How a historical sexual abuse file exposed the gap between public promises, military police discretion, and civilian oversight
In February 2022, I wrote to Canada’s Minister of National Defence, Anita Anand, asking a simple question:
Why was the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service refusing to transfer my historical sexual assault complaint to civilian authorities?
At the time, Canadians had been told that sexual misconduct investigations in the Canadian Armed Forces were being moved out of the military justice system and into the civilian justice system. That public message mattered. It was supposed to mean something. It was supposed to represent a change in direction after years of reports, scandals, reviews, and institutional failures.
But in my case, the message I received was very different.
I had been informed by CFNIS Victim Services that my complaint of sexual assault against retired Canadian Armed Forces officer Brigadier General Roger Bazin would not be handed over to civilian authorities. I had not been given a proper explanation by Sgt. David Winship of CFNIS Western Region. So I wrote to the Minister directly and asked why CFNIS was holding onto a historical matter involving alleged sexual assault of a civilian minor.
Two years later, the Military Police Complaints Commission would open a public interest investigation into a broader version of the same issue: whether the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal had failed to implement ministerial direction to transfer sexual offence investigations to civilian police.
Then the whole thing collapsed.
Not because the issue was unimportant.
Not because the concern was imaginary.
Not because the MPCC found that the military police policy made sense.
It collapsed because the Minister of National Defence later told the MPCC that neither he nor his predecessor had actually issued such direction to the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal.
That distinction matters.
Because if there was no actual direction, then what exactly had Canadians been told?
And if there was no actual direction, what exactly were victims supposed to rely on?
The Arbour recommendation was clear
Madame Louise Arbour’s recommendation was not complicated.
Sexual assaults and other criminal offences of a sexual nature, including historical sexual offences alleged to have been committed by current or former CAF members, should be referred to civilian authorities. Investigations already underway by CFNIS should be transferred to civilian police unless they were near completion. Charges, in all cases, should proceed in civilian court.
That was the idea.
Remove these cases from the military system.
Remove the conflict.
Remove the appearance that the institution was still controlling investigations that could expose the institution itself.
But my experience showed something different.
I had been interviewed by CFNIS at Vancouver Police Department headquarters on July 30, 2020, in relation to what I described in my own calendar record as the “sauna man” matter.
A few days later, on August 10, 2020, I sent Sgt. Winship and MCpl Brady examples of decades-old sexual assault cases that had still resulted in civilian criminal charges. I wanted CFNIS to understand that “forty years” did not automatically mean impossible. I also specifically flagged the concern that the pre-1998 National Defence Act three-year time bar could become an obstacle. Sgt. Winship replied that they would “take a look at those.”
So this was not a concern I invented after the file stalled.
CFNIS was alerted to the limitation issue from the beginning.
The pre-1998 National Defence Act problem
The problem I raised with Minister Anand was not simply that CFNIS had failed to update me.
The problem was deeper.
Before Bill C-25 amended the National Defence Act in 1998, the Code of Service Discipline contained a three-year limitation period for trying service offences, subject to certain exceptions. That mattered because Criminal Code offences could be incorporated into the military justice system as service offences.
In my February 11, 2022 letter, I pointed directly to Legislative Summary LS-311E and the Bill C-25 amendment that removed the three-year limitation period for service offences, replacing it with the applicable Criminal Code limitation periods for civilian criminal offences.
The problem, as I framed it, was that Bill C-25 did not appear to retroactively undo the damage caused by the old three-year time bar.
That left a brutal question:
What happened to civilian children on Canadian Forces bases who were abused by people subject to the Code of Service Discipline before 1998?
If the military system claimed jurisdiction back then, and if the military system’s limitation period expired, did those children lose practical access to justice through no fault of their own?
That was the question I put before the Minister.
And it was not theoretical.
I specifically asked Minister Anand to speak to the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff and the Provost Marshal to determine why my case — involving the alleged sexual assault of a civilian minor — had not been handed over to civilian authorities like other sexual assault matters within the military justice system.
