I really don’t understand why there is so much fear and disinformation surrounding Medical Assistance in Dying for mental illness.
Shawn Watley recently wrote an article for the MacDonald Laurier Institute which was really nothing more than a Henny Penny Chicken Little “the sky is falling” screed against Medical Assistance in Dying.
You know what, fine, if Dr. Watley thinks that he can fix everyone and save everyone, then he should stop wasting time and get his magical cure-all elixir approved by Health Canada and on to pharmacy store shelves across Canada.
It’s one thing for people like Dr. Watley to tut-tut persons wishing to obtain M.A.i.D. for mental illness, but it’s something completely different for those with longstanding mental health issues that wish to pursue M.A.i.D. to have to endure prolonged suffering just for the sake of vanity causes for doctors like Dr. Watley.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Dr. Watley is of the “you simply haven’t tried hard enough to fix your own mental illness” crowd. People like this seem to form the majority in mental health care practitioners. According to these type of doctors, unless you’ve literally popped every type of pharmaceutical, and have tried every type of therapy, you just haven’t tried hard enough.
I can only wonder what wonderful advice Dr. Watley could offer to someone that had their brain fucked with by a military social worker when they were a child living on a Canadian Forces base.
If a person can’t enjoy life, can’t find pleasure in life, keeps fighting with the demons of child sexual abuse, child emotional abuse, child physical abuse, has fought major depression and severe anxiety all of their life, why should this person have to keep existing of they no longer wish to exist.
Why should people like myself have to continue suffering just to keep Dr. Watley and his ilk of like minded physicians happy with the idea that they “saved us” from the evils of death.
My brother died of a drug overdose back in early August of this year. A drug overdose that was no doubt brought on by the years of mental suffering due to growing up in our father’s extremely dysfunctional home and the sexual abuse that we endured for two years on Canadian Forces Base Namao from 1978 until 1980.
I am envious of my brother. He no longer feels pain. He no longer has the memories. No financial worries. Nothing. It’s all gone and it’s all over for him. The babysitter can no longer bother him, Captain Father Angus McRae can no longer bother him, our father, Warrant Officer Richard Wayne Gill can no longer bother him.
The world has gone on existing without him.
Me?
I’m just sticking around long enough to clear my name, which hopefully won’t be too much longer. Hopefully my class-action against the Canadian Armed Forces is wrapped up around 2027, and hopefully Medical Assistance in Dying is legalized for mental illness by 2027, as I would love nothing more than to never be bothered by my memories of the physical and mental abuse at the hands of my father, the mental abuse at the hands of Canadian Forces military social worker Captain Terry Totzke, the sexual abuse at the hands of the babysitter and the base chaplain, Captain Father Angus McRae, both from Canadian Forces Base Namao, or the years of diagnosed but untreated major depression and severe anxiety.
But, I have a feeling that people like Dr. Shawn Watley don’t really care about my mental health. I think that they’re more concerned with the appearance of caring than they are with realizing that not everything is curable and not everything can be treated and that a person must have full and complete autonomy to make choices for the own lives otherwise they are just being punished and forced to endure and existence of very little meaning but of constant mental anguish.
In late August of 1985 my brother and I flew back from Edmonton after having spent the entire summer staying with our grandmother in Edmonton.
Upon our return to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario our father had to alert the base military police to our arrival back home.
The military police came to talk to my brother and I about a rage-out that our father had in the PMQ that had contributed a significant amount of damage to the PMQ and required 3 military police officers to bring him under control.
Richard’s rage-outs were nothing new, but during this one he had completely lost control and smashed out all of the ground floor windows and damaged a lot of the furniture.
Richard used to self medicate by getting himself pickled drunk. But since Sue moved in with us in the summer of 1980, she tried to get Richard to sober up.
Richard also had a thing for prescription pain meds. Beyond that I can’t say if he was ever into hard drugs or not. But yes, he was an alcoholic.
And by not self medicating, Richard’s physical rage and temper would often peak at boiling over.
The military police implored my brother and I to NOT call 9-1-1 but to instead call the base military police as the Toronto cops couldn’t just come on to the base.
The two military police officers told us that we shouldn’t call for help unless we got out of the PMQ first, and that we should be prepared to jump from the second story of the PMQ if we had to get away from Richard.
Looking back I now realize that the base military police didn’t want us calling 9-1-1 as the civilian police were duty bound to report domestic violence to civilian social services where as the military police and the Canadian Armed Forcesliked to keep things in house an out from under the noses of those nosey civilians.
The MPs gave my brother and I business cards with the direct phone number for the MPs so that we didn’t have to go through base switchboard.
I was going to go show one of my friends the business card and tell him how the military police promised me that they would protect me from Richard and his anger outbursts as the MPs had heard things from the neighbours about the way Richard treated my brother and I.
Bill Parker intercepted me as I walked across the common lawn that the PMQs surrounded.
Bob! Bob, come here, I need to talk to you.
Bill promised me that if my father ever got angry again that I could come stay with his family, just like my mother and I had done on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater. I would find out about the CFB Sheawater “Battered wives club” in the 2010’s.
I showed Bill the business card and told Bill that if the fucker ever hit me again that I’d call the military police and they’d come take care of Richard. Bill told me that I had to take it easy on my father, that I simply didn’t understand what my father had been through and how the Canadian Forces had abandoned him.
Bill went on to explain something about my father having sailed to England with the Sea Kings in 1969 and that there had been an explosion in the engine room on one of the ships and that my father lost three of his drinking buddies from when he had been in the Navy.
“Bob, I wish you knew your father before that. He was a completely different man. He would have been nice.”
Bill implored me to never ask my father about this, that I was supposed to keep this a secret and just understand and accept my father’s anger and temper.
August of 1985 was long before the advent of Netscape Navigator and Google.
I was in Sea Cadets at the time, so I devised a way in which I’d ask my father about this “engine room explosion” without asking him directly about it.
I came home one night after cadets and told him that as part of studying naval history in the Canadian Navy that I was supposed to write a report on ship explosions that would have occurred in 1969.
