Or how an Independent at arms length agency is controlled by the agency that it is supposed to be overseeing and is supposed to be independent from.
It looks as if the Canadian Forces is getting slagged in the media again. This time not for its abysmal ability to investigate matters of sexual assault within the Canadian Armed Forces.
No, the Canadian Forces is getting slagged for interfering with the Office of the Ombudsman for the Canadian Forces.
The Office of the Ombudsman has powers that the Military Police Complaints Commission doesn’t have. The Ombudsman can compel members of the Canadian Armed Forces to appear before any of its investigations. One would think that this matter would also extend to retired service members who were subject to the Code of Service discipline at the material time of the investigation.
The Ombudsman is supposed to have unfettered access to DND and CF records and can compel the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence to hand records and documents over to the Ombudsman for their investigation.
Why does the Ombudsman have these powers? Because no criminal charges can flow from a Ombudsman review. The Ombudsman can only make non-binding recommendations to the Minister of National Defence, the Department of National Defence, and the Canadian Forces.
For example
In 1974 there was a group of teenagers on Canadian Forces Base Valcartier in the province of Quebec. These teenagers were all between the ages of 12 and 18 and were members of various army cadet corps from across Canada. Somehow a live grenade found its way into the hands of one of the teenagers during a class session on ordnance. One cadet even asked the instructor, a captain of the regular force if it was a real grenade, the captain responded that no it wasn’t. So the teenager did what any curious teenager would have done, they pulled the pin and released the handle.
The grenade exploded.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/valcartier-grenade-incident-survivors-1.5235226
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2009/07/26/coroners_inquest_found_a_climate_of_negligence.html
In 2013 the Office of the Ombudsman for the Canadian Forces received the permission of the then Conservative Minister of National Defence Rob Nichols to undertake an investigation of a pre-mandate issue.
I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Ombudsman would not have been allowed to conduct this pre-mandate review in the era of Harjit Sajjan or for that matter Justin Trudeau. After all, it was Harjit Sajjan that accused me of playing games and having an angle when I went to speak with him in February of 2016 just after he became the Minister of National Defence.
Even my local MP, Dr. Hedy Fry says that she can’t become involved in my matter because there are “no military bases” in Vancouver Centre.
And it was under Sajjan’s command that the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces refused to release to me the court martial transcripts of Captain Father Angus McRae along with the Canadian Forces Special Investigations paperwork all because they indicated that the Canadian Forces chain of command was well aware in 1980 that my babysitter, P.S. had been molesting numerous children on Canadian Forces Base Namao and that Captain Father Angus McRae, who the MPCC called a known pedophile in 2020, was enticing children over to the rectory at the base chapel and getting them drunk before “fooling around” with them.
I have absolutely no idea as to why the Liberal Party of Canada refuses to allow the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces to conduct an investigation into historical child sexual abuse in the era of the pre-1998 National Defence Act but neither Harjit Sajjan, Dr. Hedy Fry, nor Justin Trudeau seem to show any inclination to uncover what was hidden by a well known defective military justice system.
And I’m not imagining this interference.
Lo-and-Behold, it would appear that the Minister of National Defence and the Deputy Minister of National Defence have been interfering with the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces.
Jesus H. Christ….
A few years ago Randal Garrison, the MP for Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke and then the Vice Co-Chair of the Standing Committee on National Defence asked Lt. General. Christine Whitecross during a committee hearing who had jurisdiction for the investigation of child sexual assaults on the bases in Canada. She blathered out some meaningless drivel about all child sexual abuse matters being handed over to the civilian authorities.
You can watch or download the video below.
Sure, I wasn’t a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. But my father was.
And under the Ombudsman’s mandate I am allowed to ask the Ombudsman to review a matter in relation to my involvement with the military justice system back in 1980.
These are the policies that guide the office of the Ombudsman.
Interesting.
Not so with the CF Ombudsman.
According to the above Annex B, the Canadian Forces are preventing the Ombudsman from conducting criminal investigations. But the Canadian Forces are also stating that there is nothing stopping the Ombudsman from conducting an investigation while a Military Police or CFNIS investigation is underway. So there would have been nothing stopping the Ombudsman from reviewing how military dependents are treated by the military justice system which is set up to deal primarily with perpetrators and victims that are subjected to the Code of Service Discipline and not civilians with no connection to the Canadian Forces other than they were military dependents at the time of the alleged crimes.
For instance the Ombudsman could review how the 3-year-time-bar or the Summary Investigation flaw actively prohibits the Canadian Armed Forces or any civilian court from bringing Code of Service Discipline charges against any person who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline prior to December of 1998.
The Ombudsman could also review how military dependents and other civilians availing themselves to the military justice system receive no actual victim services from the Canadian Forces as they are not members of the Canadian Forces and how often these military dependents receive no help from the provinces as the provinces consider sexual abuse on the military bases to be a Ottawa issue.
The Ombudsman could also initiate an inquiry to look at the rates of child sexual abuse on the bases prior to 1998 and determine if the 3-year-time-bar and the Summary Investigation flaw denied justice to children and also served to present an artificially low incidence of child sexual abuse on the bases in Canada.
The Ombudsman could also look into how the appalling homophobic attitudes of the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence resulted in male children being subjected to “conversion therapy” at the hands of the Canadian Forces military social workers.
I never wanted to CF Ombudsman to judge P.S. and determine if P.S. was guilty of what I accused him of.
I only wanted the CF Ombudsman to review child sexual abuse on the Canadian Forces Bases in the era of the pre-1998 National Defence Act and to have the CF Ombudsman urge the Minister of National Defence and the Department of National Defence to do the right thing.
And you wonder why I am so looking forward to my date with death in 2023.
A person can only be told “Up” is “Down” and “White” is “Black” for so long before all of the demons from the past urge one to just give in an fall into the eternal slumber where none of this shit will ever haunt a person again.
Beeshive 