My MPCC complaint came first
On February 8, 2022, I filed a Military Police Complaints Commission conduct complaint concerning Sgt. David Winship.
In that complaint, I stated that I had been contacted by CFNIS Victim Services in November 2021 and told that, due to recent decisions by Minister Anand, my case was more than likely being handed over to civilian authorities. I then stated that on January 19, 2022, I was contacted again and informed that, for some unknown reason, my case was not going to be handed over to civilian authorities.
That is the key.
This was February 2022.
The broader MPCC public interest investigation into the transfer issue would not happen until 2024.
So when MPCC 2023-084 later examined whether sexual offence files had been properly transferred to civilian police, my case-specific complaint had already raised the same practical problem two years earlier.
The MPCC acknowledged receipt of my complaint on February 14, 2022 and assigned it file number MPCC 2022-006 (Bees). But the MPCC did not investigate it directly at that stage. Under subsection 250.26(1) of the National Defence Act, conduct complaints are dealt with by the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal in the first instance. So my complaint was forwarded to the CFPM.
In plain English:
A complaint about CFNIS handling was sent first to the military police leadership structure.
That may have followed the statute.
But it also demonstrates the structural problem.
The same system whose decisions were being challenged got first control over the response.
The informal resolution route
In April 2022, Canadian Forces Military Police Group Professional Standards wrote to me advising that Sgt. Winship had agreed to an Informal Resolution. The letter stated that if informal resolution succeeded, the details had to be set out in writing and agreed to by both the complainant and the subject of the complaint. If it did not resolve the matter, the file would proceed to a Professional Standards Investigation.
That letter matters because it confirms the complaint was not merely theoretical. It entered the formal military police complaint process.
But again, the structural issue remains.
The central issue was not simply whether Sgt. Winship had been polite enough, responsive enough, or communicative enough.
The central issue was this:
Why was CFNIS retaining a historical sexual assault-related file that appeared to fall within the very category of cases the public had been told were moving to civilian police?
And if CFNIS was retaining it because the old National Defence Act created a military justice limitation problem, then that was not merely an individual complaint.
That was a systemic problem.
Then came MPCC 2023-084
In January 2024, the MPCC decided to conduct a public interest investigation into a complaint alleging that the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal had failed to implement ministerial direction to transfer sexual misconduct investigations to the civilian justice system.
The MPCC cited several reasons why the matter was serious.
The issue involved the head of the military police. It raised systemic concerns. It involved public reporting. It raised questions about civilian control of military policing. And it involved the broader question of what “victim-centric” meant when deciding whether sexual offence files should be transferred to civilian police.
The MPCC had good reason to take the issue seriously.
The public record appeared to suggest that direction had been given.
Minister Anand had publicly said she accepted Arbour’s recommendations. The December 2022 report to Parliament said Military Police were directed to review ongoing files and transfer them where possible. Minister Blair later said the government had not intended for half the files to remain with military investigators.
But then, on January 23, 2024, the MPCC received new information from the Minister of National Defence.
The Minister stated that neither he nor his predecessor had issued direction to the CFPM regarding the transfer of files involving criminal offences of a sexual nature.
That changed everything.
On February 6, 2024, the MPCC terminated the public interest investigation. The Commission concluded that without confirmed ministerial direction, there was no basis to find that the CFPM had failed to comply with such direction.
That is where the bureaucratic trap door opened.
The public message versus the legal reality
The MPCC’s 2024 decision exposes a serious gap between public messaging and enforceable direction.
Publicly, Canadians were told that the Arbour recommendation had been accepted.
Publicly, Canadians were told sexual misconduct investigations were being moved to the civilian system.
Publicly, victims could reasonably believe that the military police were no longer supposed to be holding onto these files.
But legally, when the MPCC tried to investigate whether the CFPM had failed to follow ministerial direction, the Minister said there had been no such direction.
