February 2023 – Beeshive

March 17, 2023

March 17th 2023 was supposed to be the date that Medical Assistance in Dying became legal in Canada for those suffering from mental health issues.

I had already booked the weeks of March 20th and March 27th off.

I had already booked my appointment for March 21st with my family doctor to make my official request for Medical Assistance in Dying.

I booked additional time off from work as I theorized that I would probably require some time to acclimatize to my decision. After all, wanting to die and actually making concrete plans to die are two separate things.

Sadly, the religious nutcases in this country evoked nightmares of disabled people being hauled off to Cambodian style killing fields.

And of course our milquetoast politicians caved.

That’s to be expected seeing as how the right wing in this country are having their puppet strings yanked and manipulated by the MAGAt evangelical crowd south of the border where their imaginary friend gets off on pain and suffering.

Anyways, in the meantime I’ve got to deal with an additional year on this planet.

I asked my lawyers recently if as part of the pending class action settlement that language be added into the settlement that would request the Attorney General make exceptions to the current M.A.i.D. legislation that would allow me to obtain M.A.i.D. without having to wait for the government to grow a pair and legalize M.A.i.D. for reasons of mental health.

They both said that this couldn’t be added in to the class action as it would have to apply to all members of the settlement and that this more than likely wouldn’t be something that the courts would entertain.

One of my lawyers suggested that I might want to look at other options to obtain M.A.i.D. via tests and screenings to see if any type of cancer or other potentially fatal medical condition is currently manifesting itself in my body.

My father apparently died of cancer. My father’s brother died of heart disease. My paternal grandmother died of heart disease as well. My mother has had numerous aneurysms. My maternal grandfather died of a heart attack. I’ve had two cardiac issues and no one was able to figure out what caused them.

So, when I go to my doctor on the 21st, even though I can’t officially request M.A.i.D. as we had both agreed at a prior visit, I will mention the suggestion of my lawyer to my doctor to see if he’s game for this.

Either way, I’ve got a train trip coming up.

No. Not that type of train trip.

On the 24th I’m boarding a VIA train for an 8 day round trip to and back from Toronto.

This was one of those “bucket list” things I had started planning out last year. There’s a few things I wanna do before I go. And things like trips are something that I want to experience.

I know it sounds silly, but with the exception of a few trips to Seattle, I’ve never been outside of Canada. I’ve lived in Vancouver for 30 years now and I’ve been to Seattle maybe 6 times in all that time.

And even within Canada, the only time I traveled anywhere in Canada was when I went to Ottawa to do some research at Library and Archives Canada. I also stopped out in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I was born there, but other than popping out into the world in Halifax, I have no connection to Halifax as my birth in Halifax was an accident of birth. I could have been born in any hospital next to a Canadian Armed Forces base and that would have been my “home town”.

Travelling was never something my father did with us when we were kids. The one time we went to Banff when my father was stationed at Canadian Forces Base Griesbach was not very pleasant as Richard wasn’t the kind of person who could just chill and fucking relax on a vacation.

When we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario, Richard took us for a weekend trip up to Sue’s brother’s cottage on Georgian Bay. Again, not a fun weekend. Fun and fuckery were not words in Richard’s vocabulary. The only word that Richard knew that was even remotely related to “fun” was dys’fun’ctional.

So, I never developed the travel bug.

Never learnt how to go on vacation and just relax.

So, this train ride should prove interesting. 4 days to Toronto. I spend one night in Toronto. And then it’s 4 days back to Vancouver.

Didn’t book a private room. I got a sleeping berth. The car has showers. All meals provided. Access to the observation car, the coach car, and the dining car.

Why did I pick the train? Why not. As I’ve said I don’t do vacations. For me the travelling part is more entertaining than the journey.

Taking Amtrak back and forth between Seattle and Vancouver is enjoyable. When I go to Seattle there’s only a few places that I like to go. Other than that I skip all of the tourist traps. I don’t think that I could ever go somewhere to go to tourist traps.

When I go to Iceland this summer it’s so that I can see for myself what was so appealing about Iceland that Richard left my brother and I alone while he fucked off with the Canadian Armed Forces to Iceland in July of 1978. Other than that it’s a big expansive island. And it’s the summer solstice. So being that far north on the longest day of the year should prove to be interesting. The only interesting thing that I know of Iceland is that the island is made up from two separate continents crushing together. There’s apparently a fissure that splits the island in two.

The Ever Consuming and often overwhelming Nothingness.

For as long as I can remember, my days have been filled with nothingness.

I have no hopes

I have no dreams

I have no aspirations

I only function at work so that no one can call me lazy and useless.

When I was young, I fully expected to be dead before I left my father’s house.

When I survived that, I still fully expected to be dead before I was 20.

When I made it to 20, I expected to be dead at any moment.

And this isn’t being melodramatic.

The psychologist hired by the Canadian Forces to evaluate my family knew that I felt this way.

My father knew that I felt this way.

Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke knew I felt this way.

But these feelings never received any treatment.

In fact, as far as my father was concerned, my despair, my depression, my anxiety, my desire to die were all just “stunts” to get attention.