The blood drained from his face, his cigarette hung from his lower lip, and his fists clenched up. All he said was that if I ever asked him a question like that again that I wouldn’t have to worry about ship explosions because of my broken neck.
It was the early 2000’s when I discovered the HMCS Kootenay incident that occurred in October of 1969 when the ships from CFB Halifax and the Sea Kings from CFB Shearwater were returning from exercises to the UK. It wasn’t an engine that exploded. It was oil vapour in a high-speed gear box that ignited due to an overheated main bearing. 11 members of the navy died. The explosion had been swift and hot. It was so hot that it melted all of the aluminum ladders that lead out of the engine room / gear box room.
My father had been on the Kootenay in his navy days before unification gave him the opportunity to get out of the Navy and into the Air Force. His name won’t show up on any of the ship’s registers as he was with the Sea Kings in the Air Force and not the Navy.
When I met my mother, Marie, in 2013 she confirmed Richard’s involvement with the Kootenay incident saying that Richard became a different man in the days and weeks after. His drinking had increased, his violence increased, he started to exhibit a hair trigger temper.
When Richard was posted to CFB Summerside his temper and his drinking became even worse, hence why she tried to take my bother and I back to Nova Scotia to stay with our uncle Al, but why she ended up being ejected from the PMQ by the base military police.
I met a gentleman by the name of Chris Legerre in the summer of 2014 when I went to Halifax to see the city that I had been born in 42 years previously. Chris had been on the HMCS Kootenay on the day of the gearbox explosion.
Yep, the Canadian Armed Forces literally and figuratively fucked everyone over that had been involved in the incident. A complete lack of compassion. No mental health treatment, nada, zip, zilch. Drug use became rampant amongst the survivors. Families of the deceased were booted out of the military housing with absolutely no compassion shown to the kids.
And you’d think that things would have changed in the last 55 years, but you’d be sadly fucking mistaken.
The Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence don’t give one sliver of a flying fuck about the mental health of the members of the Canadian Forces . And from my personal experience the Canadian Armed Forces care even less about the family members of mentally ill service members that have to experience the untreated mental illness of the serving member.
See, in my day of living on the bases in Canada military dependents were of absolutely no concern to the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence. We were referred to as D.F.&E., Dependents, furniture, and effects. It took lobbying by the Ombudsman to get the Canadian Armed Forces to change this and to stop lumping dependents in as the personal belonging of the serving member.
But that really didn’t change things.
David Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen posted a link to a story by Morgan Lowrie of National News Watch that was about two member of the Canadian Armed Forces that committed suicide. They were brothers. Both had served in Afghanistan. The article talks about how the Canadian Armed Forces are going to give the mother of the two soldiers a silver star. The article however mentions nothing about the spouses of the deceased members, nor the children of the deceased members.
Children of service members that die in action or die as a result of committing suicide due to mental stress endured during service should automatically receive guaranteed scholarships to college or university or support through trade school.
Spouses should receive compensation up until the retirement age of the service member.
The Canadian Armed Forces asks a lot from its service members, and by extension it asks a lot from the families of the service members.
It should then have to look after the families of service members, and stop treating military dependents like an afterthought.
Because my father and Captain Totzke used to both blame me for what happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao and for allowing the babysitter to molest my younger brother, I was always hesitant to tell my counsellors about what had happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
Because of that I was always fearful that by not saying anything that the babysitter would go on to molest more kids.
In 2012 I found my fears to have been well founded.
What I didn’t take into account though was that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence would have moved a sexual predator from one base to another across Canada, giving this predator access to “fresh meat”.
But, that’s what they did.
In the aftermath of Canadian Forces Base Namao the Canadian Forces posted the babysitter’s family to Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in Ontario. Not only did this give the babysitter access to young children living on Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, but it also gave the babysitter access to children living in the towns around CFB Petawawa.
The babysitter was arrested, charged, and convicted in 1982 for molesting a young boy in a small town just north of CFB Petawawa.
Considering the number of children living on CFB Petawawa, I wouldn’t be surprised if the babysitter had molested children on the base, but with the base military police looking after the investigation of the sexual abuse of any child living on base, I’m not surprised that the Canadian Forces didn’t find any victims on the base. And I have no doubt in my mind that if former military dependents that were molested as children on CFB Petawawa by the babysitter did come forward like I had in 2011 with complaints against the babysitter that the CFSIU / CFNIS would have given them a dog ‘n’ pony show investigation like I got.
The babysitter then ended up in Manitoba on one of the CFBs there. It was either CFB Winnipeg or CFB Portage la Prairie. The babysitter was charged and convicted for molesting an 8-year-old in 1984. What’s not clear is if this child was a military dependent or was the child of a civilian family living off the base. If I was a gambling person I’d have to say that this was a civilian child living in a town or city near the base.
The babysitter and his family ended up back at Canadian Forces Base Namao in late 1984 / early 1985. The babysitter molested a 9 year old boy living on Canadian Forces Base Namao. This time however the Canadian Forces gave the babysitter’s father an ultimatum, either the babysitter move out of the military housing on base or the family would be ejected from the military housing.
By this time the babysitter would have been months shy of his 20th birthday.
The babysitter’s father rented the babysitter an apartment in the west end of Edmonton into which the babysitter lured a 13 year old newspaper carrier and molested the newspaper carrier.
The babysitter was convicted of both crimes in August of 1985 in a courtroom in Edmonton.
Most victims of child sexual assault never come forward. So how many other children living on Canadian Forces Bases that had sudden personality changes due to their interactions with the babysitter, we’ll never know.
How many of these children would have been spared sexual abuse at the hand of the babysitter had the Canadian Armed Forces simply called in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to deal with the babysitter in the spring of 1980 instead of deciding to not inform the RCMP in order to keep the public from finding out the true extents of the child sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao?
No one will ever know.
I know that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence have the resources to find the other victims, but they have absolutely no interest in doing so.
I remember reading in the MacLean’s expose titled “The CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy” how the Canadian Forces responded to this by simply posting the perpetrators off to different bases.
