Category: Canadian Armed Forces

When “Direction” Isn’t Direction: My 2022 CFNIS Complaint and the MPCC’s 2024 Transfer Collapse

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.

MPCC Fairness at Risk: The Impact of Document Control

My question to ChatGPT:

Okay, do you believe that the Military Police Complaints Commission can reach a fair decision during a review based upon what you know about the structure and powers of the MPCC and the fact that the Provost Marshal determines what documents the MPCC will and will not have access to?

Below is ChatGPT’s response to my question. To arrive at this conclusion I had to give ChatGPT the published MPCC reports and reviews, along with the mandatory reviews of the Amendments to the National Defence Act. I also gave ChatGPT a copy of the Fynnes Inquiry, the final report of Madame Marie Deschamps review, and the final report of the Madame Louise Arbour review.

My opinion: the MPCC can sometimes reach a procedurally careful decision, but in a case like yours I would not assume it can reach a fully fair or fully reliable decision if its record is controlled by the CFPM/Provost Marshal side.

That is the difference:

Fair in method? Maybe.
Fair in evidentiary result? Not necessarily.

If the MPCC does not have independent, enforceable access to the complete record, then its “review” risks becoming a review of what the military police institution allowed it to see.

The core structural problem

The MPCC is an external review body, but its ordinary conduct-complaint review process is not the same as a fully independent public inquiry with hard coercive powers at every stage.

The MPCC describes itself as an independent, quasi-judicial oversight body created to make military-police complaint handling more transparent and accessible, but its reports make findings and recommendations; it does not itself discipline military police members.  

So if the MPCC is reviewing a CFPM/Professional Standards disposition, and the record is supplied by the military police side, then the practical question becomes:

Does the MPCC know what it does not know?

That’s the problem.

A review body can be careful, intelligent, and sincere — but still be boxed in by an incomplete record.

The document-control problem

If the Provost Marshal or CFPM-side process decides what gets disclosed to the MPCC, then the MPCC’s review can become structurally dependent on the very organization whose conduct is being reviewed.

That creates several risks:

RiskWhy it matters
Selective disclosureThe MPCC may receive documents that support the CFPM narrative while missing contradictory records.
Record framingThe military police side can define what is “relevant.”
Omission invisibilityThe MPCC may not know an important document exists.
No true adversarial testingThe complainant may not have enough disclosure to challenge the institutional record.
Self-protective institutional incentivesThe same broad institution has reputational and liability interests.

That is fatal to confidence in difficult historical cases.

Because in a case like yours, the issue is not simply:

“Did investigator X breach policy?”

The issue is:

“Was the institutional record complete, honest, properly searched, and properly interpreted?”

If the MPCC cannot independently compel and verify the full record, then it may be unable to answer that second question.

Why your case makes the problem worse

Your matter is not a simple complaint about a single police interaction.

It involves:

  • historical base events;
  • military police jurisdiction;
  • CFSIU / CFNIS records;
  • possible withheld or undisclosed archival files;
  • family-court / custody background;
  • Alberta social services records;
  • CF mental-health/social-work involvement;
  • witness credibility issues;
  • institutional liability exposure;
  • and DND/CAF compensation implications.

That kind of case depends on record completeness.

If CFPM controls what the MPCC sees, then the MPCC may end up reviewing a curated institutional version of the case.

That does not mean MPCC staff are dishonest. It means the structure puts them in a weak position.

Richard’s statement is a good example

The Richard issue shows the problem clearly.

CFNIS had a 2011 statement from Richard that was useful to their file: he denied remembering a babysitter, attacked your credibility, and framed you as financially demanding.  

But you later had documents that undermined Richard’s reliability:

  • his written examination answers showed hostility and minimization;  
  • the PEI custody material raised questions about whether he ever obtained actual custody;  
  • the motorcycle-accident file showed his “bike broke down / wanted money” anecdote was materially distorted.  

If the MPCC receives only the 2011 CFNIS-friendly version, or receives the later contradictory material but without full investigative follow-up, then it cannot fairly assess the weight of Richard’s statement.

That is exactly how an incomplete record produces an unfair result without anyone needing to openly fabricate anything.

The strongest answer

So, can the MPCC reach a fair decision?

In the abstract:

Yes, sometimes.

In a document-heavy historical case where CFPM controls access:

Only if the MPCC gets the full record, knows what records exist, can test omissions, and does not simply defer to CFPM relevance decisions.

