You can tell that there is something drastically wrong within the Canadian Armed Forces by the sheer number of Class Action Lawsuits that have been brought against the military over the years.
Contrary to popular belief, class action lawsuits are not a “get-rich-quick” scheme.
As can be seen from the settlement in the LifeLabs class action, the more class members that come forward, the less each member of the class receives.
As I had been a client of LifeLab since the early 2000’s I was eligible for a settlement.
The settlement I received from LifeLabs was a whopping:
Not all class actions pay out this little. It’s just that when a class action has over 100,000 members, the pool gets spread out a little thin.
So, what’s the benefit of a class action?
Members such as myself get to take on entities that I would never stand a chance against.
And so far as organizations that are untouchable, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence rank up there pretty high.
How many class actions has the Canadian Armed Forces faced recently?
In addition to mine:
There’s one for Mental Health:
The CAF have a long and storied history of mistreatment of mental health issues. I should know. I endured mistreatment at the hands of Captain Terry Totzke.
There’s a class action for sexual misconduct:
There’s a class action for racism:
There’s a class action related to the LGBT purge.
This purge mentality affected the kids living in the military communities as well. This is why Captain Totzke was hellbent to make sure that I understood that I was to blame for being sexually abused. My father, being both a full time member of the regular forces and subordinate to the captain would have had to go along with Captain Totzke’s treatment plan for me.
Then there’s also the other issues that kinda got settled on the low-down by ex-gratia payments.
There was the 1974 CFB Valcartier Grenade incident in which an officer of the Canadian Armed Forces was in charge of a group of 12 to 18 year old army cadets and allowed the cadets to play with a live M56 grenade. The grenade went boom. Killed numerous cadets and physically and mentally injured numerous more cadets. The Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence fought compensation of these victims all the way up to 2011 when the Minister of National Defence on advice of the Canadian Forces Ombudsman offered each survivor and the families of the deceased up to $250,000.00 each.
I’m currently on patch #3, patch #4 will be on Wednesday.
Not too much noticeable in the way of changes, but there are some changes.
My facial hair isn’t growing as fast.
My nipples have started to change shape, and now it feels like there’s an empty void behind them.
And my testicles are smaller.
Other than that I’m still waiting on the muscle loss.
I did go for physio last week and the one thing we noticed is that my muscles aren’t as stiff and tense as they usually are.
I don’t expect the really noticeable changes to start occurring much before June.
June is my vacation month, so I am expecting to go back to work looking a little different than I did before my vacation.
That should be very entertaining……..
A co-worker of mine whom is aware of my blog and my desire for M.A.i.D. has asked me if finally being able to transition will put an end to my desire for M.A.i.D.. I told them that we’d have to wait and see. We’ll have to see what awaits in 2027.
If you’ve been paying attention to the media you might have encountered a “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” news story from Murray Brewster of the CBC.
I had my first dealings with the Military Police Complaints Commission back in 2012 through 2013. And from my experience this is an agency that is intentionally set up to fail.
The MPCC is hamstrung by the rules that created it.
Why would the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Armed Forces, and the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal allow an agency to exist that would put their defective “justice system” in peril?
The DND and the CAF have fought long and hard to maintain their own separate justice system, and for good reason. It’s hard to maintain an air of dignity if the public learns that you have an epidemic of child sexual abuse on the bases.
The MPCC was created back in 1998 with the passing of Bill C-25, “An Act to make Amendments to the National Defence Act”.
But right from the word go, the DND and the CAF worked tirelessly to ensure that the MPCC would not pose a risk to their separate and distinct justice system.
That’s how we ended up with the following process to make a complaint.
How to make a complaint to the MPCC
If a person wishes to make a complaint against a CFNIS investigation, you can’t. Only members of the CFNIS or Military Police can make a complaint about an investigation.
And only members of the Canadian Armed Forces can make interference complaints.
Victims dissatisfied with a CFNIS investigation are limited to making a complaint against individuals. This isn’t accidental. This is intentional. You now have to figure out how to make a complaint against individual members of the CFNIS for their conduct even if there was nothing wrong with their conduct.
Being that members of the Canadian Armed Forces must obey the lawful commands of their superiors, what you allege as negligence or improper conduct may actually just be the results of lawful commands. And investigators with the CFNIS can’t be faulted for following lawful commands, can they now?
And because you can’t make a complaint against an investigation, you can’t make a complaint about the validity of those “lawful commands” as you’ll more than likely never know who gave those commands.
The most significant flaw with the MPCC review process is that you have to make your complaint to the Provost Marshal first.
Yes, this is the same Provost Marshal that will decide what documents to hand over to the MPCC and which documents will not be handed over to the MPCC.
This makes about as much sense as the police calling up a robbery suspect to tell them that they’re coming over in 2 hours to look for evidence of a robbery.
The Provost Marshal will then conduct a review via the Professional Standards section of the Canadian Forces Military Police Group.
Only after the Professional Standards group conducts their review and the Provost Marshal informs you of the results, can you then request a review from by the MPCC.
Requesting an MPCC Review.
You have 90 days after the review of the Professional Standards to request a review by the MPCC.
I would like to say that a review is a worthwhile endeavour, but quite frankly it isn’t.