It’s apparent that Captain Totzke didn’t give a flying fuck.

It was always me, on my own, left to my own devices, trying to figure out how to make it from one day to the next.

It’s forty years later and people have the audacity to tell me that what I went through was obviously no big deal and that I should simply stop whining about it.

Have you found god?

Have you talked to jesus?

Get a pet!

Start a hobby!

You’re just being an asshole of you don’t try!

You have nobody to blame but yourself!

If you really want to kill yourself, you would have done it by now!

You’re just doing this for attention!

For the last few years I’ve been involved with the planning for the new hospital on False Creek. I had to sign the confidentiality undertaking, I had to pass a conflict of interest check, and I had to be approved by the bidders and their contractors / vendors.

I’ve had input on the selection of the equipment and the design of the mechanical departments.

Because of my choices, physical plant will have one dedicated freight elevator that goes from the workshop levels on P1 to the power plant on the 5th floor to the roof level at the cooling towers.

Physical plant will have its own dedicate IP network to serve all of the plant equipment and all of the HVAC equipment. I got a lot of pushback from other members of the planning committee. But I stood my ground and my agruement eventualy won out that if we used the same network as the rest of the hospital, we’d have to go through IMIT and submit work requests for IMIT to whitelist new MAC addresses every time we had to replace a control board for a piece of HVAC equipment. IMIT tickets can take up to 7 working days.

So yeah, we get our own network.

The funny thing is, I have no plans on going to the new hospital.

As I’ve said before, I have no plans for anything.

I honestly don’t have any plans further into the future than tomorrow.

I just have nothingness.

I have unstoppable memories from 1978 onwards.

I have a never ending desire to die.

Due to governmental dithering I’ve been sentenced to at least one more year.

Will one more year possibly get me to change my mind?

No.

This feeling of nothingness, of emptiness, of meaninglessness, just continues.

It sucks the life out of life.

It consumes all and destroys all.

I sleep a lot.

I get home from work, I sleep.

Most weekends I sleep well into the afternoon.

My recent trip, I spent more time sleeping in the hotel room than anything else.

But, I’ve always been this way.

Getting out of bed in the morning is so fucking hard to do when you don’t want to be here.

I’m usually in bed at a decent hour, maybe between 21:00 and 22:00.

Without alarms, I’d sleep until about 12:00 the next day.

With alarms, it takes so much fucking effort to get out of bed in the morning.

I hate the fucking morning, it means I’m still fucking alive.

Lunchtime I sleep.

Afterwork, I get home and sleep for a couple of hours.

There were times in my teens and my twenties and my thirties where I could sleep for days on end.

Not just not get out of bed.

I mean sleep – solid – for days.

I don’t cry much any more.

I think the tears dried up a long time ago.

But I would often cry when I was alone.

The last good cry I had was back around 2009.

But the CFB Namao / CFNIS fiasco literally killed me.

Learning the truth about the CFB Namao matter literally killed me on the inside.

My insides are dead, they have been for a while.

I’m just waiting for my corpse to realize that it’d dead.

And after what I suffered through in my early years combined with what I learnt from 2011 onwards, there is only nothing.

And that’s the way it will always be, nothing.

Each and every day going forward will be another day of nothing.

No hopes.

No dreams.

No desires.

Just nothing.

Finding all of McRae’s victims.

One of the matters that help the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence in this matter is the difficulty in tracking down all of the victims of McRae and the babysitter.

Captain McRae was on Canadian Forces Base Kingston, Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie, Canadian Forces Station Holberg, and finally Canadian Forces Base Namao.

Captain McRae spent about 2 years on each defence establishment.

In each of those two year periods it would be very difficult to guesstimate how many children McRae had diddled, fondled, penetrated, performed oral sex on, and received oral sex from.

And this problem isn’t related to Captain McRae moving from base to base.

It’s that his victims would also move from bases to base.

We had no choice where we lived. We followed our serving parents.

So for example when McRae was posted to CFB Namao in August of 1978 it obvious that he went to work right away having sex with children on the base.

He wasn’t investigated until May of 1980.

That means that Captain McRae was on the base during a posting season, which was typically June to September.

Between June and September of 1979, how many children that Captain McRae had sexually assaulted from August of 1978 until August of 1979 were posted off to different bases across Canada before the investigation of Captain McRae commenced in May of 1980.

Don’t forget, Captain McRae was the master of getting children intoxicated with alcohol. He admitted in his court martial to giving children beer or wine and then fooling around with them in the bedroom of the rectory.

And Captain McRae was smart. At least in my case he was. I don’t remember it being Captain McRae giving me the “sickly sweet grape juice”. It was always the babysitter giving me the sickly sweet grape juice whenever he took me over to visit with Captain McRae.

Now, this is where the postings to a different base take on a sinister aspect.

I had always remembered the babysitter giving me the sickly sweet grape juice as some sort of reward for providing him with sexual favours. And it stayed that way until May 3rd, 2011 when master corporal Christian Cyr asked me if I remembered anything about the base chaplain having been arrested for molesting children during the same period of time that I was accusing the babysitter of molesting me.

That’s 31 years later that I made the connection.

