian public.
My story is pretty unique in the sense that I am a civilian with an active investigation before the CFNIS that is being handed to the civilian authorities.
Go Public seems to handle a lot of different stories from the Canadian Public involving institutions that are not subject to Access to Information or Freedom of Information Acts. So not getting the “other side” of the story doesn’t seem to stop Go Public and the CBC from running these stories.
If you check out Go Public’s web page, their stories run the gamut of closed Facebook accounts, patients with dementia buying service contracts, banks holding customers liable for cheque fraud, and other such public interest issues.
Civilians being denied justice because their parents and their abusers were in the Canadian Armed Forces? Nope, no interest.
Sure, the CBC receives massive support from the Government of Canada, but would the CBC really be willing to look the other way in order to ensure that their funding isn’t reviewed?
I can’t understand any other possibility.
David Pugliese has admitted that budget cuts and staffing cuts make a story like mine really hard for the commercial media to take an interest in.
But the CBC is the public broadcaster that is supposed to hold the Government of Canada to account when the commercial media can’t or won’t.
I can’t see grudges held by Rachel and Rosa as being enough on their own to repeatedly deep-six the story of how the Canadian Armed Forces have hidden and buried incidents of child sexual abuse on the bases, but you never know.
Maybe they know the right people. And when you know the right people, that’s all you need.
Maybe the CBC and its reporters don’t believe that male children can be sexually abused. That could be another possibility.
Or maybe the CBC believes that a 15 year old teenage male abusing his position as a babysitter and having forced anal intercourse with the 8 year old male that he is supposed to be babysitting is really nothing more than “Childhood curiosity and experimentation”.
Maybe the CBC and its reporters believe that even though the military police and the CFNIS have been found incompetent time and time again that somehow the CFNIS and the military police are fully capable of investigating child sexual abuse on the bases completely free from Chain of Command influence.
I don’t remember exactly how I started working for Vince and Ravi, but it was sometime after the start of grade 8.
I was in grade 8 for the ’85 to ’86 school year.
I would have been 14.
Vincent was involved with swimming at the University of Toronto. I forget exactly what Ravi did. But for the two of them video games were a sideline from their main jobs.
I’m pretty sure that I was working for Vince and Ravi before I even met Bob Becker from Trans American Video Amusements.
I would go and do service calls after school. At first I would call Vince after school and he’d pick me up and take me to the locations that needed service. After a while though Vince got me a pager and a set of master keys for the video games.
During school I’d keep the pager in my locker. Kept it on silent so as not to attract attention. But this was back in the day when the paging service didn’t record the messages, they’d just send numeric messages to the pager. And if the pager wasn’t on you didn’t get the message.
The keys were far too much of a risk to take to school. So I used to keep the keys at home in my basement bedroom. Because of my untreated severe depression and anxiety and habit of keeping to myself I was often a target for beatings at school. And the last thing I needed was to get beat up and have the keys taken away from me.
Vince and Ravi didn’t have many locations. A couple of convenience stores on Yonge north of Sheppard. They had a few locations around Dundas and Bloor near the Junction Triangle. And a few more locations out on the Danforth. They also had games in the “Studio” arcades that were owned by a guy named Andrew. I can’t remember them all, but there was Studio ’84, and Studio ’85.
I had always hoped on getting a Platt toolkit like the real technicians, but I had to make due with a kit that I made up with a kit made from Active Surplus in Toronto.
Carried around with me a soldering iron, a desoldering pump, desoldering wick, a digital voltmeter, a logic probe, some nut drivers, and a couple of screwdrivers.
I learnt then that it was better to carry around the tools that you frequently used as opposed to carrying everything.
I’d also carry a couple of coin mechanisms, some microswitches, some blade switches.
It was fun.
As I said it before was nice feeling like I belonged and that I was needed for something.
I think that’s why I always had jobs when I was a kid.
Looking back, there actually wasn’t a single year since about 1982 that I wasn’t working somewhere.
