If you’ve been paying attention to the media you might have encountered a “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” news story from Murray Brewster of the CBC.
I had my first dealings with the Military Police Complaints Commission back in 2012 through 2013. And from my experience this is an agency that is intentionally set up to fail.
The MPCC is hamstrung by the rules that created it.
Why would the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Armed Forces, and the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal allow an agency to exist that would put their defective “justice system” in peril?
The DND and the CAF have fought long and hard to maintain their own separate justice system, and for good reason. It’s hard to maintain an air of dignity if the public learns that you have an epidemic of child sexual abuse on the bases.
The MPCC was created back in 1998 with the passing of Bill C-25, “An Act to make Amendments to the National Defence Act”.
But right from the word go, the DND and the CAF worked tirelessly to ensure that the MPCC would not pose a risk to their separate and distinct justice system.
That’s how we ended up with the following process to make a complaint.
How to make a complaint to the MPCC
If a person wishes to make a complaint against a CFNIS investigation, you can’t. Only members of the CFNIS or Military Police can make a complaint about an investigation.
And only members of the Canadian Armed Forces can make interference complaints.
Victims dissatisfied with a CFNIS investigation are limited to making a complaint against individuals. This isn’t accidental. This is intentional. You now have to figure out how to make a complaint against individual members of the CFNIS for their conduct even if there was nothing wrong with their conduct.
Being that members of the Canadian Armed Forces must obey the lawful commands of their superiors, what you allege as negligence or improper conduct may actually just be the results of lawful commands. And investigators with the CFNIS can’t be faulted for following lawful commands, can they now?
And because you can’t make a complaint against an investigation, you can’t make a complaint about the validity of those “lawful commands” as you’ll more than likely never know who gave those commands.
The most significant flaw with the MPCC review process is that you have to make your complaint to the Provost Marshal first.
Yes, this is the same Provost Marshal that will decide what documents to hand over to the MPCC and which documents will not be handed over to the MPCC.
This makes about as much sense as the police calling up a robbery suspect to tell them that they’re coming over in 2 hours to look for evidence of a robbery.
The Provost Marshal will then conduct a review via the Professional Standards section of the Canadian Forces Military Police Group.
Only after the Professional Standards group conducts their review and the Provost Marshal informs you of the results, can you then request a review from by the MPCC.
Requesting an MPCC Review.
You have 90 days after the review of the Professional Standards to request a review by the MPCC.
I would like to say that a review is a worthwhile endeavour, but quite frankly it isn’t.
An MPCC review is like pissing your pants. Sure, it brings you some relief, and it gives you a warm feeling. But when the warm feeling goes away, you’re wet and you stink like piss.
The problem with an MPCC review is that it is very powerless.
- The MPCC cannot subpoena witnesses
- The MPCC cannot subpoena documents
- The MPCC cannot administer oaths
- The MPCC didn’t really understand how the military police or the CFNIS operate as they have never (as per Stannard’s 2015 interview) been given documents that explain the operational hierarchy of the military police and the CFNIS, so they wouldn’t know what documents to request and who to request them from.
- The MPCC can only review the documents handed to them by the Provost Marshal.
- The MPCC are not allowed to share with the complainant the documents that the Provost Marshal supplied to the MPCC.
These points basically allow the Provost Marshal to hobble any MPCC investigation right from the start. And there’s nothing that the MPCC can do about it.
Yes, the MPCC could call for an Inquiry, but an MPCC Inquiry occurs just about as frequently as the birth of a unicorn.
The MPCC must obtain the consent of the Minister of National Defence in order to call an inquiry.
That’s not going to happen in a matter that has the potential to expose how the defective military justice system in the pre-1998 days was able to hide and bury military child sexual abuse on the bases, and how the modern day Military Police group can conduct “feel good” investigations that don’t accomplish anything but make the victim(s) think that the military police conducted a “real” investigation.
Remember, due to flaws in the pre-1998 National Defence Act, if you were a child living in military housing on a defence establishment, and you were molested by an active member of the regular force, you will never be able to lay charges against the former member due to either the 3-year-time-bar flaw or the summary investigation flaw.