It’s even mentioned in the 1996 report that was commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces titled “Canadian Forces response to spousal abuse in military families” that postings were often used to make problems go away.
How many other victims of the poor decisions of the Canadian Armed Forces are there out there?
How many of these victims of the babysitter or other sexual predators on the bases had to deal with the rage of their fathers for having “fucked with their military careers”?
How many of the other victims of the babysitter have never had their crimes investigated because they couldn’t remember the babysitter’s name or what PMQ he lived in?
How many of these victims had to deal with the tendency of the Canadian Armed Forces to “blame and shame the victim”.
How many times did the Canadian Armed Forces consciously interfere with the attempts of civilian social services to protect the children of military families from the abuse of their unstable serving parent?
How many times did the Canadian Armed Forces post military families from one province to another to avoid the apprehension of military dependents.
Remember, in June of 2011 the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that charges were unlikely in my complaint due to a complete lack of evidence. This even though the CFNIS had in their possession the 1980 CFSIU paperwork and the 1980 court martial transcripts that both explained that the babysitter had been investigated by the base military police due to the complaints of numerous parents that the babysitter was molesting children.
Remember that on November 4th, 2011 I was contacted by the CFNIS and told that the CFNIS could find no indication that the babysitter was capable of committing the crimes that I had accused him of even though the CFNIS had the 1980 CFSIU paperwork, the 1980 court martial transcripts, and the babysitter’s CPIC records that recorded his charges and convictions from 1982, 1984, 1985(x2), and many more.
If there’s one thing that the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence, and the Department of Justice rely heavily upon it’s the public’s willingness to believe that each and every base in Canada operated in a complete vacuum from the other bases in Canada, almost as if each base in Canada was operated independently by a franchisee.
Each and every member of the Canadian Armed Forces, whether they be in the regular forces or the reserve forces, is recruited by the Canadian Armed Forces, is vetted by the Canadian Armed Forces, is trained by the Canadian Armed Forces, and employed by the Canadian Armed Forces.
Under the military’s own “unique” justice system, especially in the days prior to 1998, these members were disciplined by the Canadian Armed Forces for service offences which were comprised of military and criminal code offences.
What this means is that in days of yore the Canadian Armed Forces were able to keep its dirty laundry out of the public eye. And when the public did catch a sneak peak of child abuse or spousal abuse on the bases, it was always easy to portray that event as being a “one off” isolated event, instead of a tell-tale sign of a larger systemic problem.
Don’t let the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence hoodwink you by spinning the lack of convictions or even the lack of charges as being an indication of the low rates of crime on the bases. The chain of command was practically designed to keep these secrets hidden with the summary investigation flaw and the three-year-time-bar flaw.
My father was a piss-tank alcoholic when he joined in 1963. He didn’t get his alcoholism under control until sometime in the mid ’80s.
Russell Williams didn’t start his raping and murdering spree after he left the Canadian Forces.
Alexander Kalichuk wasn’t sexually attracted to young girls only after he left the Canadian Armed Forces
Roger Bazin didn’t become sexually attracted to young boys only after he left the Canadian Armed Forces.
Donald Jospeh Sullivan didn’t become sexually attracted to young boys only after he left the Canadian Armed Forces.
Angus Alexander McRae didn’t molest young boys only after he left the Canadian Armed Forces.
The members of the Canadian Armed Forces that killed Shidane Arone after luring the teenager on to a base in Somalia by using food set up as a lure didn’t kill Shidane after they left the military. They were already racists and white supremacists before they joined the military.
Whatever vetting process the Canadian Armed Forces had in place obviously wasn’t up to the task of keeping the baddies out of the military.
When it comes to Russell Williams you have to remember that he agreed to plead guilty to all of the charges so long as the Ontario Crown didn’t prosecute Williams for the sizeable child porn collection that he had on a hard drive hidden in his house. Most of the underwear that he stole when he broke into the houses around Tweed belong to young girls, not women. An investigator with the Tweed police department that investigated Williams noted that the level of competency that Williams exhibited even on his “first” break and enters shows that these weren’t the first break and enters that Williams would have committed. How many bases that Williams was stationed on prior to his arrest did he commit break and enters in the military housing? You’ll have to pardon me when I don’t believe the Canadian Forces when they say that their own military police investigated and couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary on any base that Williams had been at previously.
When Lynne Harper was found murdered just off base at Royal Canadian Air Force station Clinton, the RCAF failed to mention that Alexander Kalichuk had relations with the Harper family. Lynne’s father was an officer in the RCAF at RCAF Stn Clinton. Steven Truscott’s father was an enlisted man at RCAF Stn Clinton. And Sgt. Kalichuk was also working on RCAF Stn Clinton. Kalichuk had been found driving on the country roads on the outskirts of the base offering free panties to young girls if they’d get in his car and go for a ride with him. When investigated by the local police Kalichuk told the police that he had bought the box of panties as a birthday gift for the 9 year old daughter of a coworker on the base, but that the party was cancelled and he didn’t want to simply throw the panties away. The Royal Canadian Air Force was willing to keep quiet about Kalichuk even if it meant the death of Steven Trusscott.
My own father retired from the Canadian Armed Forces in 1993 with a full pension. For most of his career he was a piss-tank. Most of his postings were to outrun social services.
When I met my mother again in 1990, one of the things she asked me was if my father had ever tried to touch me in a sexual manner. I gave her a very conditional no. I told her that Richard had never touched me, but I was pretty certain that had I been a girl things would have been different. Would my own father have sexually assaulted young girls on base? I can’t say no. He loved his women young. And he also viewed women as being stupid, and dumb. Basically just objects. And he was also a womanizer. Even when he was dating Sue, he was seeing other women.
Child sexual abuse on the bases was never openly talked about, but we knew. Just like child physical abuse and child neglect.
But with child sexual abuse, child physical abuse, child neglect being classed as “service offences” if they occurred on base in the military housing or anywhere else on the base proper, it would be the base military police investigating and then the commanding officer of the accused deciding if these charges would proceed to tribunal, be converted into other charges, or would simply be dismissed.