But what if I had stayed on that base longer?

What if the other victims of Captain McRae and the babysitter had stayed on that base?

What if we found each other and started talking amongst ourselves?

What if we waited until we all turned 18 and moved off base and then hired a lawyer back in 1989 / 1990. The same time that former Captain Father Angus McRae was being charged with child molestation in Scarborough, Ontario.

This would have made things really messy for the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence. Would have made things really sticky for the babysitter.

But, kids were posted to different bases. Kids who had memories of the babysitter or Captain McRae giving them sickly sweet grape juice. But with no knowledge of the whole child sexual abuse scandal on CFB Namao that transpired because parents complained about the babysitter’s sexual activities with their children.

And it’s not just CFB Namao. CFB Namao was just one base that Captain McRae was stationed at. And in two years Captain McRae was able to molest over 25 children.

How many children from CFB Kingston, CFB Portage La Prairie, or even CFS Holberg have these weird incoherent memories of a sickly sweet grape juice at the rectory of the base chapel?

How many former base brats from this time were between the ages of 4 and 8 and due to their youth at the time of the abuse, can’t fully remember the details.

How many of these kids, through normal military postings, ended up moving to many different bases over their adolescence and teenage years and were completely separated from the other victims?

More sinister though is this thought.

How many more child pedophiles did Captain McRae “activate” on the different bases.

Pedophilia is a sexual attraction to children that most research indicates forms in the brain before birth. Most pedophiles will never act upon their desires. However in the case of the babysitter, did Captain McRae’s abuse and grooming allow the babysitter to give into his desires?

If the babysitter’s attraction to children wasn’t genetic based, did Captain McRae’s abuse and grooming of the babysitter teach the babysitter that it was okay to have sex with young children?

Either way, we know that the babysitter went on to molest more children -across Canada-, while travelling with his father to different postings in different provinces.

How many other kids did Captain McRae abuse and groom whom then went on to abuse children on other Canadian Forces Bases and in the civilian population both before and after they moved off the bases after their 18th birthday.

I think that this is one of those reasons why the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence seem to do a lot of heavy work trying to keep military child sexual abuse survivors from receiving even the slightest modicum of recognition.

One can only wonder how many victims have come forward over the years only to either be stonewalled by the not-so-independent military police, or were slapped with an Non-Disclosure-Agreement in trade for a settlement.

What about the babysitter’s other victims

One thing that I hope doesn’t get overlooked in this matter is how many victims did the babysitter abuse while he was moving base to base with his father.

As I learnt from the Military Police Complaint Commission’s report in 2020, 1984 was not the babysitter’s first arrest and conviction for child sexual abuse.

The MPCC expanded on the little information about the babysitter that I was given in 2012 by James Paluck when James told me to go looking for a news story from the Edmonton Journal in August of 1985.

It turns out that the babysitter’s first arrest and conviction for molesting a child was no in 1984 as the Edmonton Journal news story had indicated. He was actually arrested and convicted in 1982 for molesting a young boy in Deep River, Ontario.

Missing from that list is the 1984 charge and conviction that was brought up by the Alberta Crown Prosecutor in the 1985 hearing. Also, the 1985 conviction related to TWO boys. One was a 9-year-old from Canadian Forces Base Namao, and one was a 13 year old from the City of Edmonton.

CFB Petawawa is 31 KM away from Deep River, Ontario. The babysitter would have been 17 in December of 1982 and by this time would have more than likely had a driver’s licence.

How many other towns did the babysitter molest children in that he wasn’t apprehended for?

How many other kids over the years have come forward to the Ontario Provincial Police with tales related to a weird teenager in a car that befriended them and then molested them? How many of these investigation were stymied by the fact that the weird babysitter lived on a military base and that the perpetrator was moved around with his father’s postings. The babysitter ended up back on Canadian Forces Base Edmonton in 1985.

It’s been confirmed that the babysitter’s father received his posting to CFB Petawawa after the babysitter had been interrogated by the base military police in early May of 1980 but well before the suspicious and tragic fire at the babysitter’s PMQ on June 23rd, 1980.

The house fire only accelerated the transfer of the babysitter’s family to CFB Petawawa in Ontario.

When I spoke to the babysitter’s father in July of 2015 he said that once they arrived at CFB Petawawa, the Canadian Forces wanted the babysitter to return to Edmonton, unaccompanied, to testify against Captain McRae. The babysitter’s father protested and was allowed to return to Edmonton with his son, but contrary to Canadian Law at the time, the father was barred from being in the court martial hearing room with his son.

We know that the babysitter returned to Edmonton with his father, but this was early in the year. Military families are typically moved in the summer months to not affect their children’s school attendance.

However the babysitter was charged in May of 1985 with molesting a 9-year-old on Canadian Forces Base Namao in Alberta. According to the babysitter’s father it was at this time that the Canadian Forces gave the father an ultimatum. Either the babysitter moved out of military housing, or the Canadian Forces would eject the entire family from military housing.

The father then rented the babysitter an apartment in the west end of Edmonton where he molested a 13-year-old newspaper boy.