Prior to 1998, it was the serving member’s commanding officer that was required to act as the Crown Prosecutor to decide if charges were warranted or not.
Prior to 1998 the military could not try a member for service offences if more than three years had elapsed between the date of the offence and the commencement of the tribunal.
In my matter the CFNIS knew about the intimate connection between my babysitter and the military chaplain, Captain Father Angus McRae.
And at the start of the investigation in March of 2011, Angus McRae was still alive. And the National Defence Act states that former members remain liable to be tried for service offences committed while they were active members.
But, the 3-year-time-bar and the summary investigation flaw would have out right prevented the laying of charges. And in the pre-1998 days, there was no language in the National Defence Act that allowed for service offences to bypass the required summary investigation by the commanding officer of the accused and simply be tried in civilian court.
A brief detour into the absurd.
Many reporters have been whamboozled by the military police and the CFNIS stating that there’s nothing stopping them from arresting someone for child molestation that was committed prior to 1998 and trying them in civilian court.
The general accepted practice for trying persons charged with committing historical crimes is that you have to charge them and try them as the law prescribed the offender to be charged and tried at the time.
Prior to 1998 when a member of the Canadian Armed Forces committed a Criminal Code offence while on duty and while on a defence establishment, the National Defence Act stated that these offences were to be tried as service offences with the specific exceptions of Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape prior to 1985, and Murder, Manslaughter, and Sexual Assault (not including crimes against children), between 1985 and 1998.
Members of the regular force are subjected to the Code of Service Discipline from the time they enlist until the time they are released, 24/7/365.
The Canadian Armed Forces, prior to 1998, could try for sexual crimes against children so long as “consent” was a possibility. This meant that the military could try a member for any sexual assault involving a child between the ages of 14 to 18.
If the military wished to proceed with charges related to children under the age of consent, those charges had to be tried in the civilian courts.
Any service charge of child sexual abuse that had been brought against a member of the Canadian Armed Forces had to be approved by the commanding officer of the accused.
The commanding officer had the full authority pre-1998 to dismiss ANY service offence charge that had been brought against a member of the Canadian Forces.
Gross indecency and indecent assault could easily become drunk and disorderly, or behaviour unbecoming. The offender gets punished, and the public doesn’t find out about a child sexual assault.
Take all the time you need to think about that.
Judicial Review
I’ve begun to realize that the laws in this country are written by naive politicians assuming that no one has anything to hide and everyone is interested in justice.
After I received the findings of the 2012 MPCC review that found the CFNIS in 2011 did a stellar and upstanding investigation I filed an application for Judicial Review with the Federal Court of Canada.
The nice thing about filing an application for Judicial Review is the Military Police Complaints Commission was compelled to hand over to men certified copies of the documents that were provided to the MPCC by the Provost Marshal.
The sad thing about filing an application for Judicial Review is realizing that the CFNIS fucked up the 2011 investigation beyond all comprehension and that there is literally nothing I can do to prove to the court that the CFNIS willfully withheld documents and information from the MPCC.
Remember, during an MPCC review, they don’t share with you any of the evidence that the Provost Marshal supplied to them.
And by the time you get to Judicial Review you are not allowed to introduce new evidence.
So you are literally fucked seven ways from Sunday.
Federal Court gives you the opportunity to give the Provost Marshal a polite “fuck you”, but other than that the Department of Justice will strike all “new” evidence that you introduce to prove that the CFNIS conducted an inept investigation.
Sure, you can approach the Supreme Court of Canada and ask them to review the admissibility of the new evidence and whether or not the MPCC should have known that they were being actively deceived.
But doing this is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
What evidence was withheld actively withheld from the MPCC by the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal?
- My social service records that indicated that my grandmother lived with us and raised my brother and I on CFB Namao
- That I was in foster care due to major dysfunction in the household that stemmed from my father’s inability to accept responsibility for his family.
- That I was suffering from mental health issues that are all standard indicators of child sexual abuse.
- That I had a military social worker.
- That my father’s statement to the CFNIS denying the presence of any babysitter or the knowledge of any sexual assaults was wrong as both Captain Totzke and my father blamed me exclusively for what had happened on the base and for the fact that I allowed the babysitter to molest my brother.