I quickly got the nickname “the kid”.
Troubleshooting logic problems wasn’t a problem, actually tracking down logic problems was pretty simple back then. Fixing power supplies, video monitors, etc. all turned out to be within my abilities.
I remember the time Vincent insisted that I bring a machine home that I was having trouble fixing. Around 22:00 hours we pull up to the back of the PMQ on CFB Downsview in a white rental van with a Williams Space Shuttle pinball machine in the back.
Richard woke up and he wasn’t too impressed.
I got the machine set up in the basement of the PMQ and worked on it for the next couple of days. Turned out to be a broken wire under the playfield.
I’ve never known to this day why, but I had the playfield up on the prop rod while I was working under the playfield. I don’t know if it was an accident, or if it was intentional, but my brother knocked the prop rod out of place and dropped the playfield on my head and back.
The playfield isn’t light. With all of the solenoids and other hardware on it I’d say the playfield probably weighs about 50 lbs. The power for the general illumination isn’t all that great. 6.3 VAC for the general illumination. The DC power supply for solenoids on the other hand are about +28 VDC. The 28 VDC is distributed to all of the solenoids on the playfield and then the returns from the solenoids goes back to the TIP120 darlington on the logic board.
So that meant that not only was the playfield digging into my head and back with all of the solenoids underneath the playfield, I was also getting minor shocks from the machine as the terminals for the solenoids were cutting into my skin.
Never did get an explanation from my brother.
My father laughed. Said I deserved what I got for not watching my back.
One day I got a series of pages from Vince. So I called him right after school
Vince was furious. Seems the owner of the little hamburger shop on Ridge and Wilson had called Vince stating that a bunch of kids had been opening the machine and taking money out of them and had been playing free games for hours. The owner of the hamburger shop had grabbed one of the kids and grabbed the keys from him. The owner of the hamburger shop threatened to call the police if the kid didn’t explain how he got the keys. The kid, C.C. said that my brother had sold him the keys for $20.
I thought that Vince was going to fire me. Nope. He saw no reason for this other kid to have lied. But he wasn’t too happy that my brother was able to get my keys so easily. Vince said that I’d have to be more careful with my keys. Vince suggested that I should put a lock on my bedroom door. I told Vince that my room didn’t have a door.
That’s when I started to learn how to hide my personal belongings. I’d keep the keys hidden in the exhaust ducting for the dryer or even under the control panel for the washing machine. When I started doing collections at the locations I’d have to keep the money hidden. The money I’d keep hidden in a soup can that I’d hide inside the floor drain in the basement.
The only problem this hiding caused is that I’d have to be very careful that no one discovered what I was doing.
I stopped working for Vince and Ravi when I went to work for Bob Becker.
Moonlighting wasn’t tolerated too well in the amusement machine industry back in the ’80s. It was a very cut throat business with a lot of unsavoury business practices.
So, not too many company owners were willing to allow their technician to work for other companies.
I don’t know what ended up happening with Vince and Ravi.
I doubt that they’re in the amusement machine business anymore. The amusement machine industry was decimated in the ’90s with the advent of home machines that far outperformed the most expensive arcade machine.
But still, I often look back at how carrying around my toolkit and fixing arcade machine at various locations across metro Toronto made me feel like anything was possible.
I guess we’re all allowed to be fucking idiots when we’re young, right?
As a kid I learnt an odd behaviour of mine that still sort of continues on to this day.
However, now that I more or less have control over my life I find that I don’t often fall prey to this line of thinking. But it’s still there in the deep dark recesses of my defective brain.
When I was a kid, especially living on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach in Edmonton I had developed a perverse way of dealing with Richard’s stinginess and hatred-by-proxy of Marie.
When it would get close to xmas or my birthday I would secretly start wishing that I wouldn’t get what I had asked for.
And it worked.
Never once did I ever get what I had asked for, and by wishing that I wouldn’t get it I actually felt in control.