But remember the 8-year-old that the babysitter was charged and convicted of for molesting according to the Alberta Crown Prosecutor?

This was in Manitoba in 1984. This was apparently on a Canadian Forces Base in Manitoba.

The charge related to the 1985 molestation of the 9-year-old on CFB Namao don’t show up in the CPIC check, nor does the charge related to the 1984 molestation of the 8-year-old on the CFB in Manitoba show up.

If these charges don’t show up in the CPIC record system that would seem to indicate that it was either the base military police or the CFSIU that had investigated the babysitter for these crimes. Historically the military justice system very reluctant to share anything with the civilian authorities.

Or, it might be the Young Offenders Act is prohibiting the publication or even acknowledgement of these and other sexual assaults.

But again, how many kids did the babysitter diddle within a given proximity of the bases his father was stationed at?

How many kids on the bases that his father was stationed at did the babysitter molest that haven’t come forward to lay charges either because their family was posted to a different base shortly there after due to operational requirements -or- because much like in my matter the military police knew the history of the babysitter and the risk it posed to exposing the Captain Father Angus McRae matter from Canadian Forces Base Namao.

And this whole matter raises a couple of issues that will forever haunt me to the day I die.

The babysitter wasn’t placed in the care of a military social worker.
I was placed in the care of a military social worker who was convinced that I was a “homosexual” and that’s why I never told anyone of the abuse.

The babysitter’s father allowed the babysitter to get a driver’s licence and possibly allowed the babysitter to use the family car. I had to wait until I moved out of the house and was living on my own before I could swear to a notary that I was living on my own and needed a car before I could get a driver’s licence.

When I spoke with the babysitter’s father in July of 2015, he was convinced that his son was the only victim in all of this, that his son never received proper care.

My father and Captain Totzke were adamant that I enjoyed the abuse, that I also allowed the babysitter to molest my younger brother.

When I spoke to my father in 2006 about the whole babysitter affair my father couldn’t understand why I didn’t just “move the fuck on” and “stop living in the past”. He even warned me about sticking my nose into this matter as I “might not like the smell”.

The babysitter’s father has looked after him for all of his life, renting him apartments, helping with housing, etc.

There were times in my life when I was homeless and on the streets and yet I knew better than to ever call Richard up to ask him for any money. First, he was very unlikely to “loan” more than a token amount. Second, if I were to have taken money from him this would have been proof to him of how fucking worthless I was and more proof that I was insane like my mother’s side of the family.

In 2011, 2015 to 2018, and 2020 to 2022 the CFNIS “investigated” my complaints.

In the 2011 and the 2015 to 2018 CFNIS investigations the CFNIS were more concerned with proving me to be a liar as opposed to helping me obtain justice. There was nothing stopping the CFNIS from linking the crimes and actions of the babysitter to the crimes and actions of Captain McRae even if McRae was deceased. The CFNIS had the CFSIU paperwork and the Court Martial transcripts from 1980, so they knew of the intimate connection between the babysitter and Captain McRae. But as the CFNIS investigation can be directly controlled and influenced by the agency that I would have to sue for compensation there was absolutely no way the truth about Captain McRae and the babysitter would ever come to life.

In the 2020 to 2022 investigation the CFNIS was more intent on proving that the man I had accused wasn’t the man in the sauna as opposed to trying to figure out who the adult male was that the 15-year-old babysitter had pimped an 8-year-old boy out to.

My world is a world of existence where up is left and down is right and right is backwards and up is impossible.

What if you never found out?

Where would I be right now if Master Corporal Christian Cyr had kept his fucking mouth shut on May 3rd, 2011 and never asked me about Captain Father Angus McRae?

I never would have discovered the connection between Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae and his teenage accomplice, P.S..

I would never have discovered that my father and my mother were both having emotional problems right from the word go and that the IWK Children’s Hospital wanted to bring my family to the attention of social services.

I never would have obtained my social service records and discovered that I was in foster care in Edmonton, AB. Or that I had been diagnosed with some very serious issues as a child but that I was actively prevented from receiving treatment for these issues.

I never would have discovered that Terry was actually Captain Terry Totzke and that he was a military social worker in the Canadian Armed Forces.

I never would have discovered that the “special school” in Edmonton that I went to wasn’t for “homosexual” children, but was instead a program for severely emotionally disturbed children from dysfunctional families.

I never would have discovered that a licenced psychologist and my child case workers had described my father and being irresponsible, unable and unwilling to take responsibility for his family, and prone to lying.

I would never discover that the true reason we left Edmonton is a hurry back in April of 1983 wasn’t because my father wanted to “save me” from the drugs the doctors wanted to give me to stop me from being attracted to other boys but was actually because Alberta Social Services wanted to place me into foster care or residential care which would have potential caused two problems. The first problem is that I might have started talking about the babysitter from CFB Namao once I was removed from my father’s care and no longer living in fear of him. The second problem that my removal from Richard’s care risked exposing was that fact that my father didn’t have legal custody of my brother and I and that by moving us from Prince Edward Island to Alberta without permission from our mother he in legal fact had kidnapped us.