These were all important items as my father in his statement to the CFNIS claimed that there never was a babysitter, that his mother only briefly looked after my brother and I, and that my brother and I were never sexually abused.
It also turned out that the CFNIS scrubbed any and all mention of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae from the investigation.
As part of my application for Judicial Review I gave my father a written examination. My father, when presented with excepts from my social service records and foster care records contradicted everything he said to the CFNIS in 2011.
The CFNIS had my social service records and my foster care records in 2011. The CFNIS could have easily called my father back in to ask him why his statement to the CFNIS didn’t come anywhere near to what my social service records and my foster care records revealed.
The second CFNIS investigation
In around August of 2015 I was contacted by RCMP inspector Akrum Ghadbhan. This was the result of a letter that I had sent to the RCMP Commissioner and the Minister of National Defence in which I mentioned the details of a recorded phone call that I had with the father of the babysitter.
Inspector Ghadbhan said that he had reviewed the CFNIS investigation and that it didn’t meet contemporary policing standards and that he was recommending that the CFNIS reopen the investigation with the new evidence that I had provided.
Evidence that I provided:
- My father’s written examination to the Federal Court
- My brother’s written examination to the Federal Court
- Very specific excerpts from my social service paperwork and my foster care paperwork.
- Details of my conversation with Fred R. Cunningham that occurred on November 27th, 2011.
- A copy of the recorded phone call between myself and the babysitter’s father that occurred in July of 2015.
- My grandmother’s vital stats.
- My step grandfather’s vital stats.
- Proof that I had told the CFNIS during my initial video interview in March of 2011 that I had attempted twice before to report this to the military police but that both times the military police refused to look at the matter citing the civilian status of my babysitter.
- Proof that Captain Terry Totzke had extensive involvement with me in the aftermath of CFB Namao.
Sgt. Damon Tenaschuk of the CFNIS Pacific Region was given this case to investigate.
About the only thing outstanding about the second CFNIS investigation is when Sgt. Tenaschuk called me to let me know that he had obtained a copy of CFSIU DS-120-10-80 and that this document had the following to say:
- What Fred Cunningham had told me on Nov. 27th, 2011 was the truth and that Fred was in a position to know what he had told me.
- That much like I had told Mcpl Christian Cyr on May 3rd, 2011 about the visits to the chapel and the sickly sweet grape juice that Captain McRae openly admitted to the military police inn 1980 that he had brought numerous children over to the base chapel and that he would give them alcohol and that sometimes they’d fool around in the bedroom afterwards.
- That the investigation of Captain McRae was only initiated AFTER the investigation of the babysitter due to numerous complaints of the babysitter molesting much younger children on the base.
- That paperwork such as CFSIU DS-120-10-80 is only supposed to be retained for 7 years according to DND rules and the fact that it still existed in 2017 meant that it had been used within 7 years of McRae’s court martial, and then again within 7 years of the second use, and so on.
After this phone call I filed an ATI for the court martial transcripts and the CFSIU paperwork. DND fought me on this. I had to enlist the help of the Information Commissioner of Canada.
MPCC part 2
In early 2018 I received a phone call from Sgt. Tenaschuk stating that the Crown was not recommending charges.
So I filed another complaint with the MPCC.
This time around the Provost Marshal outright refused the request for a review implying that the review that occurred in 2012 was more than sufficient.
The MPCC commenced a review anyways.
This time I gave the MPCC copies of recorded phone calls, copies of emails, copies of the original video statement in which I explain what home life was like, and that I had tried to report this abuse twice before.
I also specifically mentioned the discussion Sgt. Tenaschuk and I had about Fred Cunningham, CFSIU DS-120-10-80, and DND’s outright refusal to grant me access to the investigation paperwork or the court martial transcripts.
I wasn’t expecting too much this time around.
But I think the MPCC realized just how badly the Provost Marshal fucked them over during the 2012 MPCC review.
The MPCC conducted their review of my complaint against Sgt. Tenaschuk and found that Sgt. Tenaschuk had followed the investigation framework as laid down by his superiors.