The way that Richard was with my brother and I was just something that we accepted as normal. Not every other father was like my father, but enough were that it was normal. And what was even worse was that the “nice” fathers never stopped our fathers when our fathers were raging out of control after a night of heavy drinking or when the hangovers hit hard after numerous nights of drinking.
The closest that another member ever came to involving themselves with my family was Bill Parker on CFB Downsview in the days in the aftermath of Richard’s total meltdown in the PMQ on Stanley Green Park. Bill acknowledged that he was aware of the abuse, and the drinking, and Richard’s temper. Bill even offered up a couch in his PMQ if I needed a place to stay while Richard calmed down, just like my mother and I used to in Nova Scotia. But in the end Bill defended my father by claiming that the Canadian Forces never looked after him in the aftermath of the HMCS Kootney event. “Oh Bob, I wish you had the chance to know your father before that day”.
When I got my first job working in a bowling centre that hosted children’s parties on the weekends it really blew my fucking mind to see kids running around and screaming at each other, kids begging their parents for more money to play a video game, and just in general being kids. There were no backhands being issued, there were no orders being barked. No fathers would bellow for their kids to “shut the fuck up, sit the fuck down, and don’t move a fucking muscle until I tell you to move”. Not a single child would leave the bowling centre with a bloody lip.
Nowadays, the Canadian Armed Forces and their cheerleaders jump all around with their pom-poms yelling Rah-Rah cheers and telling us to move-on and to simply get-over-it.
How do you get over the single most horrifying time in your life?
Especially when the Canadian Armed Forces control the narrative, control the information, control the investigations, don’t ever have to worry about pre-1998 offences, and enjoy the secrecy that the Security of Information act grants to the Canadian Armed Forces.
Just in case you’ve been at St. Paul’s recently and you’ve seen construction going on in the former contractor parking lot and you’ve wondered what’s going on, well this is the Shoreline room.
I won’t get too much into the politics behind this. But it’s not being run by St. Paul’s or Providence Health Care. It’s being built and operated by Vancouver Coastal Health.
It honestly sucks knowing that I’m going to have to wait until March of 2027 to see if the Government of Canada finally has the balls to let me obtain M.A.i.D. for mental illness, or if I’m going to have to turn to alternative methods.
I was really looking forward to the legalization of M.A.i.D. for mental illness in March of 2021, but the government caved.
And then came March of 2023, but again the government caved at the last minute.
So, now I have to wait until March of 2027.
Will the government cave again, or will the government make the requirements to qualify for M.A.i.D. so fucking onerous that I’ll die of old fucking age or suicide before M.A.i.D. becomes a possibility.
I wish the my emotions hadn’t been destroyed when I was a kid.
Maybe people would actually believe me when I say that my brain is so fucking numb all of the time.
As a kid growing up on Canadian Armed Forces bases, I learnt to just keep my fucking mouth shut. My father was an abusive piss-tank alcoholic that blamed every issue that he had on others.
Living on base was just like living in a company town. Everybody minded their own fucking business. No matter how physical my father would become, everyone just minded their own business.
No matter how fucking drunk my father was in the PMQ and how out of control he was, nobody ever said anything. Everyone just minded their own fucking business.
When my grandmother moved into the PMQ to raise my brother and I, she drank worse than my father. And when my father was home both him and his mother would get into some really spectacular yelling matches and fights.
She lived by the maxims of “children are to be seen and not heard”, and “children only speak when spoken to”. She must have had those beat into her skull when she went to Indian Residential School as a child. As fucked up as my father was, she was fucked up even worse.
My father, being a member of the regular force, said sweet fuck all when orders and instructions were given in the aftermath of Captain McRae’s sexual fiasco on Canadian Forces Base Namao. Sure my father was enlisted, and sure, he was legally obligated to follow the “lawful” commands of his superiors, but for fuck’s sake he could have grown a pair and quit the military.
What type of sick self interested fuck wants to work for an employer that wants to hide the sexual misdeeds of his coworker? Yes, when you think about it, Captain Father Angus McRae was my father’s co-worker. Actually, superior would be more like it.
And then we have Captain Totzke. Sure, Totzke was only following orders. But interfering with the mental health wellbeing of a child that was traumatized by 2 years of sexual abuse? That takes a special kind of self interested prick. And of course, my father being the ball less wonder that he was, dutifully obeyed the “lawful” commands of Captain Totzke.
So yeah, over the years I had to learn to hide the major depression and the severe anxiety. After all, nobody likes a depressed whiner that fucking worries too much. So if you want to stay employed, you gotta hide that shit.
Richard was always willing to assist me in not crying by using his backhand or the belt.
Bobbie, why didn’t you get counselling?
Counselling for fucking what?
I didn’t find out until I was 40 that I had actually been diagnosed with major depression and severe anxiety and that my issue wasn’t that I was suffering from “homosexuality” like Captain Totzke and my father said I was.
After the fucking hell that I got put through back in 1981 through 1983 being caught between my civilian child care workers and the military social worker how the hell am I ever going to feel comfortable around a counsellor.
My father was well adept at making sure that I told people what he wanted them to hear.
This is why being able to obtain M.A.i.D. means so much for me. I don’t want to be here anymore. Actually I’ve never wanted to be here.
There is absolutely no point to my existence. My parents fucked, my mother got pregnant, and I popped out. With 7.5 billion people currently on the planet, this is not a miracle.
If anyone really cared, they would understand my desires instead of giving me fake and meaningless parables of wisdom.
It should go without saying that Scott and I really weren’t close as kids.
Our family was not a family built on love.
As I’ve said before, Richard was in many ways similar to Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights in the sense that he carried a grudge for historical slights and anyone even remotely involved with those historical slights was going to pay dearly.
Unlike Heathcliff though, Richard wasn’t the victim of the disdain of others. No, Richard was the architect of his own misfortunes.
Richard carried a massive grudge against his first wife and anyone or anything associated with her was going to pay a very heavy price for her “walking out” on him even though he took advantage of the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations and had his first wife thrown out of the PMQ by the military.
Richard also carried a massive grudge against his mother for her daring to be First Nations, but that’s for another posting.