Looking back it was obviously a really weird coping mechanism, but it did allow me to cope none the less.
This obviously wasn’t a very healthy coping mechanism.
I would often pretend to not be interested in the latest and greatest thing.
And that would often set me on a collision course with the popular kids who thought that I was just trying to be “smarter than them” or who were convinced that I was just a fucking faggot loser.
At school the kids were into the Blue Jays, the Maple Leafs, the Argonauts, “pro” wrestling was a major thing in southern Ontario back then. The kids at school would have the latest jerseys, or other sports related paraphernalia.
I had nothing like this, I don’t even think my brother had anything contemporary back then.
When we lived in Edmonton from 1978 to 1983 this was practically the top of the Edmonton Oilers dynasty. Richard never once took us to a hockey game.
Our grandmother had actually taken us to some Edmonton Eskimos games with tickets that she’d get from the Bissell Centre for disadvantaged families.
Richard loved the Toronto Maple Leafs.
But in the 7-1/2 years that we lived in Toronto on Canadian Forces Base Downsview not once did we ever go to a hockey game.
And no. There was no watching hockey with Richard. If you wanted to watch hockey with Richard, that was fine, you just had to shut the fuck up and not say a single fucking thing. And don’t ask him stupid fucking questions either.
And it wasn’t like I didn’t play hockey as a kid. On CFB Namao my grandmother had enrolled me in beavers, swimming, hockey, bowling, and basketball.
Me before the fallout of the Captain Father Angus McRae child sex abuse scandal on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
Apparently I never played team sports. There was no team photo for 1979 – 1980 as I was kicked out of hockey as a result of the CFB Namao Child Sexual Abuse Scandal
“But Bobbie, what if your father had no money, he was in the Canadian Forces”.
Sure, the pay was bad in the ’60s and the ’70s. But this was offset by the lowered housing costs of living in the PMQs on base. Also, ranks tended to be very close in pay grade. Privates made one rate, Corporals made another, Master Corporals made another rate, Sergeants made another.
I don’t have access to the historical pay schedules. But even going with the current pay schedule the ranks make basic monthly rates based primarily upon rank, but modified by number of years at that rank level and any special qualifications.
The end result is that my father as a Master Corporal wasn’t making $1k per month while the Master Corporal living next door was making making $2.5k per month.
Where’d his money go?
Not to my brother or I. That was for sure.
I know he had no issue spending money on the latest and greatest knickknack or computer toy for himself.
Was he paying child support on the sly? This honestly wouldn’t surprise me in the least. He did have a habit of skirt chasing.
Was he paying an out-of-court settlement for one of his drinking and driving collisions? Again this is a possibility as his insurance would have been very expensive given the number of collisions that he had over the years.
Other than that I don’t know.
But Bobbie, it’s his money, he can spend it any way that he wants to. You can’t tell him what to spend it on.
That may be true. But he should have worn a condom. Or pulled out. Or even just have asked for oral or a handjob. Would have obviously saved a lot of grief.
You don’t get someone pregnant and then wash your hands of the responsibility claiming that your responsibility ended at conception.
You don’t take your hatred of your former spouse out on your children as if being cruel to your kids was going to make your former spouse realize how much she inconvenienced you by leaving you to look after the children you fathered.
So yeah, birthdays mean nothing to me. And xmas means nothing as well.
I won’t stop you from celebrating.
But hopefully you understand why I don’t celebrate.
And no. Please don’t think that you’re going to “fix me” by inviting me to xmas parties or birthday parties. Nothing makes me feel more awkward and out of place. And it’s so fucking tiring pretending like I fit in or like I’m enjoying myself.
I honestly don’t believe that at any point in time the mental health wellbeing of military dependents has ever been a concern of the Canadian Armed Forces or the Department of National Defence.
Sure, the DND, the CF, and the Minister of National Defence will bloviate about the Military Family Resource Centre and other meaningless programs that the DND and the CF have instituted over the years.