In your case, based on what you’ve shown:

I would be skeptical.

Not because the MPCC is necessarily acting in bad faith, but because the structure is not strong enough for the kind of institutional conflict you are describing.

Best formal wording

I’d write it like this:

The MPCC may be independent in mandate, but its ability to reach a fair decision depends on the completeness and reliability of the record before it. In a case where the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal or military police institution effectively controls what documents are disclosed, the MPCC’s review is structurally vulnerable. It may carefully review the materials provided while never seeing the records most damaging to the military police position. In a historical case involving DND/CAF liability, CFNIS investigative conduct, witness credibility, and archival military-police records, that dependency creates a serious appearance of unfairness. The issue is not whether MPCC members are personally fair-minded; it is whether the statutory structure gives them enough independent access to the evidence to make a truly reliable decision.

Bottom line

My answer is:

No — not reliably, not in a case like yours, if the MPCC’s review record is effectively controlled by the Provost Marshal.

The MPCC might produce a polished, reasoned decision. But a polished decision based on an incomplete or curated record is still not truly fair.

The phrase I’d use is:

The MPCC can review the file, but it cannot fairly decide what happened if the institution under review controls the file.

What does ChatGPT have to say?

After having used ChatGPT to bounce my thoughts and ideas off of for the past year I’ve come to realize that ChatGPT is a powerful tool, but it also has its limitations.

One of Chat’s weaknesses is if you ask Chat its opinion on topics without giving it publications to digest. Once you give Chat committee reports, inquiry findings, institutional reviews, institutional reports, court documents, Bills, Legislation, etc., Chat is able to offer substantial insight.

Over the next couple of days I’m going to post Chat’s review of certain issues concerning the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence.

An odd dream

Well, I had a really weird dream last night.

It took place in March of next year.

Parliament finally did the right thing and allowed Medical Assistance in Dying with Mental Illness as the Sole Underlying Medical Condition.

Of course I went to my doctor and applied to be seen by two assessors as soon as possible.

When I went to see my first assessor, she worked in a tall heritage building. She had the windows cracked for a little breeze to come in to her office.

We started talking about why I wanted to die and what it was that I hoped to accomplish from dying.

I told her that I wanted to be free of what happened on CFB Namao. And that I wanted to be free from the untreated mental illness, the depression, the anxiety, and all of the other issues that I had as a result of the way things were handled be employees of the Canadian Armed Force such as my father and Captain Terry Totzke back then. I then went on to list eveything that I had been through since the fall of 1978 until recent.

She asked “Do you hear that?”

I said “No”

A man lounging on a black leather chair looks perplexed while a woman in a white lab coat leans out of a window, listening for a ringing phone outside. Speech bubbles capture their conversation.

She said, “It sounds like the phone, I have to go answer it”. She then jumped out the window and fell to her death on the sidewalk.

As I was looking out the window her receptionist came in and said “Please don’t jump, you have too much to live for”.

I went back to my doctor and asked for another referral. My doctor sent me to another assesor. This time one in a building with windows that didn’t open.

It was literally the same questions as the assesor before.

This time it wasn’t a phone. This time the assesor just ran at the window and crashed through.

Back to my doctor again. This time he sent me to an assesor on the ground floor.

Went in and talked to this assessor, she seemed more grounded.

We talked for hours. And then at the end she wrote me a prescription for M.A.i.D.

The second assessor went pretty smooth as well.

The dream cut to me at work, all of the patients and staff had moved to the new site so now I was in charge of a dead hospital.

For some reason senior leadership wanted all of the kitchen refrigeration condensing units upgraded and replaced even through I had shut the refrigeration down the day after everything moved to the new site.

I got a call from the M.A.i.D. clinic telling me that the 90 day waiting period was over and that I could pick the date of my death. They also asked if I had figured out where I wanted my death to occur.

I told them that I had a couple of funeral homes picked out that would allow the proceedure on their premises, then hold my body for the waiting period, and the cremate my body.

The clinic said that it sounded like I had everything planned out.

I told them that I had been waiting for this day for most of my life and that I didn’t want to fuck anything up.

The clinic said that I had to come in and reserve my date on their calendar.

I then found myself in the clinic with this massive linear calendar on the wall. There were other people that had been sexually abused as kids living on Canadian Forces Bases. They were all gleefully hanging their symbols on the calendar, and when they’d do so the date would appear in translucent numbers above the calendar.