My father’s buddy from 447 squadron at CFB Namao famously asked Richard “Rick, if these fucking kids are driving you nuts, why don’t you give them back to their fucking mother and let her deal with them”. Richard’s response was “As long as the kids live under my roof, I control the costs. If I sent them to live with their mother I’d have to sign my fucking paycheque over to that bitch, and that’s not going to happen”.
Going through my email interactions with Scott, there was one email in which he noted that even our stepmother Sue had told him that Richard would tell her that Richard kept us because we were good for tax time.
Richard never took us anywhere that would require a modicum of parenting or involvement. And from about 1977 until 1981, Richard had washed his hands of my brother and I by bringing his mother on base to live in the PMQ and raise us.
This is the woman that he described to social services as being “frequently cruel” to his children and that she was frequently intoxicated and refused to admit her alcoholism.
To make matters far worse was the fact that kids from dysfunctional families that were living on Canadian Forces Bases were often shunned.
The Canadian Forces at the time, and even still today, is an extremely patriarchal which meant that the fathers of the families would never been seen to be at fault. Any problem in the household on base was always seen as the fault of the woman or the fault of the children.
So yeah, to say that Scott and I didn’t have a happy childhood would be a gross understatement.
So Scott would go off on his own, and I would go off on my own.
Because of my estrangement from Richard as a child, I never really stayed close to Richard. Scott on the other hand looked up to Richard.
When we moved to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario in 1983 is when Scott and I started really drifting apart even further.
At that point in time I was so emotionally disturbed that I was supposed to be institutionalized whereas Scott was desperate for friendship. I preferred being left alone, whereas Scott wanted to hang out and be friends with everyone.
This led to Scott hanging out with the wrong crowd.
And Richard, being the incompetent asshole that he was would blame Sue, Grandma, myself, and his first wife for the way Scott was turning out. Not for one minute would Richard turn around and blame himself or accept responsibility for his part in this play.
This of course would stoke a lot of animosity between my brother and I.
Scott would do the crime, and I would get the beating of my life.
I wasn’t raising Scott properly
I wasn’t looking out for Scott
Another wedge that Richard drove between my brother and I was the fact that Richard blamed me for what happened to Scott on Canadian Forces Base Namao at the hands of the babysitter and possibly Captain McRae.
When Scott stole Sue’s Pontiac Acadian, Richard laid a fucking intense beating on me in my basement bedroom of the PMQ. During this beating Richard yelled numerous times at me that Scott was turning out the way he was because I let the babysitter touch him and that if I hadn’t let the babysitter fuck Scott that Scott would be normal.
And of course Scott was becoming resentful towards me because Richard’s insistence that I was supposed to raise Scott and look after Scott meant that I was allowing Scott to get into trouble.
And I know that this was a substantial issue between Scott and I even until just recently. In fact it wasn’t until the Canadian Armed Forces finally released the Court Martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork in the summer of 2020 that Scott finally began to come to terms with the fact that Richard lied about the events of 1980 and that Richard obviously knew more about 1980 than what Richard had ever let on.
In the summer of 1984, while Scott and I were spending the summer with our grandmother, Scott said something to our grandmother about the babysitter from CFB Namao. Grandma was furious, yelling at me for allowing Scott to be raped by the babysitter while I was watching.
I moved out of the PMQ on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario in early 1988.
By this point in time Scott had been into juvenile detention numerous times and had grown substantially both in height and in mass. Scott’s uncontrolled anger and Richard’s unwillingness to control Scott and protect me from Scott is one of the reasons that I left. And it wasn’t just Scott that I was terrified of. He was hanging out with guys that I’m sure probably ended up becoming enforcers for biker gangs after they finished high school.
In a way I was very envious of Scott. Here I was, barely pushing 100 lbs and Scott had to be at least 160 or 170 even though he was 2 years younger than me. Not only that but Scott was towering over Richard. Richard once tried to backhand Scott, and Scott just caught his hand and scowled at Richard. That was the last time I ever saw Richard try to strike Scott. Me on the other hand, yeah Richard wasn’t afraid of me in the slightest.
In the summer of 1990 Richard got hold of me and invited me to move to Edmonton with him so that we could try to be a family again.
In preparation for the move, I moved back into PMQ 223F on Canadian Forces Base Downsview. But Scott wasn’t there. Scott had been incarcerated during my absence and was serving time at St. John’s in Uxbridge, Ontario.
By the time Scott was released, Sue and Richard had already bought a civilian house in Morinville, AB. I didn’t last too long in that house, and neither did Scott upon his release from juvie in Ontario. I think I lived in the house in Morinville for about a week before I got the boot and had to go rent my own apartment, which was no small feat at the age of 18.
One day at work I got a phone call from Richard telling me that after all he did for us as kids that I had to take Scott in until things calmed down. Scott was unceremoniously dropped off at my apartment. He ate all of my food in three days and he nearly got me evicted by fighting with the neighbours and blasting loud music. I asked Richard for help with groceries, he just laughed and said that maybe I should try hitting up our mother for groceries as he was finally done with us. Our mother ended up taking Scott out to her acreage out by Wabamum Beach.
I was introduced to my mother by my uncle Doug in the summer of 1990 just after we arrived back in Edmonton. I have no doubt that uncle Doug also introduced Scott to our mother after Scott arrived in Edmonton from Ontario after his release.
I happened to stop in to our mother’s house one weekend when she asked me if it was true what Scott said, that I had let Scott get raped numerous times by our babysitter. This was in the summer of 1991 and Scott was still framing it the way that my father had framed the events of 1978 to 1980, that I had allowed and encouraged the babysitter to molest my brother.
Between the winter of 1992 and the summer of 2012 I only saw Scott 3 or 4 times.
In the Summer of 2013 I went to go see Scott. We had some talks, but there was still an intense amount of resentment and condensation in his voice towards me. At the time Scott claimed that he hadn’t spoken to Richard or Sue for the longest time due to the suicide death of Eric Kolsteren.