That is not a small technicality.
That is the whole issue.
Because if public statements are not operational direction, then public statements do not protect victims.
If reports to Parliament do not amount to binding instruction, then reports to Parliament do not control CFNIS conduct.
If a Minister says a recommendation has been accepted, but no enforceable direction is issued to the Provost Marshal, then the military police may still retain practical control over the very cases the public thought were being removed from military control.
That is not transparency.
That is fog.
The MPCC still criticized the policy
The MPCC did not say the CFPM’s policy was fine.
Quite the opposite.
Even after terminating the investigation, the MPCC Chairperson stated that it was difficult to reconcile Madame Arbour’s recommendations with the CFPM’s decision not to transfer every file involving criminal offences of a sexual nature to civilian police. The Chairperson also found it puzzling that the CFPM referenced Arbour’s recommendation while implementing directions that contradicted it.
The MPCC also criticized the policy’s use of the term “victim-centric, trauma-informed,” stating that it was insufficient to simply use that language without written considerations explaining why and how the approach was victim-centred and trauma-informed. The Chairperson concluded that, in its current form, the policy did not meet that threshold and placed an unfair burden on victims.
That part is important.
The MPCC could not continue the investigation because the legal hook disappeared.
But the Commission still recognized the policy problem.
In other words:
The oversight body could see the smoke.
It just no longer had the jurisdictional fire alarm it needed.
Why my 2022 complaint matters now
My February 2022 complaint and letter to Minister Anand matter because they show the problem was not abstract.
I was not writing in 2024 after reading media coverage.
I was not reacting after the MPCC public interest investigation became public.
I was raising the issue in real time, in early 2022, after being told that my own historical sexual-assault-related file would not be transferred to civilian authorities.
My case showed the practical problem before the MPCC’s broader 2024 decision exposed the legal one.
The sequence matters:
First, a victim is told his file will not be transferred.
Then he asks CFNIS and the Minister why.
Then his MPCC complaint is routed back to the CFPM for first-instance handling.
Then, two years later, the MPCC tries to investigate the broader transfer issue.
Then the Minister says there was never an actual direction.
That is not a clean accountability system.
That is a system where every piece can point to another piece.
CFNIS can say it is following policy.
The CFPM can say transfer depends on process.
The Minister can say no direction was issued.
The MPCC can say it cannot investigate failure to comply with a direction that did not exist.
And the victim is left standing there, holding the file.
The real question
The real question is not whether the words “victim-centric” appear in a policy.
The real question is whether the system actually removes institutional conflict from sexual offence investigations.
In historical cases involving Canadian Forces bases, military dependants, and persons subject to the Code of Service Discipline, the conflict is obvious.
The Canadian Forces may have been the employer.
The Canadian Forces may have controlled the base.
The Canadian Forces may have controlled the historical records.
The Canadian Forces may have controlled the military police.
The Canadian Forces may have controlled the military justice process.
And decades later, CFNIS may still be the body deciding what happens to the complaint.
That is not independence in any meaningful sense.
That is institutional self-navigation.
Conclusion: direction should mean direction
If the Government of Canada tells the public that sexual misconduct investigations are being moved to civilian police, then that commitment should exist as more than a press statement, a tweet, or a line in a report.
It should exist as actual direction.
It should be written.
It should be traceable.
It should be enforceable.
And oversight bodies should not be left trying to determine whether public political commitments were ever converted into operational reality.
My 2022 complaint shows what happens in the gap between promise and direction.
A historical sexual assault-related file stays with CFNIS.
The complainant asks why.
The complaint goes back through the CFPM structure.
The policy language says “victim-centric.”
But the actual process leaves the victim carrying the burden of figuring out what the system is doing, why it is doing it, and whether anyone outside that system has the power to intervene.
That is not victim-centred.
That is bureaucracy wearing a trauma-informed nametag.
And it is exactly why these files should never have been left in military hands in the first place.