An MPCC review is like pissing your pants. Sure, it brings you some relief, and it gives you a warm feeling. But when the warm feeling goes away, you’re wet and you stink like piss.
The problem with an MPCC review is that it is very powerless.
The MPCC cannot subpoena witnesses
The MPCC cannot subpoena documents
The MPCC cannot administer oaths
The MPCC didn’t really understand how the military police or the CFNIS operate as they have never (as per Stannard’s 2015 interview) been given documents that explain the operational hierarchy of the military police and the CFNIS, so they wouldn’t know what documents to request and who to request them from.
The MPCC can only review the documents handed to them by the Provost Marshal.
The MPCC are not allowed to share with the complainant the documents that the Provost Marshal supplied to the MPCC.
These points basically allow the Provost Marshal to hobble any MPCC investigation right from the start. And there’s nothing that the MPCC can do about it.
Yes, the MPCC could call for an Inquiry, but an MPCC Inquiry occurs just about as frequently as the birth of a unicorn.
The MPCC must obtain the consent of the Minister of National Defence in order to call an inquiry.
That’s not going to happen in a matter that has the potential to expose how the defective military justice system in the pre-1998 days was able to hide and bury military child sexual abuse on the bases, and how the modern day Military Police group can conduct “feel good” investigations that don’t accomplish anything but make the victim(s) think that the military police conducted a “real” investigation.
Remember, due to flaws in the pre-1998 National Defence Act, if you were a child living in military housing on a defence establishment, and you were molested by an active member of the regular force, you will never be able to lay charges against the former member due to either the 3-year-time-bar flaw or the summary investigation flaw.
Prior to 1998, it was the serving member’s commanding officer that was required to act as the Crown Prosecutor to decide if charges were warranted or not.
Prior to 1998 the military could not try a member for service offences if more than three years had elapsed between the date of the offence and the commencement of the tribunal.
In my matter the CFNIS knew about the intimate connection between my babysitter and the military chaplain, Captain Father Angus McRae.
And at the start of the investigation in March of 2011, Angus McRae was still alive. And the National Defence Act states that former members remain liable to be tried for service offences committed while they were active members.
But, the 3-year-time-bar and the summary investigation flaw would have out right prevented the laying of charges. And in the pre-1998 days, there was no language in the National Defence Act that allowed for service offences to bypass the required summary investigation by the commanding officer of the accused and simply be tried in civilian court.
A brief detour into the absurd.
Many reporters have been whamboozled by the military police and the CFNIS stating that there’s nothing stopping them from arresting someone for child molestation that was committed prior to 1998 and trying them in civilian court.
The general accepted practice for trying persons charged with committing historical crimes is that you have to charge them and try them as the law prescribed the offender to be charged and tried at the time.
Prior to 1998 when a member of the Canadian Armed Forces committed a Criminal Code offence while on duty and while on a defence establishment, the National Defence Act stated that these offences were to be tried as service offences with the specific exceptions of Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape prior to 1985, and Murder, Manslaughter, and Sexual Assault (not including crimes against children), between 1985 and 1998.
Members of the regular force are subjected to the Code of Service Discipline from the time they enlist until the time they are released, 24/7/365.
The Canadian Armed Forces, prior to 1998, could try for sexual crimes against children so long as “consent” was a possibility. This meant that the military could try a member for any sexual assault involving a child between the ages of 14 to 18.
If the military wished to proceed with charges related to children under the age of consent, those charges had to be tried in the civilian courts.
Any service charge of child sexual abuse that had been brought against a member of the Canadian Armed Forces had to be approved by the commanding officer of the accused.
The commanding officer had the full authority pre-1998 to dismiss ANY service offence charge that had been brought against a member of the Canadian Forces.
Gross indecency and indecent assault could easily become drunk and disorderly, or behaviour unbecoming. The offender gets punished, and the public doesn’t find out about a child sexual assault.
Take all the time you need to think about that.
Judicial Review
I’ve begun to realize that the laws in this country are written by naive politicians assuming that no one has anything to hide and everyone is interested in justice.
After I received the findings of the 2012 MPCC review that found the CFNIS in 2011 did a stellar and upstanding investigation I filed an application for Judicial Review with the Federal Court of Canada.
The nice thing about filing an application for Judicial Review is the Military Police Complaints Commission was compelled to hand over to men certified copies of the documents that were provided to the MPCC by the Provost Marshal.
The sad thing about filing an application for Judicial Review is realizing that the CFNIS fucked up the 2011 investigation beyond all comprehension and that there is literally nothing I can do to prove to the court that the CFNIS willfully withheld documents and information from the MPCC.
Remember, during an MPCC review, they don’t share with you any of the evidence that the Provost Marshal supplied to them.
And by the time you get to Judicial Review you are not allowed to introduce new evidence.
So you are literally fucked seven ways from Sunday.
Federal Court gives you the opportunity to give the Provost Marshal a polite “fuck you”, but other than that the Department of Justice will strike all “new” evidence that you introduce to prove that the CFNIS conducted an inept investigation.
Sure, you can approach the Supreme Court of Canada and ask them to review the admissibility of the new evidence and whether or not the MPCC should have known that they were being actively deceived.
But doing this is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
What evidence was withheld actively withheld from the MPCC by the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal?