On the day of my Federal Court application for Judicial Review, Scott had started texting me claiming that I had raped him along with the babysitter and that I should tell this to the judge. I did some quick sleuthing and as it turned out Richard had tracked Scott down via Sue and just the night before Scott’s outburst Richard had paid a visit to Scott and gave Scott a computer, a bunch of computer items, some camera equipment, and possibly paid for a trip to Toronto.
After that, Scott’s attitude towards me soured quite considerably. I have absolutely no doubt that Richard was pumping Scott’s head full of bullshit.
The next time that Scott would have any type of contact with me was in 2019 when he called me to let me know that Richard had died in 2017. Scott requested that if Sue ever asked how I found out Richard was dead that I wasn’t supposed to say that Scott told me.
Things again changed between Scott and myself in 2020 after the release of the Captain McRae’s court martial transcripts, and the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork. Scott began to realize that he had been lied to all of his life by Richard once my class action against the Canadian Armed Forces was initiated.
People have asked me if my brother’s death upsets me.
Not really.
I didn’t know him.
I knew him about as well as I knew my father.
I am disappointed that Scott is dead.
He didn’t live long enough to at least see official acknowledgement for no only what had happened to him on Canadian Forces Base Namao, but the fact that various members of the Canadian Armed Forces failed him such as our father Master Corporal Richard Gill, Captain Totzke, Colonel Daniel Edward Munro.
I know that Scott had been struggling with mental health issues for the longest time as when we did have email conversations early after 2012 he did say that he was seeing counsellors to try to work out his anger issues.
Drug wise, I don’t know when he started to be honest with you.
I know that he drank when we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview. Back then it wasn’t uncommon, even for the Goodie-Two-Shoes brats, to drink and smoke weed on base.
When Scott came for a visit in the summer of 2021 both him and his girlfriend at the time were doing mushrooms and weed.
When Scott started doing K is something I’ll never know.
If he was doing anything harder than weed, ‘shrooms, and K is also something that I’ll never know.
If we were closer together, would I have known?
I don’t know.
I work at a hospital in Vancouver that is basically THE hospital for Canada’s poorest postal code, the DTES. Drugs can take over anyone at anytime. The number of fresh faces coming in for treatment is astounding. Everyone seems to think that they can try the hard drugs once or twice and they’ll be okay.
I haven’t quite figured out what to do with Scott’s ashes at this point in time.
Maybe I’ll get them mixed into little cement middle fingers and have one delivered to the Chief of Defence Staff, one delivered to the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, one delivered CFNIS Western Region, one delivered to CFNIS Pacific Region, and one delivered to RCMP K division HQ.
Inscription would say -Fuck You – Kids from CFB Namao (human remain, do not dispose)
Well, it’s Pride Weekend here in Vancouver. My apartment sits right on the parade route which is on Beach Ave to Pacific Ave this year. Meanwhile I’m over at a nice little coffee shop on the south side of False Creek over by 2nd Ave.
As I’ve said before, the commercialization and the promotion of alcohol have always been turn-offs for me.
And then there’s the do nothing politicians like Hedy Fry that wrap themselves up in the gay pride flag for votes, but then come up with every flimsy excuse for their inability to help their constituents with governmental issues.
If that’s the one benefit of having grown up in a dysfunctional household on various Canadian Forces Bases across Canada is the fact that I learnt very young that I’m on my own and there’s literally no help coming from anyone.
In fact, I learnt very young that I’m better off just keeping my mouth shut as people in positions of authority don’t like finding out that there are problems and that these persons in position of authority are more than likely to blame me for bringing the issue to their attention as they are to actually do something about the issue. The “squeaky wheel” syndrome where instead of fixing the issue that caused the squeaky wheel, you just pump on massive amounts of grease until the squeaky wheel stops squeaking whether or not the underlying issue is fixed.
So no, I’ve never felt any benefit from the “community” or a need to “belong” to the community. Especially not a community that is extremely selective with its chosen “cause célèbre”. And not a community that is extremely protective of lame duck politicians because said politicians wrap themselves up in the pride flag and wave from a float in a parade.
Queers, gays, lesbians, trans, bi, and other people on the gender spectrum have existed since time immemorial. This need to be officially sanctioned by the local LGBTQ+ community is something relatively new.
When I first came down to Vancouver in February of 1992 to apply for a job in Burnaby, I knew that there was something different about Vancouver. When I got back to Deadmonton later that week, my mind was made up. Into the dumpster went all of my furniture, gave the keys back to the landlord, and off to Vancouver I went.
Of course I migrated towards the West End. But sadly when “queer went mainstream” the West End changed. The GLBTQ+ crowd that could, moved away. The Pride Parade at the same time went from being a massive “fuck you!” to the society in general that shat all over the queer community because the church told them to, to being a massive corporate advertising campaign for banks and booze.
And I don’t ever see this changing.
And now that the GLBTQ+ crowd has had a taste of acceptance, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to keep that acceptance, even if it means no longer making society feel uncomfortable about issues involving the GLBTQ+ crowd.
A trans teen goes missing from a Canadian Forces Base and no one bats an eyelash when their body is found in a river near the base.
Someone brings to light the fact that the Canadian Forces gave conversion therapy to the victims of male-on-male child sexual abuse due to the assumption by military social workers that male-on-male child sexual abuse was nothing more than homosexuality. Not one single fucking person cares.
This isn’t a community. This is just an excuse to get shit faced and wear glitter in a parade.
Well, gonna head into work and get some drawings done. But before I go in, just thought that I’d say my piece about the latest news regarding the Canadian Armed Forces.
13 years ago I would have greeted the appointment of a female as the Chief of Defence Staff. But I’ve come to realize that the Chief of Defence Staff isn’t in a position to fix the issues with the Canadian Armed Forces. These issues are institutional issues that are created by how the Canadian Forces function.
Lt.-Gen. Jennie Carignan
Call me cynical, but there is no way that Ms. Carignan will be able to overcome the defects in the Canadian Armed Forces without a massive restructuring. Ms. Carignan has far too many subordinates running their own personal little fiefdoms in their own little silos to allow her to upset their decades long routes to easy retirement.