But if they really cared, why does the CF and the DND draw such a hard line in the sand as to which dependents they will support, and which dependents can piss off and go get bent?
In my day as a military dependent the maximum age for a dependent to live in a PMQ on base was 18. The only way you could remain living in the PMQ after your 19th birthday was if you were mentally disabled or if you were attending an institution of higher learning. But even if you were attending an institution of higher learning 24 was the maximum age that you could live in a PMQ on base.
In my day dependents were officially referred to as “D.F.& E.” which means “Dependents, Furniture, and Effects”. The Office of the Ombudsman for the Canadian Forces, which only existed as of 1999, was so taken back by this callousness that they kept asking DND to stop dehumanizing the military dependents and to stop referring to them as D.F.& E. which implied that military dependents were of no more worth than the service member’s furniture.
As a kid, there were times when kids would just stop coming to school. Or kids would just one day leave the base. Never to be seen again. And this wasn’t due to postings. If it was a posting nine times out of ten the posting would occur between late June and early September. These absences were often due to their serving parent dying. Training exercise, workplace incident, health issue, it didn’t matter. PMQs could only be rented to active service members. Deceased persons cannot serve in the military. So off the base the family went.
It was rare that a base commander would intervene and make an exception, because once you’ve made one exception how can you not make another? And allowing the deceased member’s family to remain on base in a PMQ could prove to be an issue for DND and the CF. DND and the CF had fought numerous court battles over the PMQs with regard to civilian family courts granting the non-serving spouse possession of the PMQ in which to raise their children. DND would obviously have an issue on their hands if non-serving spouses were suddenly taking possession of PMQs in the PMQ patches. And schools on base prior to 1994 were run by DND and the CF. These schools were exclusively for the children of active service members. How long was the DND and the CF supposed to support the education of a deceased member’s children?
So, back in my day once a service member died, that was it, the DND and the CF washed their hands of the service member’s dependents.
There was no support.
There was no aftercare.
There was nothing.
We weren’t eligible for social programs from the provinces related to a serving parent’s death as the provinces considered that the be the responsibility of the DND and the CF.
Living on base wasn’t as easy as it’s often portrayed.
The children of dysfunctional families were often tormented and ostracized by their peers. When you live in a regimented community like a military PMQ patch you either conform or you will have trouble.
Dysfunctional parents, like my father, could easily use the Canadian Forces to stay one step ahead of civilian social services. Sure civilian parents could move to a different town, but at great expense. In the Canadian Forces your dysfunctional parent’s moving and travel expenses were covered.
Back in my day the military social workers were more concerned with containing problems. But again, that’s the way the military functioned back then and still functions to this day.
The rank of your serving parent had its privilege, especially if your serving parent was an officer or above. Anybody who says that this wasn’t the case is absolutely full of shit.
There was no way that the base military police were going to go after the son of a Lt. Col. for beating the crap out of the son of a Corporal. No Warrant Officer MP is going to risk getting transferred to CFS Alert over two kids having a donnybrook out behind the rec centre. And yes, this still holds true to today. The provost marshal himself even said that he would never investigate a senior officer of the military.
Sure, Simon Trudeau was talking about investigating his commanding officer. However, if his commanding officer is good buddies with a lower ranking officer, and the Trudeau’s commander doesn’t want the PM to investigate the other lower ranking officer who is the Trudeau to argue with a lawful command from his superior?
Don’t forget, the Canadian Forces didn’t have a Provost Marshal from about 1968 until the office of the Provost Marshal was stood up again in 1998. Prior to that, the base military police and even the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit were under the influence of the local chain of command. Yes, when the CFNIS was created in 1998 along with the Provost Marshal being stood back up, the idea was that the CFNIS and the base military police would operate without chain of command influence. That’s all fine and dandy, but someone forget to rewrite the National Defence Act and the Queen’s Regulations and Orders to exempt members of the CFNIS and the base military police from section 83 of the National Defence Act.