My social service records that indicated that my grandmother lived with us and raised my brother and I on CFB Namao
That I was in foster care due to major dysfunction in the household that stemmed from my father’s inability to accept responsibility for his family.
That I was suffering from mental health issues that are all standard indicators of child sexual abuse.
That I had a military social worker.
That my father’s statement to the CFNIS denying the presence of any babysitter or the knowledge of any sexual assaults was wrong as both Captain Totzke and my father blamed me exclusively for what had happened on the base and for the fact that I allowed the babysitter to molest my brother.
These were all important items as my father in his statement to the CFNIS claimed that there never was a babysitter, that his mother only briefly looked after my brother and I, and that my brother and I were never sexually abused.
It also turned out that the CFNIS scrubbed any and all mention of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae from the investigation.
As part of my application for Judicial Review I gave my father a written examination. My father, when presented with excepts from my social service records and foster care records contradicted everything he said to the CFNIS in 2011.
The CFNIS had my social service records and my foster care records in 2011. The CFNIS could have easily called my father back in to ask him why his statement to the CFNIS didn’t come anywhere near to what my social service records and my foster care records revealed.
The second CFNIS investigation
In around August of 2015 I was contacted by RCMP inspector Akrum Ghadbhan. This was the result of a letter that I had sent to the RCMP Commissioner and the Minister of National Defence in which I mentioned the details of a recorded phone call that I had with the father of the babysitter.
Inspector Ghadbhan said that he had reviewed the CFNIS investigation and that it didn’t meet contemporary policing standards and that he was recommending that the CFNIS reopen the investigation with the new evidence that I had provided.
Evidence that I provided:
My father’s written examination to the Federal Court
My brother’s written examination to the Federal Court
Very specific excerpts from my social service paperwork and my foster care paperwork.
Details of my conversation with Fred R. Cunningham that occurred on November 27th, 2011.
A copy of the recorded phone call between myself and the babysitter’s father that occurred in July of 2015.
My grandmother’s vital stats.
My step grandfather’s vital stats.
Proof that I had told the CFNIS during my initial video interview in March of 2011 that I had attempted twice before to report this to the military police but that both times the military police refused to look at the matter citing the civilian status of my babysitter.
Proof that Captain Terry Totzke had extensive involvement with me in the aftermath of CFB Namao.
Sgt. Damon Tenaschuk of the CFNIS Pacific Region was given this case to investigate.
About the only thing outstanding about the second CFNIS investigation is when Sgt. Tenaschuk called me to let me know that he had obtained a copy of CFSIU DS-120-10-80 and that this document had the following to say:
What Fred Cunningham had told me on Nov. 27th, 2011 was the truth and that Fred was in a position to know what he had told me.
That much like I had told Mcpl Christian Cyr on May 3rd, 2011 about the visits to the chapel and the sickly sweet grape juice that Captain McRae openly admitted to the military police inn 1980 that he had brought numerous children over to the base chapel and that he would give them alcohol and that sometimes they’d fool around in the bedroom afterwards.
That the investigation of Captain McRae was only initiated AFTER the investigation of the babysitter due to numerous complaints of the babysitter molesting much younger children on the base.
That paperwork such as CFSIU DS-120-10-80 is only supposed to be retained for 7 years according to DND rules and the fact that it still existed in 2017 meant that it had been used within 7 years of McRae’s court martial, and then again within 7 years of the second use, and so on.
After this phone call I filed an ATI for the court martial transcripts and the CFSIU paperwork. DND fought me on this. I had to enlist the help of the Information Commissioner of Canada.
MPCC part 2
In early 2018 I received a phone call from Sgt. Tenaschuk stating that the Crown was not recommending charges.
So I filed another complaint with the MPCC.
This time around the Provost Marshal outright refused the request for a review implying that the review that occurred in 2012 was more than sufficient.
The MPCC commenced a review anyways.
This time I gave the MPCC copies of recorded phone calls, copies of emails, copies of the original video statement in which I explain what home life was like, and that I had tried to report this abuse twice before.
I also specifically mentioned the discussion Sgt. Tenaschuk and I had about Fred Cunningham, CFSIU DS-120-10-80, and DND’s outright refusal to grant me access to the investigation paperwork or the court martial transcripts.
I wasn’t expecting too much this time around.
But I think the MPCC realized just how badly the Provost Marshal fucked them over during the 2012 MPCC review.
The MPCC conducted their review of my complaint against Sgt. Tenaschuk and found that Sgt. Tenaschuk had followed the investigation framework as laid down by his superiors.
The MPCC didn’t make any mention of CFSIU DS-120-10-80 in relation to the investigation of my complaint against the babysitter, which would seem to indicate that it wasn’t in the documents that were handed over to the MPCC by the Provost Marshal.
The MPCC looks elsewhere.
The MPCC did however look at a parallel investigation in which the CFNIS was investigating the complaint of another former military dependent against the same babysitter. This investigation was being conducted by the CFNIS Western Region.
The MPCC went to great pains in the October 2020 final report to indicate that they looked at this parallel investigation just for curiosity.
It was during this look that they noticed that the CFNIS Wester Region had in its possession the infamous CFSIU DS-120-10-80 and the 1980 Courts Martial transcripts for Captain Father Angus McRae.