I never would have come across the existence of a report from 2000 that looked at the “Canadian Forces response to Spousal Abuse in Military Families” which acknowledged that members of the Canadian Armed Forces could use the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations to have their spouse thrown out of the military housing due to their status as a civilian on a military base once the marriage started to breakdown.

I never would have obtained my social services paperwork from the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto.

I would never have discovered the two pre-1998 flaws that existed in the National Defence Act which actively prevent persons who were molested by persons subjected to the Code of Service Discipline prior to 1998 from ever receiving justice for their sexual abuse.

I never would have discovered that prior to November of 1997, the commanding officer of the accused and NOT a military prosecutor would determine which charges, if any, that their subordinate would face after an investigation by the base military police or the CFSIU.

I never would have discovered that an officer of the Canadian Armed Forces can direct any CFNIS investigation even though this officer is not a Peace Officer and is not required to have any law enforcement experience.

I never would have witnessed first hand just how hobbled police review agencies are and just how limited their powers actually are.

I would never have discovered that the screening process for members of the Canadian Armed Forces were so lax in the 1970s and the 1980s that an active pedophile under investigation by the Ottawa Police Service was able to join the Canadian Armed Forces and “disappear off the radar”. Even worse than that, this person’s criminal conviction in the military never showed up on their civilian criminal record and thus was never taken into consideration when this person was finally sentenced for his 1970’s offences in 2019.

How do I feel knowing all of this?

Does knowing all of this make me feel any better?

I should have known that something was up when I talked with my father all through August of 2006 about the babysitter. He knew the babysitter’s name. He begged me to understand that he had nothing to do with hiring the babysitter, that it was all grandma’s fault. That he had warned grandma not to hire him, but she kept hiring him. He even warned my that if I went to the police and started sticking my nose where it didn’t belong that I might not like the shit that I would smell.

Yes, I am well aware that I’m not responsible for what the babysitter did to my younger brother. Not in the slightest.

Did being molested by the babysitter and potentially Captain McRae make me a homosexual? Nope. Was the treatment I received from Captain Terry Totzke of any benefit to me? Fuck no.

But knowing all of this doesn’t undo the damage.

It doesn’t erase the memories of myself crying myself to sleep wishing that I would die in my sleep and never wake up.

It doesn’t erase the memories of Richard’s belts, backhands, kicks, or being slammed into walls.

It doesn’t erase the memories of my two attempts on CFB Griesbach or any of the attempts there after.

I’ll always remember crying on the phone as I called grandma long distance in Edmonton from the plaza on Keele St. begging her to let me come live with her because Richard was giving me some pretty bad beatings in the PMQ for “having fucked with his military career”.

Knowing that the military police, the CFSIU, and the military justice system were in such disarray prior to the Somalia Inquiry and that significant changes were enacted by Parliament in 1998 doesn’t erase any of the memories.

I still clearly remember most of the attacks at the hands of the babysitter.

I still remember the visits to the chapel and the “sickly sweet grape juice”.

I remember the babysitter escorting me into the sauna at the base pool to perform oral sex on a man who wasn’t Captain McRae.

I remember “temperature check” and other issues that I despised at the “homosexual school”.

And now I am fully aware how justice systems don’t work for the people who need them the most but instead work for the powerful and the elite in order to allow them to hide and control embarrassing situations.

Bobbie, why do you hate the police so much????

I don’t hate the police. I just refuse to place them on an altar and kiss their feet.

I think I first became disillusioned with the police in 1984 when I tried to report the antics of the babysitter to the Military Police on CFB Namao and then the Edmonton Police Service when the military police told me that I would have to go to the civilian police to make a report.

Now that I have the court martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork from 1980 I have no doubt in my mind that the base military police and the CFSIU would have been under orders to not take any subsequent complaints related to Captain McRae or his teenage accomplice P.S..

Nobody cared, everyone was passing the buck and no doubt there were politics at play.

Around 1987, I started working for Rainbow Games in Toronto which was owned at the time by three serving members of the Toronto Police Service. I was exposed to police officers that were racist, police officers that were homophobic, police officers that turned a blind eye to drugs or who were in fact using drugs, police officers that put other people in harm’s way by the use of “inside information”.

In 1994, after a very brief stint back in Toronto, I returned to Vancouver. I was on E.I. at the time and had to keep my expenses to a minimum. So I rented a room at the Salvation Army Dunsmuir House for Men. Cheap rent, clean bed. My room got broken into one day and my possessions were stolen. I called the VPD and reported the break and enter. A VPD Sgt. pulled up a little while later. Wouldn’t get out of the cruiser, had me come out to the curb. He asked me why I was wasting his time. I asked him what he meant. He said that I should think about why I’m in the Sally Anne.

About 20 years later when I was receiving counselling related to the Captain McRae / P.S. matter I had mentioned to this counsellor the time I spent in the Dunsmuir House. The counsellor asked me if I knew what the Dunsmuir House was. I said I knew it was the Salvation Army and that it was single rooms for guys without a lot of money. The counsellor then informed me that the Dunsmuir House also operated as a federal half way house. The VPD Sgt. had determined that I must have been in the Dunsmuir House as a prisoner on parole or early release and that if my belongings had been stolen then it was my own damn fault.