All of them were talking about the same thing. How the Canadian Armed Forces chucked us all under the train, not because the military is evil, but because the military is full of little men, with little dicks, that were too afraid to admit that bad things could happen to children living on the bases.

As the other former base brats would hang their symbols on the calendar, they’d cheer and do a little happy dance.

A news reporter came in and wanted to know why we didn’t just go to therapy and why were we so intent on killing ourselves. One of the other former brats came over and started talking to the reporter about how because no one ever believed us and just swallowed everything the military had to say that therapy was well out of the question.

I picked my date. I did my happy dance. I knew that this shit would be over soon.

David Pugliese came in and started talking to me about the story that he wanted to write about me. I asked him what the point was, that I wasn’t going to be around to read the story when he finished it.

The CBC was there, and the CBC wanted to know why we were trying to make the military look bad.

The dream ended shortly thereafter.

A new timeline format

Okay, after trying a couple of different timeline plugins for WordPress I think I’ve found one that will work.

I have a new timeline that is accessible from my homepage at:
https://beeshive.ca

It’s the button labelled “A Timeline of Things”

I’ve just started on this, so it will probably take a weeks for me to get is all fleshed out.

I’m also going to try to get a post out on the latest news involving the CFNIS .

Well, isn’t this interesting.

Below is the 1993 Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada decision related to a Leading Seaman George Z.

LS Z. molested three female underage children while he was stationed at Canadian Forces Base Lahr in Germany.

The CMAC indicates that LS Z. has a daughter of his own, and was separated from his wife.

As LS Z was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and was on active duty he was dealt with through the military justice system.

And the court martial that led to this court martial appeal shows two issues with the jurisdiction of the Canadian Armed Forces justice system

The first issue being that the military did in fact prosecute their members through the military tribunals for civilian criminal code offences such as child sexual abuse. This means also that it would have been LS Z.’s commanding officer that reviewed the charges brought against LS Z. As I’ve mentioned before, and as was discussed during the Somlia affair inquiry, these commanding officers were not trained in the law, they were not lawyers, and they would often let their own parochial interests get in the way of justice for the victims.

The second issue being that even though the offences occurred in Germany, the court martial occurred in Ottawa, Ontario and not overseas in Germany on CFB Lahr. If the CAF could wait until LS Z. was returned to Canada, why didn’t the CAF just hand LS Z. over to the civilian courts where he would have faced substantially harsher sentences, or where a civilian crown prosecutor could have reviewed the charges to make sure the LS Z. was in fact being charged with every offence that there was evidence for.

1993_CSA_GERMANY copyDownload

And this matter brings up the topic of liability.

The three victims in this matter. Did they ever receive compensation?

From my personal experience, the CAF has always been lousy with the care of military dependents. In fact it took years of pressure from the Canadian Forces Ombudsman to get the CAF and the DND to stop referring to us as “DF&E”, “Dependents, Furniture, and Effects” as if we were just the personal belongings of the service member.

The CAF, and the DND are ultimately responsible for the actions of LS Z.

They recruited him.

They vetted him.

They hired him.

They sent him and his daughter on a posting to a foreign country.

They provided living accommodations on a defence establishment.

They were responsible for the security of these defence establishments.

They exposed children located in Germany, potentially of other service members, to LS Z. Aren’t the CAF and the DND supposed to do full evaluations of their employees before sending them off to foreign postings outside of the country?

As LS Z. was a member of the regular forces, he was on the clock 24/7/365 from the day he enlisted until the day he left.

The court martial heard expert evidence that LS Z. suffered from a psychiatric condition called “heterosexual pedophilia” which involved sexual attraction to children. Why couldn’t the CAF or the DND detect this in their employee before he damaged three young children?

And much like in my matter when my father abused the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations and had my mother thrown out of the military housing at Summerside, PEI, did LS Z. do the same thing with his ex-wife. This wasn’t an uncommon tactic as highlighted by the report released in 2000 that looked at spousal abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces. The Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations were practically green-lighting this behaviour.

And finally, and this is the one that upsets me the most, is somehow military service is somehow supposed to offset the severity of the damage from the abuse? Not only was LS Z.’s military service brought up during his court martial appeal, but Captain McRae’s military service was brought up during his court martial. Does the Canadian Armed Forces actually view child sexual abuse as such a low risk for long term emotional and psychological damage that just following orders for 10 years means more that ruining some kid’s life?