The Information Commissioner of Canada.
I had been involved with the Information Commissioner of Canada ever since DND first refused to release Captain McRae’s courts martial transcripts to me in 2012.
When DND refused to provide me with a copy of DS-120-10-80 in 2018 I enlisted the help of the ICC again.
The ICC wasn’t too hopeful of a resolution as DND and the CSIS are tied for being the government agencies most likely to stonewall ATI requests.
But in mid 2019 I was contacted by the ICC and told that DND had just granted access to the documents to another requestor, so I should refile my request, and that DND could not refuse to honour my request.
DND did release to me the documents.
They were so redacted that it was a joke.
It was almost as bad as the documents that the DOJ released to me about the settlement between the babysitter and the DND when the babysitter sued the DND for the abuse he endured on CFB Namao at the hands of Captain McRae.
David Pugliese
I had been trying to interest David in my story over the years, but there just weren’t any bites. To be honest, absolutely nobody in the media was willing to buy into the topic of child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces or the fact that the military loves to hide and bury this stuff as much as possible.
It was sometime in the late winter / early spring of 2020 when David ran a story on DND stonewalling ATI requests. I contacted David and gave him the low down on what I was encountering.
David ran a couple of stories, and poof, I had my documents, this time with many fewer redactions. I got my documents around the late summer of 2020, just before the MPCC released their final review of my second complaint against the CFNIS.
The Courts Martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork confirmed everything that I had been piecing together over the years.
The babysitter was a prolific child abuser
There were living quarters attached to the chapel
Captain McRae was known to be bringing children to the chapel and giving them alcohol.
The MPCC second review final report.
I now understand why the DND and the Minister of National Defence gave in so easily when David Pugliese started asking questions. The DND and the MOD both knew that the MPCC had obtained the Courts Martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork.
And sure enough the MPCC mentioned both of these documents in its final report.
I received the final MPCC report in November of 2020.
The MPCC did take issue with the CFNIS for relying on the Crown’s reluctance to prosecute as an indication that no crime had occurred. The MPCC said that it was quite evident that I and my brother were victims of crime at the hands of the babysitter. The MPCC then explained the difference between civil liability and criminal liability. The CFNIS should never had said that there was no evidence to indicate a crime had occured. The CFNIS should have indicated that the evidence presented wasn’t enough to secure a conviction.
And as clipped as the wings of the MPCC are, they found a way to stick a dagger in the back of the Provost Marshal.
As mentioned, they looked at the parallel investigation into a complaint made by another former military dependent who had been abused by the babysitter.
That’s when the MPCC confirmed the existence of the courts martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork.
The MPCC was the other requestor that the Information Commissioner had informed me had received a copy of the CFSIU investigation paperwork and the courts martial transcripts.
The Provost Marshal must have told the CFNIS in 2012 and the CFNIS in 2018 to withhold those documents from the MPCC.
And the MPCC wouldn’t have known any better, but they did go look at that parallel investigation, probably without informing the Provost Marshal, and lo-and-behold look at what they found.
They just couldn’t grab a copy of the documents from the CFNIS. Instead they’d have to file the required ATI. And when DND complied with that ATI request that would have triggered the Information Commissioner to call me to let me know that I too could now request a copy of the released documents and DND would be very hard pressed to deny me a copy.
The MPCC couldn’t include the contents of the CFSIU paperwork or the courts martial transcripts within the findings of my complaint as the Provost Marshal didn’t include a copy of these documents in their submissions to the MPCC in 2012 and 2018.
But the MPCC did include a separate section in the final report outside of the section that dealt with my complaint against Sgt. Tenaschuk that talked about these two documents and the contents.
The MPCC noted that Captain McRae was a prolific pedophile.
The MPCC noted that the investigation into Captain McRae was triggered by the base military police investigating the babysitter as the result of numerous parents on base complaining about the babysitter molesting young children.
The MPCC noted that the babysitter’s attraction to young children was used by Captain McRae’s defence officer as a means to discredit the babysitter.
The MPCC noted that the babysitter’s criminal record for molesting children was far more extensive than what the CFNIS had indicated to me.
The MPCC highlighted that the babysitter was known on one occasion when he was almost 15 years old to have had anal intercourse with three 10 year old boys behind the recreation centre.
The MPCC also noted that it was revealed during Captain McRae’s courts martial that the babysitter was receiving psychiatric treatment for his attraction to young children.
And more importantly, the MPCC reached all the way back to the 2011 CFNIS investigation and specifically the actions of Sgt. Christian Cyr.
On May 3rd, 2011, master corporal Christian Cyr contacted me and asked me if I knew anything about the base priest molesting children during the same period of time that I was accusing the babysitter of molesting my brother and I.
During the same phone call, master corporal Cyr tried in earnest to get me to believe that the babysitter was only 12 or 13 years old at the time and therefore couldn’t be charged under the juvenile delinquent’s act. During the 2012 MPCC review, Cyr denied telling me this information or asking me about Captain McRae. The 2012 MPCC review took issue with this as Cyr noted in his records that he did ask me these questions.
As the MPCC noted in the November 2020 Final Report, the only place that the mistake is made in regards to the babysitter’s age occurs within the CFSIU DS-120-10-80 investigation paperwork. That mistake in age exists nowhere else, especially not in the babysitter’s CPIC file.