In 1995 I was living in New Westminster. I worked at a bowling centre called Lois Lanes that was owned by the Elashi family in East Richmond. My regular shift was 14:00 to 22:00 Tuesdays through Saturday. I had grown quite attached to going to see Friday night late shows at the Famous Players Capitol 6 on Granville.

I had gone to see a movie called “Congo”. I never made it home. On the North East side of Burrard and West Georgia I got attacked from behind by a guy with a steering wheel club and his girlfriend who had a large knife in her purse. The security guards from the Hyatt Regency came over and chased the suspects away.

I lost just over 200 ml of blood and had a serious concussion.

VPD constable Gil Puder was assigned to investigate.

Constable Puder was getting very irritated with me because I had trouble answering his questions. All I remember is the nurse who was putting the sutures in was telling him to be patient as I had lost a bit of blood and I had sustained trauma to my head.

Constable Puder angrily passed me a page to make my report out on as well as a business card. He told me to deliver the report to Main St. as soon as possible.

Rosa, Ali’s daughter, came to pick me up at the hospital. I spent the next day writing out the report and the things I could remember.

I caught the Skytrain downtown and went to Main Street station and handed the report to Puder. He read it and scoffed. He said that what I told him didn’t make any sense. He was certain that I was a male prostitute and that I had been attacked by a trick gone wrong.

I was pissed off. By this time I knew vaguely where I had seen my attacker and his girlfriend. So I back traced my steps that night and I ended back at the Capitol 6 on Granville. I pushed the delivery buzzer on the front door and the projectionist came down and asked me what I wanted. I explained to him and he went to get the theatre manager. When the manager came down I explained to her what had happened after the movie let out on Saturday morning. I described my two attackers to her. She asked me to wait outside while she reviewed the video tapes.

She came back about 20 minutes later and said that she saw the two people I had described. They had been in the concession line right next to me. It appeared that I had pulled a big wad of money out of my pocket. As soon as I had done that the girlfriend directed her boyfriend’s attention to me. As soon as I paid for my popcorn and drink they left the concession line and followed me right back into the theatre. When the movie let out they tailed me right out of the theatre.

That “big wad of money”? It was Canadian Tire money that Rosa had given to me earlier in the day as she knew that I intended to stop at Canadian Tire the next day.

The theatre manager wouldn’t let me view the tape, but she said that she was taking it out of the rack and she’d keep it locked in her office. She gave me her business card to pass on to Constable Puder.

When I contacted Puder, he was angry, said that I was wasting his time with the ridiculous goose chase. I passed him the manager’s contact information.

The manager contacted me about two months later asking when the police officer was coming to pick the tape up, or even contact her for that matter.

I called and left messages for Puder, he never returned them.

I went to VPD HQ on Main Street. Basically I was told in no uncertain terms to fuck off and not to waste their time. It was suggested that if I ever stepped foot in the HQ again that I’d be arrested.

I never pursued this any further as I really didn’t have any faith in anyone that wore a uniform. And besides, with the demons in my head from CFB Namao I knew that no one would believe me.

My mugging has never been looked at the by VPD after that. When I filed an ATI with the VPD around 2019, all that came back was some vague notes from the night I was in the hospital, but nothing else.

Around 1996 I was at work. This was a day when the senior’s afternoon league was in bowling.

Ali called me up from the back and asked me to escort two young kids out of the bowling centre who had been stealing cigarettes from the seniors.

Ali showed me the video tape, and sure enough, these two weren’t just stealing smokes from open packs on the tables, they were reaching into purses and removing packs of cigarettes.

I escorted the two to the door and told them that Ali doesn’t want them back in the centre.

About 30 minutes later an RCMP cruiser from Richmond detachment showed up. This officer was threatening to arrest Ali and I if we ever harassed and made false accusations against the two boys again.

When Ali offered to show the constable the video tape, the constable said that recording people without their consent was illegal and he couldn’t watch it.

Ali said that he’d like to charge the two boys with theft. The RCMP constable got incredulous and said that Ali should do better to ensure that his bowlers not leave things laying around that might temp people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise.

I turned and walked away, the RCMP constable bellowed that he wasn’t finished talking to me. I told Ali that I was going home for the day. I went to the back, got my car keys, and went out to my car.

On the way out the constable kept following me telling me that he just wanted to talk to me. I told him that I didn’t want to talk to him. I got into my car and started it up. Doing my mirror check I noticed that the constable at first appearance was standing off to the side of my car, but on closer look I noticed that he had his knee intentionally bent out so that if I tried to back up I would have “assaulted” him.

Due to my time on the streets, and in homeless shelters, and having worked for Ed, Dirk, and Gary, I was more than a little familiar with the games that cops can play to escalate a situation so that no matter what, you’re in the wrong.

Also, having grown up in a military family living on military bases, I was more than familiar with these types of games that were played to goad someone into getting into trouble.

I shut my car off and got out and walked back towards the bowling centre.

The constable repeated that he only wanted to talk to me and that I had to listen to him. I kept walking. Without warning the constable jumped me from behind and took me to the ground. He just kept repeating, “I just want to talk to you, why won’t you listen to me”.