Since I had my unfortunate involvement with the defective CFNIS in March of 2011 the Canadian Forces has had 5 Chief of Defence Staff.
from Wikipedia.
In almost the same period of time there have been 9 different Vice Chief of Defence Staff.
from Wikipedia
And since 2011 we’ve had Tim Grubb, Rob Delaney, Simon Trudeau as the Provost Marshal. We’ve also had various commanders of the CFNIS such as the infamous Lt.-Col. Gilles Sansterre who was called “the incurious investigator” by the media because he didn’t want to know about the sexual abuse of young boys by the Afghan Forces on a base that was administered by the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.
And remember, the Provost Marshal is directly subordinate to the Vice Chief of Defence Staff.
Section 18 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985, Chapter N-5 National Defence Act
Yep, that’s right. The Provost Marshal who is supposed to be a Peace Officer as defined by the Criminal Code of Canada is under the direct command of someone who is NOT a Peace Officer.
Section 83 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985, Chapter N-5 National Defence ActSection 85 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985, Chapter N-5 National Defence Act
So there you have an entire section of the Canadian Armed Forces that is bound by the National Defence Act to dysfunction. It’s literally hard coded into the National Defence Act.
Even if Lt.Gen Carignan wanted to get to clean up the dysfunction in the Canadian Forces Military Police Group, she’s in for a massive battle. She will never hear the truth from low ranking investigators as those investigators may be under instructions by their superiors to simply blow sunshine up Ms. Carignan’s ass.
If you were an investigator with the rank of Sergeant or Master Corporal, and you had Lt.Gen. Carignan say “come talk to me if you have any issues you’d like to talk about”, but yet your direct chain of command told you to think twice about telling the Lt. Gen. anything but “happy time fairy tales” whatcha gonna do?
Remember, in the Canadian Forces you’re not simply gonna tootle off to NDHQ in Ottawa to have a chit-chat with the Chief of Defence Staff. No, first you have to ask your chain of command for leave from your duties. This of course is going to be where you have to explain to your chain of command why you’re going to Ottawa to see the CDS.
And when you explain to your local chain of command that you think that they’re incompetent and that they interfere too much in your investigations, guess what? Please see sections 83 and 85 of the National Defence Act.
Think I’m over exaggerating?
Three retired supreme court justices have reviewed the military justice system since 2014. And all three have basically pinched their noses at the stench and given the system a hearty thumbs down.
You can’t have a proper justice system when people with parochial and political agendas can simply issue orders in relation to any investigation.
The only way in which Lt. Gen. Carignan will ever be able to reform the rot within the Canadian Armed Forces is to abolish the Canadian Forces Military Police Group and to hand over the prosecution of all offences that are not of a purely military nature to the RCMP.
As long as Section 83 and 85 of the National Defence Act exist, junior subordinates will never be free to tell the truth about the interference from their chain of command.
And as long as their chain of command is allowed to interfere, issues will go unreported and uncorrected. This will always lead the military to the situation that it finds itself in right now. Unable to clean house because of its heavily compromised police agency.
When will the federal government ever learn that the Canadian Armed Forces are incapable of operating their own police service.
The Canadian Forces Provost Marshal has absolutely no business whatsoever investigating or prosecuting for any criminal code offence.
Since my first tango with the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal and the Military Police Complaints Commission in 2013 I’ve always said that there is massive fuckery afoot within the confines of the Provost Marshal’s office.
What type of batshit insane lunacy allows for the provost marshal to determine what, if any, information will be handed over to the military police complaints commission?
Nothing more than poorly written legislation that allows the provost marshal to do so at whim.
Now, I fully understand that there will be those amongst you that will say “But Bobbie, why didn’t you tell the MPCC about the missing information”.
That’s not how it works.
That’s not how any of this works.
When a person makes a complaint about a military police investigation, the first place it goes is to the exact agency that you’ve made a complaint against.
And actually, a person such as myself can’t complain about an investigation or the outcome of an investigation. The only persons who can complain about interferance in an investigation are the investigators. But the MPCC pointed out previously that relying on the investigators themselves to make interferance complaints on their own may be impossible as the investigator themself may be completely unaware of any interference if the interference occurs high enough up the chain of command.
All a person like me can complain about is the actions of specific investigators.
If the investigation went off the rails due to “lawful” commands from up the chain of command, the last thing that the provost marshal will do is publically announce that the Vice Chief of Defence Staff or someone higher up gave instructions to the CFNIS about the investigation.
Remember, under the National Defence Act the Provost Marshal is directly subordinate to the Vice Chief of Defence Staff, and that the VCDS has the full authority under the National Defence Act to issue instructions to ANY CFNIS investigation.
The provost marshal has absolutely no interest in covering themselves with shit. So the first thing they do is they take the information in your complaint and use that to sanitze the complaint investigation. They know that you’re more than likely going to make a follow up complaint to the Military Police Complaints Commission so they take all of the information they have at hand and then package it up in a pretty little package with a pretty little bow on top.
Even gift wrapped, it’s still just shit.
And as luck would have it, the Military Police Complaints Commission has to accept whatever documents the provost marshal choses to pass along to the MPCC. During a complaint review the MPCC cannot subpoena documents, it cannot subpoena witnesses, it cannot administer oaths.
As recently as 2015 the Military Police Complaints Commission said that it really didn’t know how the Canadian Forces Military Police Group operated as it had never been given access to the orders and procedures governing the military police. And this means that the MPCC might not even know what evidence to ask for.
Globe and Mail interview with then chairman Glenn StannardFrom the interview of Glenn Stannard by Gloria Galloway
It’s not very confidence inspiring when the agency overseeing a particular agency doesn’t know how that agency is supposed to work.
When I was interviewed by the MPCC in July of 2012 I seriously felt sick to my stomach after the interview. I went for a very, very long walk and it took ever fibre in my body to keep from jumping off the Granville Bridge.
The two MPCC interviewers from Ottawa basically gave me a lecture on why they weren’t going to find any fault with the CFNIS investigation. They came to Vancouver with their minds made up already. The sad thing is, they’re retired civilian police officers who viewed the CFNIS as just being a military version of the civilian police and therefore their “brothers in blue”.