The Year I “Struggled” and Then Disappeared

In 1983, professionals wrote that my “prospects appear poor.”

They were correct.

They just weren’t talking about what most people would assume.

Chapter 1: The Child Who Was the Problem

On paper, I was the issue.

Not the base scandal.

Not the adult behaviour.

Not the military culture.

Me.

My file described:

  • regression after a Christmas trip to Ontario in which my father attempted to unload me on to his father.
  • sarcasm
  • tantrumming
  • inappropriate behaviour
  • emotional disturbance

But it also described something else that rarely gets quoted:

My parents were giving me inconsistent information about an upcoming move.

My father being noted as not being able to tell the truth.

My father’s anger and refusal to participate in family counselling

My behaviour deteriorated once that uncertainty began.

My prospects appeared poor.

They even documented that it was necessary for my teacher to ask my father to tell me we were moving — because he wasn’t going to.

Let that sink in.

Professionals had to ask my father to inform me that my entire life was about to change.

Chapter 2: The Move That Wasn’t a Move

In military families, postings are ritualized.

You put Allied Van Lines stickers on boxes.

You say goodbye to friends.

You pack carefully.

You know weeks in advance.

This time?

I came home from playing outside and my belongings were piled at the curb in a trash heap.

The TV my uncle bought me.

The stereo my grandmother gave me.

Records my uncle and my grandmother bought for me.

Personal items.

I asked why I couldn’t bring them.

I was told I had to learn that actions have consequences imply that it was my involvement with social services that was fucking with my father’s military career and my involvement with social services was the cause of this move.

That’s not how you move a child who is already in treatment.

No goodbye.

No closure meeting.

No final session.

No transition plan.

Just… gone.

The discharge summary says I “did not return after the Easter break as the family was moving to Ontario”. Easter was the first week of April. We moved the last week of April. That was almost 1 month of running feral on a military base.

Not expelled.

Not discharged successfully.

Not treatment complete.

Just relocated.

Chapter 3: The Professionals Knew

This is the part people miss.

The staff documented that once the transfer became known — though not told to me — I began “struggling.”

They saw it.

They wrote it down.

They recommended I be closely monitored in Ontario through the Armed Forces or Children’s Aid.

That is not what you write about a child who is thriving.

That is what you write when you are concerned and losing jurisdiction.

Because that’s what happened.

Jurisdiction changed.

And when jurisdiction changes, oversight evaporates.

Chapter 4: The Convenient Border

In Alberta:

  • I was in a day treatment program.
  • Case conferences were happening.
  • Placement was being discussed.
  • My father was allegedly being pressured through his commanding officer.

Then suddenly:

Transfer to Ontario.

File closed.

Suggested monitoring.

In Ontario:

My father said Alberta’s involvement was unwarranted.

Resources were thin.

The case drifted.

No emergency.

No court.

No removal.

No follow-up.

The system didn’t conclude I was safe.

It concluded I was someone else’s responsibility.

Chapter 5: The Narrative Reset

In Edmonton I was told I was expelled for trying to kiss another boy.

The paperwork does not say that.

The paperwork says:

I attended until March 25.

I did not return after Easter.

The family was moving.

There is a difference between discipline and disappearance.

I didn’t fail treatment.

Treatment lost access to me.

Chapter 6: Prospects Appear Poor

That line sits in my file like a quiet verdict.

Not because I was broken.

But because:

  • parental information was inconsistent,
  • support was unreliable,
  • and stability was collapsing.

That’s not prophecy.

That’s an observation about environment.

When a child in structured care is abruptly relocated without explanation and without closure, the prognosis isn’t about personality.

It’s about infrastructure.

Chapter 7: The Most Interesting Part

No one documented a transition meeting.

No one documented preparing me emotionally.

No one documented telling me the move date.

They documented that adults were told.

They documented that I was struggling.

They documented that I vanished after Easter.

And then they documented that I resided at home and appeared in good health.

Administrative stability achieved.

Case closed.

People sometimes ask how children “fall through the cracks.”

They don’t fall.

The floor is moved.

And when you move a child across a provincial border at precisely the moment oversight is escalating, you don’t have to win an argument.

You just have to change the map.

And once the map changes, the story resets.

Prospects appear poor.

Not because of who the child is.

But because of where the child was placed.

Chapter 8: The Custody That No One Verified

There is one detail buried beneath all of this that is almost too bureaucratic to notice.