The CFNIS would have run the babysitter’s name through the CPIC database at the start of the investigation in 2011 after the Edmonton Police Service transferred the file over to the CFNIS.
So yes, the CFNIS had the CFSIU investigation paperwork right from the start of the 2011 investigation, but their goal from the start was never to bring me justice.
The sole goal of the CFNIS in 2011 was to conduct a Dog and Pony show investigation.
But this house of cards collapsed all because one CFNIS investigator thought that he knew the truth and wanted to play Mr. Bigshot.
Class Action
And of course, without CFSIU DS-120-10-80, the transcripts from Courts Martial CM62 July 15 – July 18, 1980, and Captain McRae’s Ecclesiastical trial with the Archdiocese of Edmonton there wouldn’t be a class action.
Dog and Pony Show
I honestly don’t know where I’d be right now if master corporal Christian Cyr had just kept his mouth shut about what he knew about Captain McRae and Captain McRae’s connection to the babysitter.
When petty officer Steve Morris called me on November 4th, 2011 to tell me that the CFNIS could find no evidence to indicate that the babysitter was capable of what I accused him of, I probably would have left it at that.
If I hadn’t put the plea out on the base brat groups and been rewarded with Fred Cunningham’s number I never would have learnt first hand from the former Acting Section commander of the CFSIU, that had been personally tasked by the base security officer, Captain David Pilling, with investigating Captain McRae, just how large and extensive this scandal was.
I would never know about the babysitter’s two convictions for child molestation in 1985 if James hadn’t come forward in the spring of 2012 and pointed me right towards the specific newspaper article.
I would have just accepted the results of the Dog and Pony show CFNIS pretend investigation.
After all, captain Totzke and my father blamed me for what had happened on CFB Namao.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe my father was right when he said that it was no use me trying to escape my responsibility for what I had allowed to happen.
Provost Marshal
I will say this though, from my dealings with the Provost Marshal’s office way back in the days of Lieutenant Colonel Gilles Sansterre, the provost marshal is a trickster fox.
The provost marshal is the least believable character in the Canadian Armed Forces.
And the provost marshal will lie and obstruct without a second thought if it helps to keep the dirty laundry hidden in the closet.
Well, it looks as if the Minister of National Defence has finally grown a pair and is stripping the Canadian Armed Forces of its ability to investigate and prosecute sexual offences.
This is great news.
But it should go much further. The CFNIS and the base military police MUST be prohibited from investigating any crime on base in which civilians are the victims. This would officially remove both domestic child abuse and domestic spousal abuse from the purview of the Canadian Forces military police group.
Sadly it’s too late for the kids of CFB Namao to receive justice.
The settlement from the class action will be the only acknowledgement that we will ever receive.
There will be no admissions of guilt.
There will be no prosecution.
There will be no admission that the military justice system outright failed us.
There will be no investigations to see how extensive child sexual abuse was on the bases in Canada and how often these matters were mishandled by the military justice system.
In my matter the police force investigating this matter was guided by all sorts of wishy-washy policies enacted by the various National Defence Acts.
And none of these policies dealt directly with child sexual abuse.
For example in 1998 the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal put order CFPM 2120-4-0 into effect that stated that in the matters of sexual assault that occur on base when both the victim and the abuser are civilians, the matter is to be handed over to the outside civilian authorities having jurisdiction.
One military dependent sexually abusing other military dependents would be a perfect trigger for this order.
That policy was outright ignored by the CFNIS in March of 2011, and it was ignored by the Federal Court of Canada in 2013.
Yes, CFPM 2120-4-0 instructed the military police and the CFNIS that matters involving civilian on civilian crimes and sexual assaults involving civilians be handed off to the outside civilian authorities, but as the CFPM 2120-4-0 wasn’t hard written into the National Defence Act according to the Federal Court, the Provost Marshal in 2011 was free to ignore this directive at will.
The Provost Marshal and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service can whine and cry and protest all they want.
They fucked up.
Yes, they may have had no choice in the matter, but they fucked up nonetheless.
In 1980 the military police were not allowed by the chain of command to call in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to deal with the babysitter.
Why didn’t the base commander allowed the RCMP to be called in? Remember, the Canadian Forces moved heaven and earth to keep this investigation and prosecution within the military justice system and out of the prying eyes of the Canadian public, even going so far as to move the court martial “in-camera” and sealing the transcripts. The military would have lost all of this power had the babysitter been investigated, arrested, and then prosecuted in the Juvenile Delinquents Court. One peculiarity of the Juvenile Delinquents Act was the fact that the juvie court could find an adult responsible for the delinquency of a minor and issue summary fines and sentences. All of the work that the Canadian Forces undertook in 1980 to keep Captain McRae a secret would have been all for naught if the babysitter went to juvie court.
In 2011 the CFNIS had the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork and the court martial transcripts, both of which heavily implicated the babysitter with the abuse of numerous children on the base. In fact as Fred Cunningham stated in 2011, and as the babysitter’s own father stated to me in 2015, it was the babysitter’s abuse of children that triggered the investigation of Captain Father Angus McRae.