The MPCC didn’t make any mention of CFSIU DS-120-10-80 in relation to the investigation of my complaint against the babysitter, which would seem to indicate that it wasn’t in the documents that were handed over to the MPCC by the Provost Marshal.
The MPCC looks elsewhere.
The MPCC did however look at a parallel investigation in which the CFNIS was investigating the complaint of another former military dependent against the same babysitter. This investigation was being conducted by the CFNIS Western Region.
The MPCC went to great pains in the October 2020 final report to indicate that they looked at this parallel investigation just for curiosity.
It was during this look that they noticed that the CFNIS Wester Region had in its possession the infamous CFSIU DS-120-10-80 and the 1980 Courts Martial transcripts for Captain Father Angus McRae.
The Information Commissioner of Canada.
I had been involved with the Information Commissioner of Canada ever since DND first refused to release Captain McRae’s courts martial transcripts to me in 2012.
When DND refused to provide me with a copy of DS-120-10-80 in 2018 I enlisted the help of the ICC again.
The ICC wasn’t too hopeful of a resolution as DND and the CSIS are tied for being the government agencies most likely to stonewall ATI requests.
But in mid 2019 I was contacted by the ICC and told that DND had just granted access to the documents to another requestor, so I should refile my request, and that DND could not refuse to honour my request.
DND did release to me the documents.
They were so redacted that it was a joke.
It was almost as bad as the documents that the DOJ released to me about the settlement between the babysitter and the DND when the babysitter sued the DND for the abuse he endured on CFB Namao at the hands of Captain McRae.
David Pugliese
I had been trying to interest David in my story over the years, but there just weren’t any bites. To be honest, absolutely nobody in the media was willing to buy into the topic of child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces or the fact that the military loves to hide and bury this stuff as much as possible.
It was sometime in the late winter / early spring of 2020 when David ran a story on DND stonewalling ATI requests. I contacted David and gave him the low down on what I was encountering.
David ran a couple of stories, and poof, I had my documents, this time with many fewer redactions. I got my documents around the late summer of 2020, just before the MPCC released their final review of my second complaint against the CFNIS.
The Courts Martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork confirmed everything that I had been piecing together over the years.
- The babysitter was a prolific child abuser
- There were living quarters attached to the chapel
- Captain McRae was known to be bringing children to the chapel and giving them alcohol.
The MPCC second review final report.
I now understand why the DND and the Minister of National Defence gave in so easily when David Pugliese started asking questions. The DND and the MOD both knew that the MPCC had obtained the Courts Martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork.
And sure enough the MPCC mentioned both of these documents in its final report.
I received the final MPCC report in November of 2020.
The MPCC did take issue with the CFNIS for relying on the Crown’s reluctance to prosecute as an indication that no crime had occurred. The MPCC said that it was quite evident that I and my brother were victims of crime at the hands of the babysitter. The MPCC then explained the difference between civil liability and criminal liability. The CFNIS should never had said that there was no evidence to indicate a crime had occured. The CFNIS should have indicated that the evidence presented wasn’t enough to secure a conviction.
And as clipped as the wings of the MPCC are, they found a way to stick a dagger in the back of the Provost Marshal.
As mentioned, they looked at the parallel investigation into a complaint made by another former military dependent who had been abused by the babysitter.
That’s when the MPCC confirmed the existence of the courts martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork.
The MPCC was the other requestor that the Information Commissioner had informed me had received a copy of the CFSIU investigation paperwork and the courts martial transcripts.
The Provost Marshal must have told the CFNIS in 2012 and the CFNIS in 2018 to withhold those documents from the MPCC.
And the MPCC wouldn’t have known any better, but they did go look at that parallel investigation, probably without informing the Provost Marshal, and lo-and-behold look at what they found.
They just couldn’t grab a copy of the documents from the CFNIS. Instead they’d have to file the required ATI. And when DND complied with that ATI request that would have triggered the Information Commissioner to call me to let me know that I too could now request a copy of the released documents and DND would be very hard pressed to deny me a copy.
The MPCC couldn’t include the contents of the CFSIU paperwork or the courts martial transcripts within the findings of my complaint as the Provost Marshal didn’t include a copy of these documents in their submissions to the MPCC in 2012 and 2018.
