Another hideous flaw in the pre-1998 National Defence Act
In 1998, another flaw was removed from the National Defence Act.
This flaw in a way was even more hideous than the Summary Investigation that I talked about in a previous blog entry.
The problem with the 3-year-time-bar is that it prohibited the laying of charges more than 3 years after the date of the alleged Service Offence.
You’ll remember from the previous post that the National Defence Act enumerates Criminal Code offences as Service Offences. As such crimes such as Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery were service offences that could be tried by Service Tribunal. This is why Captain McRae was tried in a military court martial for committing “Acts of Homosexuality” such as “Gross Indecency”, “Indecent Assault”, “Buggery” with boys under the age of 15 on Canada Forces Base Namao.
The interesting thing about this 3-year-time-bar is that it applies to ALL service offences prior to 1998.
Also, even if a member of the Canadian Armed Forces is currently retired and no longer subject to the Code of Service Discipline, if the member was subject to the Code of Service discipline when they sexually abused a child on a military base they would still enjoy all of the rights that the National Defence Act bestowed upon the service member at the time of the offence.
What this means is that even if the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service were to find the man from the sauna who Peter provided me to for the purposes of oral sex this man could never be charged if he was a member of the Canadian Forces regular force in 1980.
If this man by some small miracle is a civilian with no connection to the Canadian Armed Forces and was never subject to the Code of Service Discipline, then he could be charged under the criminal code.
Don’t believe me?
In 2017, in a telephone call with Sergeant Damon Tenaschuk of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service Pacific Region, I asked Mr. Tenaschuk if he could try to talk to Colonel Dan Munro. I thought that this would be a simple matter seeing as how Sgt. Tenaschuk was on CFB Esquimalt just outside of Victoria, BC and Daniel Edward Munro lived in a suburb of Victoria, BC.
Instead, I received the following email from Sgt. Tenaschuk:
So there you have it.
The three year time bar is real, and it affects all Service Offence and all Criminal Code matters that occurred prior to 1998.
All I had asked for was for Sgt. Tenaschuk to talk to Daniel Edward Munro to see if Daniel had improperly bent the rules when he preferred the charges that Captain McRae faced in court martial and dismissed the other charges.
For Tenaschuk’s legal officer to say right of the bat that the 3-year-time-bar would prevent the laying of charges makes me wonder how many Canadian Forces personnel got away with Service Offences / Criminal Code offences prior to 1998.
Anyone who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline prior to 1998, and who sexually abused a child on a defence establishment, will NEVER face their accuser in court. Their victim will NEVER receive justice.
And this suits the Minister of National Defence and the Chief of Defence staff just fine. As it stands right now, you don’t hear anything about children being sexually abused on military bases by military personnel from the pre-1998 days. And as it turns out this isn’t because no child was ever sexually abused on base. It’s because if these kids didn’t report their crimes within the period of three years they would never be able to report their crimes..
In 2010, charges were brought against retired Brigadier General Roger Bazin. He was accused of sexually abusing a child on Canadian Forces Base Borden in the early 1970s. The matter made it so far as court, and then suddenly everything was dropped. No explanation was ever made to the media as to why the charges were dropped. You’d think that if the Crown has just smeared someone’s name through the media that they’d be obligated to explain to the public why the charges were dropped at the last minute.
No lawyer in the media claiming “my client has been vindicated”. Nothing. Radio Silence.
In my matter, Captain Father Angus McRae was alive until May 20th, 2011.
The investigation into my complaint started on March 5th, 2011.
The CFNIS knew about the connection between my babysitter, Peter, and Captain Angus McRae right from the get-go.
This means that the JAG, the Provost Marshal, and the CFNIS were aware at the start of the investigation that even if they were able to arrest Peter, that they’d never be able to charge Captain Father Angus McRae. This must have posed quite the dilemma for the Canadian Forces.
They had the CFSIU paperwork from 1980. They knew what Peter had been doing.
But they also knew that they would never be able to charge Angus McRae.
This would be quite the scandal, no?
When the CFNIS started the investigation in March of 2011, they couldn’t have possibly known that Captain McRae would have been about to die. They would have had to structure the investigation with the knowledge that Angus McRae was alive.
Anyways, here’s what Legislative Summary LS-311E had to say about the 3-year-time-bar-flaw.
These are the PDF pages of the images above.
This is LS-311E (1998) in its entirety.
Daniel, what did you do?
What did you do that the Judge Advocate General won’t allow an officer of the Canadian Forces Special Investigation Unit to talk to you about the events that occurred on your base from May of 1980 until July of 1980?
Can you actually sleep with this on your conscience?
Or do you rest well at night know that the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence will cover your ass, not because you’re a great guy, but because if they uncover something unsavoury from Canadian Forces Base Namao that this will snowball into unsavoury events on many of the other Canadian Forces Bases where men such as yourself were able to hide things that had occurred on the bases that you were commanding.
How many kids did commanding officer bury on the bases?
Only time will tell.
Beeshive 