Yes, the existence of the paperwork wouldn’t have proved the babysitter’s guilt, but the fact that he had been investigated by the military police and was found to have been sexually abusing children during the exact same time period that I accused the babysitter of molesting me and my brother would have probably encouraged the crown to request a more in depth investigation.
Remember, it wasn’t that the babysitter had been cleared during the military police investigation, or that the charges had been dismissed against the babysitter , the chain of command on Canadian Forces Base Namao prevented both the base military police and the CFSIU from calling in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to deal with the babysitter.
And yes, when I requested in 2017 that the CFNIS question the former base commander of CFB Namao, retired brigadier general Daniel Edward Munro, as to why he dismissed the majority of charges against Captain McRae and why he wouldn’t allow the RCMP to be brought in to deal with the babysitter, the CFNIS obtained a legal opinion from a legal officer in Ottawa that stated that due to the 3-year-time-bar that existed prior to 1998 no charges could be brought against Daniel Edward Munro so therefore no investigation was to occur.
However the CFNIS failed to pass any of this information on the Albert Crown prosecutor’s office. In fact the CFNIS seemed to have withheld numerous bits of information from the Crown.
This was a tactic that the military police employed in the ’90s during the CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy in which a military spouse was gang raped by numerous soldiers in a barracks on the base. The general consensus was that the military police would give a case to the crown that the military police knew the crown would not prosecute. The military police would then blame the crown for the failure to bring charges.
During the 2012 MPCC investigation of my complaint against the CFNIS, the Provost Marshall willingly withheld the existence of the CFSIU paperwork and the court martial transcripts from the MPCC. In fact the Provost Marshal withheld numerous documents from the MPCC.
Federal Court rules state that an applicant for judicial review cannot enter into evidence any documents that were not before the tribunal in question.
This means that I was unable to enter into evidence anything that the Provost Marshal hadn’t given to the MPCC. Which was a lot. If I had to guess, I’d say that the Provost Marshal withheld from the Military Police Complaints Commission over 80% of the documents from the 2011 investigation.
Even though the 2nd CFNIS investigation was conducted much better as an inspector with the RCMP had set down some ground rules and directions for the CFNIS to follow, in the end the CFNIS basically resubmitted the same brief word for word to the Alberta crown that the CFNIS submitted in 2011. The second time around that CFNIS again failed to notify the crown of the existence of the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork or the 1980 court martial transcripts that indicated that the babysitter was known to have molested numerous children on the base during the same frame of time that I had made my allegations against him.
And I know that the exact same brief was filed because when I filed for judicial review in 2013 I was given a certified copy of the documents before the MPCC. In 2019 when I appealed the findings of the Alberta Victims of Crime decision that no crime had occurred based upon the CFNIS investigation, I was given a certified copy of the documents before the Alberta Victims of Crime. This included the 2018 submission to the Alberta Crown. It was identical to the 2011 submission.
See, the problem with the military police is that they are soldiers first and police officers second.
The investigators with the CFNIS must obey the lawful commands of their superiors. Their superiors must obey the lawful commands of their superiors. And so on, and so on.
The military basically….
This means that investigations conducted by the CFNIS can be exposed to political interference.
Children who were sexually abused on military bases in Canada were of absolutely no concern to the brass at NDHQ. And the brass at NDHQ was certainly not going to allow a bunch of base brats sully the public image of the Canadian Armed Forces.
What would the public think if they discovered that children were not entirely safe while living on allegedly secure defence establishments?
What would the public think if the public were to be told that children who lived on bases in Canada prior to 1998 and who were sexually abused by members of the Canadian Forces could not obtain justice due to the existence of the 3-year-time-bar?
What would the public think if the public were to be told that due to the principles of “double jeopardy” military service personnel who sexually abused children on base prior to 1998, and who had their charges dismissed by their commanding officer, could never be tried again on the same charges by either a civilian or military tribunal. I would like to think that the Canadian public would blow a collective gasket if they were to discover that these commanding officers that had the power to dismiss and charge brought against their subordinate had no legal training, no legal background, and prior to 1997 didn’t even have to consult with a legal officer before dismissing charges.
And what would the public think if they discovered that the likelihood of charges being brought against an abuser in the pre-1998 days had a lot to do with the rank of the victim’s serving parent versus the rank of the abuser and ultimately the rank of the abuser’s commanding officer.
A corporal’s demand that charges be brought against a captain when the captain’s commanding officer is a colonel isn’t going to go too far. Especially not when that commanding officer is the base commander and had the ultimate authority over everyone on that particular defence establishment. This would include the corporal, the corporal’s commanding officer, the base military police, and the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit detachment located on the colonel’s base.
There was some exchange of information between my lawyer and I this last week.
The DOJ seems to be willing to allow this matter to proceed as a class action.
There was some disagreement on the definition of what constituted a “class member” so hopefully my lawyer is able to have this definition properly defined.
Once my lawyer and the DOJ reach agreement on what constitutes a class member, then the court still has to accept. This shouldn’t be a problem though.
Beyond that I can’t give much more information as it’s all in the hands of the lawyers.
If you haven’t paid attention to the media over the last few days you missed out on some major changes coming to the Canadian Armed Forces.
The Minister of National Defence is calling for the removal of sexual assault from the purview of the Canadian Forces Military Police Group, including the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service.