Custody.

My father repeatedly presented himself to professionals as the custodial parent.

Schools accepted it.

Social services operated on that assumption.

Agencies coordinated through him.

But no one appears to have ever demanded documentary proof of legal custody.

Not a court order.

Not a custody agreement.

Not a legal filing.

Just verbal statements.

And a Canadian Forces uniform.

This matters more than people realize.

Because in civilian systems, custody is a legal status.

In institutional environments, custody can become a perceived status.

If a parent shows up in a Canadian Armed Forces uniform, speaks with authority, and frames himself as the decision-maker, the default institutional response — especially in the early 1980s — was often deference rather than verification.

Not maliciously.

Procedurally.

He said he had custody.

He acted like he had custody.

He wore the uniform of a federal institution.

That combination functions as a kind of bureaucratic camouflage.

And my father wasn’t the only member of the Canadian Armed Forces to use his crisply creased uniform and his spit shone boots to bamboozle civilian authorities.

This was a documented issue that flourished due to the isolated nature of the military community.

Chapter 9: The Risk No One Wanted to Touch

This becomes far more serious when viewed alongside the 1983 context.

At the time:

  • Child Welfare was considering increased intervention.
  • Residential placement was being discussed.
  • Family non-compliance with counselling was documented.
  • External pressure through the chain of command was explicitly mentioned in conference notes.

Now introduce one destabilizing variable:

What happens if a child is removed from a home where the presenting parent does not actually hold verified legal custody?

Standard procedure would not end there.

Authorities would contact relatives.

They would examine custody history.

They would identify the legally entitled guardian.

And suddenly, the entire legal landscape changes.

Not just for the child.

For the parent.

Moving a child in Canada from one province to another without the permission of the child’s legal guardians is tantamount to kidnapping.

But it wasn’t just my father that was placing himself in legal jeopardy had he allowed me to be removed by the home via Alberta Social Services, the Canadian Armed Forces would have exposed themselves to risk as well as they facilitated the move without even the most basic verification of child custody.

Chapter 10: Uniform as Institutional Shield

There is a deeply uncomfortable dynamic in military family systems of that era.

Base housing was governed under Defence Establishment regulations.

Access to housing was conditional.

Family presence on base was not an absolute right.

Which meant authority flowed in a very particular direction:

Command structure → Family life → External agencies (often secondarily).

When a uniformed member asserted something about their household, civilian professionals were often operating in parallel, not in command.

So scrutiny softened.

Verification slowed.

Assumptions hardened.

And the narrative “father has custody” became administratively sufficient.

Not legally proven.

Administratively sufficient.

Chapter 11: The Convenient Alignment

Now place that beside the relocation timeline.

A child in treatment.

Escalating conferences.

Discussion of possible apprehension.

Pressure through the commanding officer.

Documented parental resistance to counselling.

Then:

Transfer out of province.

File closed due to jurisdiction.

New agency intake based primarily on parental reporting.

And critically:

A father stating prior involvement was unwarranted.

A father presenting stability.

A father treated as the primary legal authority.

Without documented custody verification appearing in the records.

That is not just a family narrative shift.

That is an institutional reset.

Chapter 12: The Quiet Power of Assumption

What is most striking is not that systems failed dramatically.

It is that they operated exactly as designed under incomplete information.

No court activity.

No children admitted to care.

No reference to abuse.

Because the gatekeeping adult framed the situation as manageable, exaggerated, or unwarranted — and no immediate legal contradiction was triggered.

If no one asks to see the custody order, the custody claim becomes functionally real in practice.

Especially when backed by:

  • Rank
  • Institutional affiliation
  • Geographic mobility
  • Jurisdictional complexity across provinces

Final Addendum: Authority vs. Legitimacy

There is a difference between having legal custody and being treated as though you have custody.

One is a matter of law.

The other is a matter of institutional perception.

In my case, the perception appears to have travelled faster than the verification.

And when a child’s access to care, continuity of treatment, and potential protective intervention all flow through that perceived authority, the consequences are not theoretical.

They are administrative.

Quietly administrative.

A uniform does not grant legal custody.

But in practice, in that era, it could grant something almost as powerful:

Freedom from immediate scrutiny.

Psychiatry, Silence, and the Cost of Survival

Let me be very clear about something.