When I filed for Judicial Review in February of 2013, the CFNIS was required to forward to me a certified copy of all of the documents that the Provost Marshal had given to the MPCC in 2012.
It was fucking disturbing just how many records were missing and how many “errors” there were in the SAMPIS.
What an absolute fucking joke this was.
Basically what the Provost Marshal submitted to the MPCC was that I was a cheap two-bit conman looking to milk the Canadian Armed Forces for some easy money.
The MPCC really should have known better. But as it turns out it’s not allowed to know better.
“But Bobbie, why didn’t you introduce all off these missing documents during your hearing for Judicial Review”.
That’s the problem, you can’t.
Under the rules for MPCC Judicial Review you CANNOT introduce to the court ANY document or evidence that was not before the MPCC while they were conducting their review.
And the Chief of Defence Staff knows this.
And the Vice Chief of Defence Staff knows this.
And the Provost Marshal knows this.
The CDS, the VCDS, and the CFPM know that they can sell any bullshit story to the MPCC as the MPCC doesn’t have the power or authority to question what they’re being told.
And if the MPCC doesn’t like what it’s being told and instead wants to have an inquiry? That requires the permission of the Minister of National Defence.
Inquiries have too much potential to damage the Canadian Forces Military Police and that’s why they’re held so very infrequently. Just look at how damaging the MPCC review of the CFNIS investigation of the death of corporal Stuart Langridge was. The ass-whooping the CFNIS received from Michel Drapeau could never have happened anywhere outside of an MPCC inquiry.
“Shades of Somalia”
The military chain of command does NOT allow for independent investigations.
Yes, you’ll have the provost marshal and the Chief of Defence Staff and the Minister of National Defence tripping all over themselves to exclaim that investigators with the CFNIS are free and independent of the chain of command.
This is absolutely B.S. and they know it.
There are absolutely no exceptions to the service offence of “Insubordination” in the National Defence Act. All members of the Canadian Armed Forces are subject to being charged with having committed the service offence of “Insubordination” if they disobey the “lawful” command of a superior.
And yes, there is a significant difference between “lawful” and “legal”. Basically “legal” infers that the command does not violate any criminal code statute. “Lawful” just means that the person issuing the command has the authority to issue the command, lawful does not vouch for the legal status of the command.
Insubordination is the most serious service offence that a member of the Canadian Forces can commit. Insubordination comes with an automatic sentence of life in prison or a lesser sentence.
In between when I became ensnared with the defective military justice system in 2011 and now we’ve had the External Review conducted by Madame Marie Deschamps, a retired Supreme Court justice.
Then we had another External Review conducted by the Honourable Louise Arbor.
Both reviews basically said the exact same thing. The Canadian Forces Military Police are inept and unskilled when it comes to sexual assault investigations.
Then we had the Third Independent Review of the National Defence Act conducted by the Honourable Morris J. Fish, a retired Supreme Court justice.
While Mr. Fish makes some very powerful recommendations it would appear that Mr. Fish was shielded from the fact that the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal often overstep their jurisdictional boundaries and involve themselves with investigations involving only civilians. This runs counter to the spirit of CFPM 2120-4-0.
These reviews resulted in the Minister of National Defence instructing the military police in 2021 to hand over all sexual assault investigations to the civilian police. The investigation into my complaint against the man in the sauna was retained by the CFNIS with no explanation as to why other than that I was told by the CFNIS that the CFNIS was the only police agency able to work on historical military cases.
And before my time there was the military police fiasco in Bosnia and then subsequently the military police fiasco in Somalia which led to the elimination of the CFSIU, the creation of the Provost Marshal, and the creation of the CFNIS.
And who can forget the “CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy”.
The CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy is well worth the read, and it highlights all of the long standing flaws in the National Defence Act and how civilians are an afterthought to the military justice system and how civilians are at a substantial disadvantage when navigating the military justice system.
And as the offences that are alleged to have occurred during the CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy occurred pre-1998, even if the RCMP were to become involved with this investigation they’d have to hand it right on over to the CFNIS as these offences occurred on a defence establishment making them service offences. And as we all know, there is a 3-year-time-bar on all service offences that occurred prior to 1998. Yes, Rape was a crime that was specifically excluded from prosecution by the military tribunal system, but there was nothing stopping the military police and the CFSIU at the time from investigating this matter. In fact as this occurred on a defence establishment it would have been well within the mandate of the base military police and the CFSIU to investigate. So yes, the 3-year-time-bar would apply. And as these service offences occurred prior to 1998, the commanding officer of the accused would be required to review the charges before sending these charges to the provincial crown prosecutor. There was no mechanism in the pre-1998 National Defence Act to allow for the military police or the CFSIU to bypass the commanding officer and go straight to the provincial crown.
And as luck would have it, the Military Police Complaints Commission is not allowed to look at or review pre-1998 military police or CFSIU investigations.
So here we are again. It’s now 2024 and the CFPM, the CFMPG and the CFNIS still exist.
How many more years of dysfunctional and unaccountable military police will Canadians be willing to endure? Or is this a case of “out of sight, out of mind”?
Will the recommendations from Deschamps, Arbour, and Fish amount to anything or will the MoD, the CDS, and the VCDS slap a fresh coat of paint over the mildewy wallpaper without addressing the rot and disease underneath?
The Provost Marshal and the military police, including the CFNIS need to be scaled down. They need to have their responsibilities limited to offences of a purely military nature. Any crime of a civilian nature that occurs on a defence establishment or involves someone subjected to the Code of Service Discipline, especially if the victims are civilian, needs to be handed over without question or delay to the outside civilian authorities having jurisdiction.
Sure, you’re going to get a lot of naysaying from those involved with the Canadian Forces. But that’s only because the people making those complaints understand the need for the military to retain its own police agency in order for the military to hide secrets from the civilian world.
Many of our NATO allies currently operate with civilian police attending to civilian matters and the military police attending to purely military matters. Doing the same in Canada shouldn’t be out of the question, and its definately preferable to allowing the military to keep doing its own thing.
Beeshive 