Next thing I know, Ali is outside hitting the constable with a broom. The seniors all come out and start yelling at the constable that he’s lost his mind. Some of the seniors drag him off of me.

The constable stands up, wipes his trousers off, walks to his cruiser, and speeds off.

A couple of days later were sitting in the office of Ali’s business lawyer, Mr. Morris. All I wanted was this constable to be disciplined and an apology.

And a couple of days later we’re sitting in the office of the detachment commander for the RCMP Richmond detachment. The commanding officer for “E” division is there as well.

I got my apology.

The C/O for the Richmond detachment assured me that this constable had been transferred out of province. And that this officer was going to receive conflict of interest training. See, this constable wasn’t on an official call when he came to the bowling centre. Those two boys that were barred from the bowling centre for stealing cigarettes? The were the cousins of the constable.

It appears that the constable was throwing his weight around and wanted to protect his “fam”.

And I know for a fact that had Ali not been a well established and respected property developer and had he not had a well respected lawyer like Mr. Morris, no action would have been taken against the constable.

I know that at the time I never would have been able to afford a lawyer like Mr. Morris. And had I called home for help my father would have just yelled and screamed on the phone that if I wasn’t such a fucking idiot that I wouldn’t be in trouble like this.

So yeah, by this time in my life I had absolutely no faith what so ever in any type of police force, and my faith would only get shaken more as time went on.

Around 2004, one of the commercial office buildings that I looked after in downtown Vancouver had numerous break and enters overnight. Four dentists had their offices broken into and numerous narcotics had been stolen.

The first call went out to the VPD at around 04:00 in the morning. The next call was around 08:00. Another call around 10:00. The tenants were waiting for the police file number to start their insurance claims, which would include repairing the damage to the suite doors.

I went down to the bicycle cop detachment which used to be at the Vogue Theatre on Granville. Nope, not their responsibility. How about just a file number? Nope, not their responsibility.

Flagged a constable down on Granville and Robson. Nope, they only take non-active break and enter calls via 9-1-1 or the non-emergency number.

I was 14 hours later before a cop showed up. And at that all he did was handed out police report papers to the tenants and asked them to fill them out and fax them in when they were done. No investigation. No concern about the stolen narcotics. Nada.

My next experience with police was of course the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service starting in 2011.

But Bobbie, that’s the military police, they’re not the same as the civilian police.

So far as the civilian police are concerned, the CFNIS are “peace officers” and therefore “brothers in arms”.

As we now know from the findings of the 2020 MPCC review, the CFNIS had the Court Martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork right from the word go in March of 2011.

The CFNIS knew that it was the babysitter’s molestation of younger children on the base that led to the CFSIU investigating Captain McRae and subsequently charging Captain McRae with molesting children on the base.

But even though the CFNIS had access to this paperwork, I was told by the CFNIS on November 4th, 2011 that they could find no evidence at all that would indicate that the babysitter was capable of what I had accused him of.

Yes, I made a complaint to the Military Police Complaints Commission in 2012, and yes the MPCC concluded that the CFNIS conducted a proper investigation. But let’s talk about how these “police review” agencies really don’t work for the benefit of the public.

When a person wishes to make a complaint against the Military Police, they don’t go to the MPCC first. Their complaint must first go to the Provost Marshal. The Provost Marshal will determine which documents will be released to the MPCC and which documents won’t be released.

This is why in 2012 the MPCC had no idea that the CFNIS had the CFSIU investigation paperwork and the court martial transcripts from 1980.

During an MPCC review the MPCC cannot judge the quality of the evidence collected. Nor can the MPCC subpoena documents or witnesses. Participation in an MPCC review is voluntary. Any statement given to the MPCC by the CFNIS investigators or their chain of command is not considered to be under oath.

In 2020 it seems that the MPCC had realized that it had the wool pulled over its eyes during the 2012 review. Again, they couldn’t find fault with the 2015 to 2018 CFNIS investigation because they really don’t have the means to when the information they receive from the Provost Marshal is so very carefully controlled.

To get around this limitation, the MPCC seems to have looked at a parallel investigation that had been undertaken by the CFNIS during the 2015 to 2018 investigation of my complaint.

It seems that the CFNIS chain of command and the Provost Marshal didn’t raise any flags when the MPCC asked to look at this other parallel investigation that was being conducted against the babysitter because the man, P.G., who had made the complaint against P.S. had not raised a complaint with the Provost Marshal within the 12 month period after the investigation.

And this is how it came to light that the MPCC discovered that the CFNIS had the CFSIU DS 120-10-80 investigation paperwork and the Court Martial transcripts for the Court Martial of Captain McRae CM-62 July 15 to 18, 1980. Both documents which implicate the babysitter in the molestation of children on the base. And both which verify that I was telling Master Corporal Christian Cyr the truth when I told him about the visits to the rectory at the chapel and the “sickly sweet grape juice” that had been given to me on the 5 visits after he had asked me if I remembered anything about the base chaplain having been charged with molesting children during the same time frame that I was accusing the babysitter of molesting my brother and I and some other kids.