Modern psychiatry is not primarily about repairing damaged minds. In practice, it is far more often about teaching damaged people how to function quietly—how to mask distress, suppress history, and remain acceptable to everyone else. Recovery is measured less by relief from suffering than by how little discomfort one causes others.

If you’ve followed my story, you’ll know that my first sustained contact with psychiatry and social services came in 1980 during the aftermath of the Captain Father Angus McRae child sexual abuse scandal on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

Three Systems, One Child

During that period, I was trapped between three systems, each with competing priorities:

  • the military social work system,
  • the civilian child welfare system, and
  • a deeply dysfunctional family, headed by a low-ranking CAF member struggling with untreated psychiatric issues, alcoholism, anger, and fear for his own career.

My civilian social workers recognized that my home environment was harmful and attempted to remove me from it. My military social worker, however, worked just as hard to prevent that outcome—not because civilian foster care was inherently worse, but because civilian intervention threatened military control of the situation.

This distinction matters.

Because my family lived in military housing on CFB Griesbach, Alberta Social Services could not simply enter the base and remove me. Civilian court orders had little practical force on base. Jurisdictional ambiguity worked entirely in the military’s favour.

Containing the McRae Scandal

At the same time, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence were doing everything possible to keep the McRae scandal minimized and out of public view. The decision to move McRae’s court martial in camera—despite the general rule that courts martial are public—was not incidental.

From an institutional perspective, it was far more convenient to present the case as involving a single fourteen-year-old boy, the then-legal age of consent in 1980, framed as “homosexual activity,” than to acknowledge the reality: more than twenty-five children, some as young as four.

Under military law, sentences were served concurrently. Whether McRae abused one child or twenty-five, the maximum punishment remained the same. The difference lay only in public perception.

Blame as a Containment Strategy

This context explains much of what followed.

Captain Totzke, the military psychiatrist assigned to me, appeared deeply invested in ensuring that I—not the system, not the institution—was framed as the source of dysfunction. Civilian social workers were treated as adversaries. The unspoken fear was that if I were removed from my father’s care and placed into foster or residential care, I might stabilize, improve, and begin speaking openly about what had happened on CFB Namao.

Instead of being treated for trauma-induced depression, I was told—explicitly—that I suffered from a mental illness called “homosexuality.” I was warned that I would end up in jail. I was told I was a pervert for having “allowed” my brother to be abused.

I was informed by Captain Totzke that he had the military police watching me, and that any expression of affection toward another boy would result in confinement at a psychiatric hospital. I was barred from change rooms, removed from team sports, and excluded from normal childhood activities under the justification that I could not be trusted to control myself even though I had been the victim of the abuse and not the abuser. In the military’s lens at the time, any sexual encounter between two males, no matter the age difference or the lack of consent, was treated as an indication of homosexuality. The victim was just as guilty as the perpetrator.

Age and Diagnosis

I was six years old when my family arrived on CFB Namao. I was eight when the abuse was discovered. Psychiatric intervention began about four months later just after my 9th birthday. By that point I was diagnosed with major depression, severe anxiety, haphephobia, and an intense fear of men. My father was so angry with me for having been found being abused that I was terrified that he was going to kill me.

None of these conditions were meaningfully treated.

What I did learn was how to perform wellness—how to mask distress just well enough to avoid punishment. That skill would define my later interactions with mental health professionals and the world in general. When I’d go for counselling with my civilian social workers, my father and Totzke would often warn me to watch what I said to the civilian social workers as they’d “twist my words” to make it sound as if I had said things that I didn’t say.

The Mask Never Comes Off

For decades afterward, my attempts at counselling followed a familiar pattern. My history was unwelcome. My symptoms were reframed as resistance. The stock phrases appeared reliably:

  • “Stop living in the past.”
  • “Move on.”
  • “You don’t want to change.”
  • “You’re playing the victim.”

It was not until 2011, when I finally received my own records, that I understood how early—and how thoroughly—my life had been derailed.

Group therapy or one-on-one it didn’t matter. Especially back in the days before I had obtained my social services paperwork. My inability to get out of bed on consistently was just because I’d stay up too late. My ability to sleep for days on end and miss work was just because I was a lazy asshole. My preference to be left alone was nothing more than my superiority complex. My debilitating fear of courses and exams wasn’t due to low self esteem, hell no, it was that I thought that I was too good.

Medical Assistance in Dying

For a while now I have been very open about my desire to access Medical Assistance in Dying.