But the MPCC did include a separate section in the final report outside of the section that dealt with my complaint against Sgt. Tenaschuk that talked about these two documents and the contents.
The MPCC noted that Captain McRae was a prolific pedophile.
The MPCC noted that the investigation into Captain McRae was triggered by the base military police investigating the babysitter as the result of numerous parents on base complaining about the babysitter molesting young children.
The MPCC noted that the babysitter’s attraction to young children was used by Captain McRae’s defence officer as a means to discredit the babysitter.
The MPCC noted that the babysitter’s criminal record for molesting children was far more extensive than what the CFNIS had indicated to me.
The MPCC highlighted that the babysitter was known on one occasion when he was almost 15 years old to have had anal intercourse with three 10 year old boys behind the recreation centre.
The MPCC also noted that it was revealed during Captain McRae’s courts martial that the babysitter was receiving psychiatric treatment for his attraction to young children.
And more importantly, the MPCC reached all the way back to the 2011 CFNIS investigation and specifically the actions of Sgt. Christian Cyr.
On May 3rd, 2011, master corporal Christian Cyr contacted me and asked me if I knew anything about the base priest molesting children during the same period of time that I was accusing the babysitter of molesting my brother and I.
During the same phone call, master corporal Cyr tried in earnest to get me to believe that the babysitter was only 12 or 13 years old at the time and therefore couldn’t be charged under the juvenile delinquent’s act. During the 2012 MPCC review, Cyr denied telling me this information or asking me about Captain McRae. The 2012 MPCC review took issue with this as Cyr noted in his records that he did ask me these questions.
As the MPCC noted in the November 2020 Final Report, the only place that the mistake is made in regards to the babysitter’s age occurs within the CFSIU DS-120-10-80 investigation paperwork. That mistake in age exists nowhere else, especially not in the babysitter’s CPIC file.
The CFNIS would have run the babysitter’s name through the CPIC database at the start of the investigation in 2011 after the Edmonton Police Service transferred the file over to the CFNIS.
So yes, the CFNIS had the CFSIU investigation paperwork right from the start of the 2011 investigation, but their goal from the start was never to bring me justice.
The sole goal of the CFNIS in 2011 was to conduct a Dog and Pony show investigation.
But this house of cards collapsed all because one CFNIS investigator thought that he knew the truth and wanted to play Mr. Bigshot.
Class Action
And of course, without CFSIU DS-120-10-80, the transcripts from Courts Martial CM62 July 15 – July 18, 1980, and Captain McRae’s Ecclesiastical trial with the Archdiocese of Edmonton there wouldn’t be a class action.
Dog and Pony Show
I honestly don’t know where I’d be right now if master corporal Christian Cyr had just kept his mouth shut about what he knew about Captain McRae and Captain McRae’s connection to the babysitter.
When petty officer Steve Morris called me on November 4th, 2011 to tell me that the CFNIS could find no evidence to indicate that the babysitter was capable of what I accused him of, I probably would have left it at that.
If I hadn’t put the plea out on the base brat groups and been rewarded with Fred Cunningham’s number I never would have learnt first hand from the former Acting Section commander of the CFSIU, that had been personally tasked by the base security officer, Captain David Pilling, with investigating Captain McRae, just how large and extensive this scandal was.
I would never know about the babysitter’s two convictions for child molestation in 1985 if James hadn’t come forward in the spring of 2012 and pointed me right towards the specific newspaper article.
I would have just accepted the results of the Dog and Pony show CFNIS pretend investigation.
After all, captain Totzke and my father blamed me for what had happened on CFB Namao.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe my father was right when he said that it was no use me trying to escape my responsibility for what I had allowed to happen.
Provost Marshal
I will say this though, from my dealings with the Provost Marshal’s office way back in the days of Lieutenant Colonel Gilles Sansterre, the provost marshal is a trickster fox.
The provost marshal is the least believable character in the Canadian Armed Forces.
And the provost marshal will lie and obstruct without a second thought if it helps to keep the dirty laundry hidden in the closet.
Beeshive 