” 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Beeshive 