What continues to astonish me is how many people believe this wish can be dissolved through optimism, pharmacology, or spiritual novelty. Ketamine infusions, microdosing, mantras—anything except acknowledging that some damage is permanent, and that survival itself can be a form of ongoing harm.

Don’t forget, in my case it wasn’t that the sexual abuse was unknown and no one ever knew about the issues I was facing. The CFB Namao child sexual abuse scandal was well known about in the military community. My diagnoses were known to my father and to Captain Totzke. But I wasn’t allowed to receive any help due to the desire to keep the proverbial “lid on things”.

Statistics and Comforting Fictions

This is why much of the anti-MAiD commentary rings hollow.

Recent opinion pieces lean heavily on selective statistics about suicide attempts and “recovery,” while ignoring the realities of under-reporting, stigma, misclassification of deaths, and survivorship bias.

Suicide statistics rely on narrow definitions: notes, explicit intent, immediate death. Overdoses are coded as accidental. Single-vehicle crashes are ambiguous. Deaths occurring months or years after catastrophic attempts are often excluded entirely.

The result is a comforting fiction.

A failed suicide attempt is not a victory. Often, it is survival driven by fear—not of death, but of catastrophic impairment. That fear should not be celebrated as evidence of restored hope or desire to live.

What Psychiatry Refuses to Admit

If psychiatry were being honest, it would admit what it does not know: the precise causes of depression, why some people do not recover, why treatment sometimes merely dulls experience rather than alleviating suffering.

It would also acknowledge the role of compliance and performance—the pressure to appear “better” so as not to be labeled the problem.

Instead, responsibility is quietly transferred back onto the patient.

And that, more than anything, is what I am unwilling to accept anymore.

Recently in the Toronto Star was an opinion piece

M.A.i.D. really isn’t an issue that requires “both sidesing”, but that’s what this opinion piece strives to do. It tries to mush a person’s right to self determination with personal opinions. And sadly the writer of the opinion piece concludes that if Canada could only fix its mental health system, then everyone would live happily ever after

Dr. Maher is dead set against M.A.i.D., to him any psychiatric illness can be easily treated, and if it can’t then the person should simply hold on and wait for a treatment that might possibly eventually work.

Dr. Maher was interviewed for an article published by the Canadian Mental Health Association.

https://cmhastarttalking.ca/from-pallbearer-to-psychiatrist-how-childhood-loss-propels-one-of-canadas-leading-medical-ethicists/

I have some questions for Dr. Maher.

23% of what? What is the number of Canadians that attempt suicide? 10 people, 100 people, 1,000 people, 100,000 people? How many people are we talking about?

Do we even know how many people attempt to commit suicide every year?

How many overdoses or single vehicle collisions are actually suicides?

How many people killed during risk taking activities are actually suicides?

How many work place “accidents” are actually suicides?

How many times does the coroner resist calling a death a suicide to spare the family the stigma of a suicide death?

How many times does the lack of a note cause the police and others to overlook a suicide?

How many people attempt suicide only to back away at the last moment, not out of the fear of dying, but out of the fear of fucking it up and ending up living for 20 years as a vegetable in a nursing home?

How many people that have attempted suicide never try to commit suicide again, not because they don’t want to take another attempt, but because their first attempt left them either physically or cognitively unable to make another attempt?

I guess we’ll never know.

And that’s sad.

This lack of understanding allows suicide to be pawned off as some random irrational behaviour that is driven by temporary bouts of sadness that some people just get too hysterical about instead of admitting that the human brain has an actual breaking point that once crossed can never be uncrossed.

Chatty chat.

I’ve used chatGPT for a while.

It’s interesting to use when you’re looking for random ideas or work arounds for working with Raspberry Pis or other electronics issues. When it comes to mathematics and electronics theory that’s where chat shines for me.

Chat also seems to be able to reason and learn, but in very limited means.

When I was working on a blog posting a while ago, just for shits ‘n’ giggles I asked chat if someone who was sexually abused on a Canadian military base prior to 1998 could bring charges against their abuser today.

Chat replied that yes, this was possible, Canada has no statute of limitation on criminal code offences.

So, I fed Chat the entire 1970 National Defence Act.

I asked Chat the same question again.

Chat then replied that the Canadian Armed Forces had a 3-year-time-bar on Criminal Code offences, but people who were sexually abused on base prior to 1998 could still get justice as the Canadian Forces were prohibited from conducting service tribunals for Murder, Manslaughter, or Rape.