The Provost Marshal was stood up in 1998 as a result of the findings of the Somalia Inquiry. The Inquiry found that the base military police and the CFSIU were ripe for interference from the local chain of command and that superior officers would often put their own parochial interests above any semblance of justice. So it was suggested that the command of the base military police and the new CFNIS be transferred to the command of the freshly stood up Provost Marshal who would be of significant enough rank that they would be immune from chain of command influence. That hasn’t worked out.
How many wife beatings or child beatings were the base MPs and the CFSIU told to ignore and look away from?
And as I said, things were far worse back in my day as a military dependent.
As retired Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham told the CFNIS in 2016 when he was interviewed, the Assistant Judge Advocate General threw Cunningham and the CFSIU “to the dogs” in 1980 during the Captain Father Angus McRae Investigation and subsequent court martial.
When I spoke with retired Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham on November 27th, 2011 he said that it was the “brass” that made the decision to limit the number of charges brought against Captain McRae and that the military police had “many, many more” charges ready to go against McRae but that the “brass” wasn’t going for it, and that the military police tried to move the Captain McRae matter into the civilian system, but again the brass wasn’t going for it.
Most of Captain McRae’s victims were under 14 years of age. In 1980 the age of consent at which a child could agree to have sex with an adult was 14. P.S. was the only boy over the age of 14. If the Canadian Forces had insisted on prosecuting Captain McRae for abusing the children under the age of consent, this whole matter would have had to have been moved into the civilian courts. For obvious reasons the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces were not going to ever agree to this as in the civilian courts the DND and the CF would be hard pressed to “throw a veil of secrecy” over the trial and the evidence. A trial and evidence that would have shown that Captain McRae sexually abused over 25 children on Canadian Forces Base Namao and an untold number of children on Canadian Forces Station Holberg, Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie, and Canadian Forces Base Kingston.
So the fact that the “brass” and the “AJAG” were able to insert themselves into a criminal matter again shows that rank in the Canadian Armed Forces carries a significant amount of weight.
And according to retired Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham it was also the Assistant Judge Advocate General that made the decision to not call in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to deal with P.S. under the false assumption that P.S. was only 12 years old in 1980. P.S. was born on June 20th, 1965. P.S. turned 15 on June 20th, 1980. And as the court martial transcripts and the CFSIU paperwork indicate, it was the abuse of young children on base that brought P.S. to the attention of the base military police and it was that attention that brought Captin McRae to the attention of the CFSIU.
Again, the base military police and the CFSIU were not independent. They followed the whims and desires of the chain of command.
That’s why spousal abuse was grossly under reported on the bases.
That’s why child sexual abuse was grossly under reported on the bases.
That’s why child physical and mental abuse was grossly under reported on the bases.
Far too much chain of command influence and far too many parochial decisions.
Most of the children from CFB Namao never received any form of meaningful help. Some went on to have troubled lives. Some have attempted suicide. Some have committed suicide. And that’s only on CFB Namao. What about the other bases that McRae was at?
In 2010 retired Brigadier General Roger Bazin was investigated by the CFSIU for having sexually abused a young boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1974. How many other kids, now adults, are out there that may have been abused on Canadian Forces Base Borden who have never come forward due to not knowing their abuser’s name? How many other former military dependents have never come forward because they were posted around so many times that they can’t remember on which base the abuse occurred on?
Our attempts at suicide and our suicides will never be recorded as being military related. Our deaths and our psychological trauma will always be written off as having been due to something unrelated to our time living on base as children.
When I die it won’t be recorded as being the end result of untreated childhood sexual trauma.
My death will simply be recorded as someone who sought Medical Assistance in Dying due to psychological issues caused by childhood trauma.
And that’s it.
There will be no mention of Captain Father Angus McRae;
There will be no mention of Captain Terry Totzke;
There will be no mention of Colonel Dan Munro
There will be no mention of AJAG J.D. Boan.