The Minister is requesting that all sexual assaults that occur on Defence Establishments in Canada be investigated and prosecuted by the civilian police and the civilian justice system.
I will be very curious to see how this affects military dependents that were sexually abused on military bases in Canada, especially in the days prior to 1998.
I also wonder how this will affect pre-1998 child sexual assault investigations that rely on access to the service files of retired service personnel.
This of course is 13 years and three weeks too late to be of any benefit to me.
In my case the CFNIS, the Provost Marshal, and the Canadian Forces will always be able to say that the Military Police Complaints Commission and Federal Court justice Yves De Montigny found no issues with the 2012 MPCC investigation which in turn found no issues with the 2011 CFNIS investigation and therefore the 2011 CFNIS investigation was an example of superb police work.
That of course only works so long as the CFNIS, the Provost Marshal, and the Canadian Forces forget to tell the Canadian public that they willingly withheld from the Military Police Complaints Commission and ultimately Federal Court Justice Yves De Montigny the fact that the CFNIS in 2011 had in their possession the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork, and the 1980 Court Martial transcripts that show that it was the babysitter’s abuse of young children that brought him to the attention of the base military police and that this subsequently brought Captain Father Angus McRae to the attention of the CFSIU which found that McRae had been molesting well over 25 children on the base and that McRae had been obfuscating this abuse by administering alcohol to the children that he was abusing in the rectory of the chapel.
I also like the fact that the Minister of National Defence is willing to expand those who can make interference complaints to the Military Police Complaints Commission. Up to now the only persons who can make complaints are the investigators with the military police or the CFNIS. But if your superior gives you a “lawful command” is that really interference?
Well, now that M.A.i.D. is off the table until 2027 I’m going to pick up on an issue that I wanted to deal with prior to 2011 when I sent my email to the Edmonton Police Service.
I don’t really think my complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal will have much effect on the government, at least not in the short term.
And I don’t expect to hear anything from the DND and the DOJ until at least 2030. They’re gonna want to ride this matter out for as long as possible.
In 2008 I legally changed my name.
This was done for two reasons.
The first was that I had decided that if Richard wanted nothing to do with me, then I wanted nothing to do with him.
The second was that at the time I was considering undergoing gender reassignment.
For all of my life, up to that point, I had never felt like I was a male.
I never connected with “male” things.
I loved dresses as a kid and feminine things. Once I got my first apartment in New Westminster around 1994 I started buying dresses on the sly and wearing them in my apartment.
As a kid I used to get the shit beat out of me on CFB Downsview ’cause I acted like a girl or walked like a girl or cried like a girl, etc.
The teachings of Captain Totzke were still fresh in my head that I had been sexually abused by the babysitter because I enjoyed having sex with boys.
But then in 2011 I had to go and try to get justice for what the babysitter had done, so that derailed my plans.
And maybe that was a good thing in a way.
See, I had fallen into the same trap that most of society has fallen into and that is there were only two genders. If you’re not a male, then you have to be a female, and vice-verse.
As a kid I had always wanted breasts. I was so certain that I was going to develop like the other girls, but that never happened.
I was around 12 when I realized that I wasn’t going to develop breasts. And I was fucking devastated.
I had always felt that my hips should have been larger, but they never grew out.
And on top of that I had Captain Totzke drilling into my head that I was a “homosexual”. Which wasn’t clearly explained to me what that entailed, but it was bad apparently.
So, I never really knew what I was.
Didn’t enjoy relationships with women, but I didn’t enjoy relationships with men either.
So………….
After having been kicked and beat by the Canadian Forces since 2011, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect.
And reflect I have.
I don’t identify as anything.
I’m not male.
I’m not female.
Not gay.
Not straight.
I’m nothing.
And I’m cool with that.
So, I’m going for an appointment with my physician in April.
Even though I don’t identify as a woman, doesn’t mean that I can’t have breasts.
Breasts will work nicely with my wardrobe.
And as I’ve said, I’ve always felt like I should have had breasts.
I’m pretty sure that I will enjoy having breasts.
Hips?
Nope, not at this stage of life. My pelvis has been exposed to androgens for too long.
The junk I was born with?
Never have liked it, it’s always felt like it never belonged down there.
What do I plan to do?
Well, the first thing will be to start on anti-androgens and then start on a estrogen.
Due to my age I more than likely won’t be able to oral estrogen, I’ll more than likely have to stay with dermal patches.
The nice thing about going on estrogen is it will reduce my muscle mass. My body has always felt foreign to me. The mental image that I have of my body is much smaller than what my physical body actually is. My body has always felt like it belonged to someone else.
If the anti-androgens and the estrogen have the effects that I desire, then I intend to go for orchiectomy. That is I intend to have my testicles removed. Castration basically. Absolutely no more androgen production.
And then a penectomy. That is, the complete removal of my penis.
But no, there will be no vaginoplasty. I got fucked enough as a kid, I don’t need anymore penises inside of my body. Besides, as I said, I don’t truly identify as female. It’s just I don’t identify as male.
And I want to get rid of my male junk.
How will I pee? Good that you asked.
Same way that guys who have had penectomies due to cancer urinate. My urethra will be connected to a new opening and I’ll urinate through that.