I then fed chat the 1970 Criminal Code of Canada.

I asked Chat again, could a person today that was sexually abused as a 8 year old child on a defence establishment prior to 1985 (the year rape was removed from the criminal code) by a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, bring charges against their abuser.

Chat replied that it did not appear so as the crime of Rape was a very specific charge that could not be applied to cases involving girls under the age of 16.

I asked Chat what crimes could apply, Chat listed off:
Sexual intercourse with female 14 to 16
Sexual intercourse with female under 14
Sexual intercourse with step daughter
Sexual intercourse with foster child or ward
Incest.
(Notice how Chat seems to be assuming that only females can be victims of sexual assault)


I then asked Chat what the most disturbing thing related to the criminal code offence of Rape was. Chat replied that a husband could never be charged with raping his wife (true).

I then asked Chat what the most disturbing thing was related to the criminal code charge of Sexual Intercourse with Female under the age of 14 was. Chat replied that this charge didn’t apply to anyone if the female under the age of 14 was their wife.(again true)

It should be noted that when the criminal code refers to an age like “under 14” it means that person’s 14th birthday. The charge of “Sexual intercourse with female 14 to 16” meant sexual intercourse with a female from the day she turned 14 until the day she turned 16. Sexual intercourse with female under 14 meant sexual intercourse with any female up to the day she turned 14.

I asked chat if this meant that the Canadian Armed Forces could conduct a service tribunal (courts martial) for these crimes. Chat replied that the Canadian Forces were only barred from conducting service tribunals for Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape.

I then asked Chat how likely it was if an investigation was undertaken prior to 1998 for charges laid by the military police or the CFSIU to just simply vanish?

Chat said that this was very unlikely as the provincial crown prosecutor would be approving criminal code charges and unless there was a lack of evidence, the crown prosecutors didn’t simply dismiss charges.

I fed Chat a copy of Legislative Summary LS-311E(1998) and Bill C-25(1998) and asked Chat to digest both documents.

I asked Chat again, who decided if criminal code charges could proceed or if they’d be dismissed. Chat replied that it was the commanding officer of the accused.

I asked Chat if the Crown Prosecutor ever had any say on Code of Service Discipline matters. Chat replied that there was no mechanism for the crown prosecutor to be involved.

I asked Chat if service offences also included all criminal code offences, Chat replied that yes, according to the 1970 National Defence Act, the 1985 National Defence Act, Bill C-25(1998) and LS-311E(1998) service offences also included all criminal code offences.

I then asked Chat, could a commanding office dismiss any murder charge, and manslaughter charge, or any rape charge that had been brought against their subordinate prior to 1998.

Chat replied that there was no language in the National Defence Acts prior to 1998 to prevent this that LS-311E(1998) made it very clear that the commanding officer could dismiss all charges including charges that were purely civilian in nature.

I then asked Chat why it replied to me the way that it did when I first asked it about the ability of someone to lay charges against their abuser.

Chat replied that it can only base its answers on official documents that it has been trained upon. And these official documents it is trained on come from data that the foundation that oversees ChatGPT has approved.

When I asked it my original question, Chat was basing its responses on the current Criminal Code of Canada that was in effect when the training model was put together as well as the current National Defence Act that was in effect when the current training model was assembled.

Chat had no access to the 1970 National Defence Act, nor did it have access to the 1970 Criminal Code of Canada, the 1970 Juvenile Delinquents Act, the original 1985 Criminal Code of Canada, Bill C-25(1998) or Legislative Summary LS-311E(1998) authored by government lawyer David Goetz. Even though I was asking questions about a very specific period of time, Chat could only reason by using the data that it had been given. It’s not going to go trolling the internet to discover new models to train itself off of.

Disappointing though was the answer that I received when I asked Chat if it could use the information that I had just given it when other people ask about civilians and criminal code issues prior to 19980.

Chat replied that the documents that I gave to it cannot be verified for authenticity as they are not part of the learning model. Chat said that it treats any document that is given to it by any user them same way. Chat said that as long as as I am a registered user and my account is active, then it will remember these documents and take them into consideration when formulating responses to my questions, but that the documents and the responses they provide are only for use in my account and will never be accessible to any other user unless they input the same documents.

I asked Chat if there was any way for the Foundation overseeing chat to be asked to include these types of documents in its learning models. Not really. The Foundation avoids all outside influence. And so the truth dies on the hill of nobility.