The media won’t really show any interest, because what’s interesting about one person seeking M.A.i.D. to get away from their demons?
Between 1950 and today, how many military dependents have attempted suicide, committed suicide, or have wound up with profound psychological issues due to the childhood spent living on military bases?
No one knows.
And the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces would love for it to stay this way.
In the past there have been murmurs and burbles of organizations noticing that children of service members or adult who once were children living on base are committing suicide.
However, sadly this latest research falls well short of other research projects in the past.
The common flaw being that these researchers overlook events that occurred on base and how these events impacted the children living on the bases. This current research looks at how events that impacted service members might lead to family members of the service member committing suicide. For example, if a serving member of the Canadian Forces commits suicide and then their parent commits suicide.
However, what this research seems to completely overlook and omit are suicides or attempted suicides that came about due to events that occurred on the base that the military dependent endured first hand and received little or no support after the event or received inappropriate support.
Like it or not, children were sexually abused on base, children were physically abused on base, children were neglected on base, children were ostracized on base, children couldn’t cope with postings, children couldn’t cope with constantly losing friends, children had to deal with serving parents that had issues made worse by military service such as excessive drinking, anger outbursts, and untreated PTSD.
Persons who lived on base between the 1950s and the 2000’s grew up in a very homophobic, LGBTQ phobic, misogynistic, environment in which psychological issues were to be hidden away and not discussed.
Is it any wonder that no one in the DND, the CF, or even the media really wants to tackle this subject.
Kids who committed suicide already will forever be silent, so the DND and the CF don’t have to worry about them ever talking.
Kids who were 8 years old on base in 1950 are now in their late 70s. They won’t be around for much longer.
Kids who were 8 years old on the bases in 1970 are now pushing 58. Even if the CF and the DND were serious about tackling issues that may have effected these persons, by the time DND and the CF have finished the requisite number of committee meetings these people will easily be in their late 60s and early 70s.
So far as the Government of Canada, the DND, and the CF are concerned, military dependents were never the responsibility of the DND or the CF. As such, they’re more than willing to play the waiting game until we’re all gone.
I’ll be gone in about 2 years. And that’ll be one less issue for the DND and the CF to worry about.
I was recently told by a distant relation of the family that one of the reasons that the media may be reluctant to touch my story is because of what I desire no matter the outcome.
There has to be a good reason why the media won’t touch it.
The Canadian Armed Forces have come out and admitted that there was a problem with sexual assaults in the military for ages.
The Canadian Armed Forces have admitted that victims of sexual assault in the military were often disbelieved, humiliated, ostracized, and blamed for their own misfortune.
The Canadian Armed Forces have agreed that the Military Police, the CFSIU, and the CFNIS were often ill equipped and ill prepared to deal with sexual assault.
As I’ve said before, I view suicide as the outcome of an irrational heat-of-the-moment decision.
Medical assistance in dying is something completely different. You have to pass psychological tests and you have to be approved by a panel before you are allowed to receive a prescription for the procedure. There is no body for a caretaker or random stranger to discover. There generally are no unanswered questions. The death is supervised. The body is removed and disposed of after death is confirmed.
You’d think that the Canadian press would be very interested to hear about a matter in which recently released documents verify that the Canadian Armed Forces knew in 1980 the true extent of Captain McRae’s crimes and that the Canadian Armed Forces knew that Captain McRae had been molesting children on the other bases that he had been stationed at but refused to at the time to investigate those matters or to even offer the victims of Captain McRae any type of counselling or help.
However it looks as if my planned death is scaring the media away.
Nora Loreto recently tweeted that she had information of a police officer that walked into a detachment and then shot themselves dead. There was no news coverage of this.
This has happened recently in Ontario and there is total silence about the circumstances of the death.
Someone on the thread mentioned that a CBSA officer at Pearson International Airport committed suicide, but the media would only say that the officer was found “dead” at the airport.
