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.
Beeshive 