What will I look like? A Ken doll…….with a scar.
Isn’t that a bit drastic?
No.
As I’ve said, I have always despised the junk between my legs. It’s always felt like a punishment.
So, I get to get rid of it finally AND I get to have the breasts that I always wanted.
In 2008, just after I legally changed my name, I sent my father a letter explaining why I had changed my name. I was very clear with Richard this was something that I wanted to do and that he was losing a son that he didn’t want and was gaining a daughter that he wouldn’t have wanted either.
I guess this is why he told the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service in 2011 that he knew that I had changed my name, but that he didn’t know why I had changed my name.
He knew why I changed my name. I guess that having a homosexual son was bad enough, but now having a gender non-conforming son was even worse.
I had called him during the 2011 CFNIS investigation. I asked him for help with the investigation. Not once did he return any of my calls. And he plunged the proverbial knife into my back in 2011 when he gave his statement to the CFNIS in 2011 in which he denied the babysitter looked after my brother and I and in which he denied that grandma was raising my brother an I on CFB Namao.
So yeah, I guess his gender non-conforming son was an insult that he wasn’t willing to wear.
I do wish that he was still alive.
Just so that he could see me in my dresses, with my breasts…….. that would have been priceless.
But Bobbie, you have no hair!
Yep, that’s cool. There are a ton of awesome looking bald women. With tattoos to boot. In fact, the reason that I started shaving my head back in 1990 was Sinead O’Connor. She looked powerful with her 0 buzzcut.
One thing that I do wonder about, what would things have been like had I come out as gender-queer and gender non-conforming on a Canadian Armed Forces base when I was a kid back in the ’80s?
Sure, the civilian world wasn’t that too receptive yet, but the civilian world was far more accepting than a Canadian military base would have been.
Would I have survived?
Or would I have quietly disappeared either at the hands of my own father or at the hands of another member of the Canadian Forces disgusted by a person like me being “out” on the base.
If I had told my father or even Captain Terry Totzke between 1980 and 1987 that I identified as a female, I think I would have encountered a tragic conclusion.
Anyways, enough about the past, I’m looking forward to my April appointment.
I was told by both the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service and Alberta Crown Prosecutor Jon Weribicki that 30 years was just too long of a time for me to expect any charges to be brought against the babysitter. In fact Mr. Weribicki hinted that I was the master of my own misfortune as I waited so long to tell anyone, something that he considered to be “very significant”.
Well, recently there were two stories about men having been arrested recently for having molested children in the ’80s and ’90s.
When I sent my email to the Edmonton Police Service in March of 2011, that was almost 31 years after the events from CFB Namao came to a crashing end with me having been caught with the 14-3/4 year old babysitter’s penis in my 8 year old asshole.
I wonder if it had more to do with either the incompetence of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service or the desire to hide secrets that kept the CFNIS from laying charges. Two retired Supreme Court justices, Madame Marie Deschamps, and Mrs. Louise Arbour have called the military police, including the CFNIS incompetent when it comes to sexual assaults.
In fact, it was Louise Arbour who pushed the Minister of National Defence to hand over all sexual assault investigations to the civilian police effective immediately. However, mine was one of 31 sexual assault investigations that the CFNIS were allowed to keep.
If you pay attention to the media you’ll notice that it’s not uncommon to hear about arrests and prosecutions for child sexual assaults that occurred in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s.
Yet, even though the CFNIS in 2011 had the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork and the 1980 Court Martial transcripts which indicated that it was my babysitter’s known abuse of younger children on the base which led to the investigation of Captain Father Angus McRae, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service in 2011 just couldn’t find any evidence to indicate that the babysitter was capable of doing what I accused him of.
If you ask me, the inability of the CFNIS had nothing to do with the inability of me to make my case. It had more to do with the Canadian Armed Forces not wanting to have to answer questions in the modern day for fuck-ups from the past.
Fuck-ups like:
Why were commanding officers like Colonel Daniel Edward Munro given the power to decide the charges brough against their subordinates.
Why were commanding officers like Colonel Daniel Edward Munro allowed to determine the scope and depth of military police and CFSIU investigations
Why weren’t the Royal Canadian Mounted Police brought in to deal with the babysitter who close to 15 years of age when he was discovered buggering me.
How many other former military dependents from CFB Namao who were molested by the babysitter and by Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae came forward over the years with complaints about sexual abuse.
The three-year-time-bar and the summary-investigation-flaw. Yes, the Canadian Armed Forces yammer on about these flaws only applying to service offences, but don’t forget Captain McRae was given a court martial in 1980 for molesting the babysitter. Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan was given a courts martial in 1984 for molesting kids on CFB Gagetown. So yes, the 3-year-time-bar and the summary-investigation-flaw do apply to child sexual abuse matters.
Anyways, I’ve got other things on my plate coming up. The Canadian News Media has all but given up on this story. I don’t think that the Canadian public will ever know the truth about the child sexual abuse that occurred on the bases in Canada, nor the homophobia and victim blaming that abused children endured on the bases.
In this video I talk a little bit about my time in foster care.
I also talk briefly about my involement with Canadian Armed Forces Social Worker Captain Terry Totzke and his involvement with me when I was 9 to 11 years old.
Beeshive 