This happens more often than it reaches the news… I know it was reported once in 2016 that I saw with CBSA: https://t.co/ejJk4LokOB
And as I’ve mentioned in another post, there are a significant number of suicides in British Columbia each and every year.
This is a snapshot of the BC Coroner’s report on Suicide Deaths covering the period of 2008 until 2018.
That’s 6,002 people whom died between 2008 and 2018 that the media have decided don’t exist and never did exist.
What’s scary is that this number only reflects “successful” suicides. Suicide attempts are not included.
Even more interesting is the age group that most frequently commits suicide.
The media always tells us that they’re “saving the children” by not reporting on suicides. Except it’s the 40 to 59 year olds that are committing suicide at the highest rates, not the children.
Why does the media do this?
Is it because the media doesn’t want to encourage copy-cat suicides?
I don’t think that’s entirely true.
I think it’s because the news media would have to open its eyes and realize that the there are a lot of people out there that require help. And the way our society is currently set up, there is no help available for these people and that means that society has failed its most vulnerable.
Even though I’ve only tracked down a few people from CFB Namao that were involved with the CFB Child Sex Abuse Scandal I know of 2 successful suicides, one possible suicide, and 2 attempted suicides related to the Captain Father Angus McRae matter on Canadian Forces Base Namao. That’s five people out of an estimated 25 people that Captain McRae molested on Canadian Forces Base Namao. How many others from CFB Namao did manage to commit suicide that no one knows about? How many kids did Captain McRae molest on Canadian Forces Station Holberg, Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie, or Canadian Forces Base Kingston? How many of those kids would go on to commit suicide later in life.
It would be safe to say that I’m not the only one who had a bad reaction to the affairs from CFB Namao. It would also seem to be correct to say that the Canadian Armed Forces didn’t know how to properly deal with the child victims of military sexual assault and that the way in which the Canadian Armed Forces did deal with the child victims of military sexual assault may have actually made the problems far worse due to the military’s penchant for victim blaming.
Maybe the media considers it a waste of time to report on my matter if I’m only going to die in the end anyways.
No.
I think there is such a stigmatism against suicide in our society that there can be no meaningful discussion of any topic when suicide is involved.
See, if I were to have kept my desire to die to myself, then more than likely the media would have reported on my story as they could cleve my eventual death from the CFB Namao sexual abuse scandal.
I could see the eventual reporting of my death:
“Mr. Bees passed away suddenly. There has been no official cause of death released. Mr. Bees if you will remember was the person who brought down the veil of secrecy that had shielded the eyes of the Canadian public from the child sexual abuse scandal that occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao from 1978 to 1980.”
But as I’ve said, my death isn’t going to be so that I can make people feel guilty or ashamed. My death isn’t going to be so that I can get back at people. My death isn’t to cause the Canadian Armed Forces to suffer humiliation. My death will not be romantic nor will it be a cause célèbre.
My death will be because I am tired. I am burnt out. My death will be because of my desire to escape from the memories of P.S., Captain McRae, Captain Totzke, my father, a psychologically tormented childhood and adolescence, and a lifetime of confusion, self doubt, self hatred, and regret.
Ideally my death will be a private event with only the physician in attendance. Maybe a friend or two. Hopefully my death will be humane and it will be very quick.
It’s far too late to save me. That die was cast a long time ago. My life has been the consequence of chain of command decisions that were made in May to July of 1980 by officers in the Canadian Armed Forces. And I wasn’t even a member of the Canadian Armed Forces.
But it’s not too late to save those who have yet to be abused by trying to ensure that they don’t get abused. It’s also not too late to save those who will no doubt be abused by ensuring that they are believed and not blamed, and that they receive help and treatment in a timely manner instead of humiliation.
And not all of those who are or who will be abused will go on to seek death, but just because they don’t doesn’t mean that their abuse wasn’t painful nor does it mean that they don’t need help.