Even the Canadian Forces Ombudsman has called for the MPCC to be transferred to its office as the CF Ombudsman has powers enshrined to it by Acts of Parliament that the Canadian Forces would never allow the MPCC to enjoy.

And this is where I end this posting.

No matter how hard these police review agencies try, they are still very much created by and under the control of the police agencies that they oversee. They can be stonewalled very easily by police officers, police management, and by police unions*. The thin blue line comes into play during these types of reviews.

If it wasn’t for a bystander’s video recording of the Robert Dziekański VYR incident back in 2007, the public would have had no choice but to swallow the narrative of the RCMP. That narrative was that Robert had, without provocation, attacked the sole RCMP officer and that the public was at great risk. The video turned that narrative right upside down. The RCMP media liaison who was responsible for relaying that outright lie to the public committed suicide out of humiliation.

Without video, the RCMP were able to get a police review board to sign of on the fact that an RCMP constable shot Ian Bush in the back of the head in self defence as Ian Bush apparently had the constable face down on the ground and was choking the constable from behind. Constable Gumby, as he was later nicknamed, was able to shoot Ian Bush in the back of the head. Not in the side, not in the face, but in the back of the head. Of course coincidentally the video recorders at the station were not working that night.

How do we fix the police?

We can’t. Not as they’re currently constructed. The police we have today are very much based upon the structures that were in place during the early 1900s when they were used to control immigrants, to control first nations people, to enforce unjust laws, to smash unions and labour organizations, to harass and arrest labour leaders, to spy on and attack gay rights organizations, and to protect the rich and the elites from the common unwashed.

Don’t forget, it was only as late as the 1980s that the RCMP were still using the “Fruit Machine” to detect homosexuals in the government and the Canadian Armed Forces and to have them expelled from those agencies.

But, after 100 years of mass media copaganda, I don’t think that the public has the will for change.

The Winnipeg General Strike could never occur today due to the weapons, armament, and violent tactics that police have at their disposal these days.

Police have far too much political influence these days. Any talk about reforming the police and making the police more responsive to the middle class and the poor is met with violent rhetoric about the collapse of society.

The cops love to talk tough about drugs. So why aren’t they going after the real drug dealers? Has the Sackler family spent one single solitary day in jail for the opioid crises that they knowingly unleashed on North America? Nope. Apparently arresting the people who unleashed such misery on the public can’t be arrested because that would stifle innovation. But let’s beat the ever loving fuck out of the drug user who got hooked on opioids when his doctor over prescribed them oxycontin for an ankle sprain.

How many Howe Street penny stock hustlers do you see going off to prison on a daily basis for fraud? Nope.

How many politicians do you see going to prison for fraud and theft? Nada.

Until we reform the police and change the mandate that governs the police and make everyone equally susceptible to arrest, things will never change.

As long as a heavily armed and armoured police officer are allowed to “fear for their lives” and see iPhones as “deadly weapons”, the police will never change.

It’s official

Well, it looks like I’ve been sentenced to yet another year of this fucking existence.

The government caved to the desires of American astroturfers.

I gotta thank all of the American Dark Money astroturf financiers that sunk money into disrupting Canadian politics.

The American alt-right evangelicals have always tried their best to disrupt Canadian politics. They hate and despise our socialist leanings and the progressive ways of our government.

The idea that a fully grown adult could have their right to request the end of their life at the hands of a trained medical professional was too much for these fundies.

God loves suffering….. suffering is next to godliness.

So, they came to Canada and whipped up a frenzy of fear amongst the xtian fundies in this country and used “the disabled” as a prop in their war.

If M.A.i.D. for mental illness was allowed to proceed then apparently the government was going to start rounding up “the disabled” and would start murdering them in killing fields located outside of every city and every town across this country.

The actual argument put forth by the astroturfing fundies was that “the disabled” were going to kill themselves en masse instead of living in poverty.

And you can tell that this was a concerted effort by American evangelical fundies because the only thing being proposed was to not allow M.A.i.D. for mental illness to proceed. The evangelical fundies never once proposed raising the support rate for persons living with disabilities.

Why wouldn’t the American fundies suggest increasing support rates paid to the disabled?

That’s socialism.

Can’t suggest that.

But at least they can support not allowing M.A.i.D. for mental illness.

This doesn’t cost the tax payer money.

And if it increasing the amount of suffering, so be it, suffering is a bonus for the evangelical fundamentalist.

And don’t kid yourself, America has been influencing Canadian politics for an extremely long time.

Whether it be the rise of alt-right neo-conservative politics in this country, or the decimation of our public social programs, American think tanks can usually be found pumping the dark money into Canada.

You want to see evidence of American dark money?

https://sustainablesong.medium.com/revoke-the-fraser-institutes-charitable-status-bec03751567e

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/02/13/warning-bells-have-rung-for-years-over-the-risk-of-american-money-flowing-into-canadian-politics.html

American dark money has influenced Canadian politics for ages, and it will just end up getting worse in the future.

Canada had one chance to allow me to obtain the end of my suffering. Now I doubt if the government will ever bring this up again.