Today was the second and final day of my examination by the defence in the matter involving Earl Ray Stevens.
The lawyer for the defence was a pleasant enough chap. “Just doing his job” as they say.
Over the course to the two days my lawyer only really had one objection. And the defence lawyer and I had a quibble about the meaning of a word.
But that was it.
I’ll have to produce further documents for the defence. My lawyer is going to put together a list of the undertakings that were requested of me. The nice thing is that the documents that I have to produce for the defence are scanned and are on my online drive, so sharing these documents is simple. As I said, I never really got into computers, but scanning and archiving is something that I got into. Really has come in handy at work where I took four old file cabinets of documents and manuals and scanned them into the shared drive at work so that they’re available to all plant engineers.
I find myself falling through the cracks even more in planning for my death
Well, just found out that the Douglas Brain Bank in Montreal isn’t interested in my brain.
Here I was thinking that someone with a traumatic background, who was diagnosed at a young age with Major Depression and Severe Anxiety, who survived into their 50s without any type of psychiatric help would have been of interest.
Nope.
Apparently you have to live in Quebec to be considered for the donation program and you also have to have been in the care of a mental health professional prior to your death.
So, that rules me out.
The UBC body donation program only accepts cadavers that meet some undisclosed criteria. I’m going out on a limb here, but that will probably be bodies between 20 and 30, toned, muscular, below average BMI.
So, not only is medical science not interested in me while I’m living, but apparently my corpse isn’t worth shit to anyone after my death either.
And I’m beginning to put extra credence on something that Dr. T. my nurse practitioner has warned me about.
I may not actually qualify for M.A.i.D.
Sure, I was diagnosed at a young age with Major Depression and Severe Anxiety after 1-1/2 years of depraved sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao. Then I had to deal with 2 years of conversion therapy at the hands of the military social worker who was convinced that I was a homosexual because of the abuse. Plus further events of child sexual abuse. And neglect. And torment.
But this matters all for naught.
Being “functional” may prove to be my biggest undoing.
Because I didn’t see any mental health professionals between April of 1983 and the present day I’m obviously not tormented by depression, anxiety, or CPTDS.
Well, I did see mental health professionals , but they were mental health professionals provided by my employer, so they don’t count as I had to be very careful with what I told them so that I didn’t get my sorry ass fired.
Growing up in the military, living on military bases, and my father’s reactions to Captain Terry Totzke and Pat and Wayne taught me that mental health professionals, head shrinkers as he called them, were to be avoided.
My father taught me via slaps, backhands, and belts how to hide my depression and my anxiety. Well, not hide them, just internalize them where they’d eat me alive from inside.
When I grew up on the bases being mentally ill was just one step above being a child molester. In the 1980s you never, under any circumstance, let anyone on base know that you were having mental problems.
And it really doesn’t help that when I go to speak with counsellors, all I get are crystal clutching chakra chanting bobble heads that want to talk about my difficulties without talking about my difficulties.
And without any type of military trauma experience these crystal clutching chakra chanting assholes only make the problems worse.
Children didn’t live on military bases.
Children didn’t serve in the military
Children couldn’t be affected by military mental health issues because they weren’t in the military.
Children weren’t sexually abused in the military because soldiers would protect children.
Military dependents can’t have PTSD or CPTSD from events on base.
Child sexual abuse is a “learning experience” and nothing more than “childhood curiosity” and experimentation.
If something happened, the military police would have done something.
Now, getting military grade trauma counselling is out of the question as I don’t qualify. See, I’m not in the military and the Canadian Forces won’t pay for civilians to receive treatment. And as I’ve said fucking civilian counsellors are the goddamn worst. Sure, they mean good, but trying to bring these fuckers up to speed on what military life was like on the base is a major fucking downer. Too many of these counsellors learnt all they needed to know about military life on base from watching “Major Dad” on TV back in the 1980s.
I hated this fucking TV show.
“Bobbie, you’re being too hard on these people, they’re only trying to help”
Shit or get off the fucking pot.
Give me a fucking solution to my issues or stop fucking talking.
Tell me what to do, do give me some horseshit about “peering inside”
It’s that simple.
Tell me how to stop the fucking flashbacks from back then.
Tell me how to undo the fucking conversion therapy at the hands of Captain Terry Totzke.
Tell me how the fuck to undo 40 fucking years of living with untreated mental fucking illnesses.
Don’t tell me to love the fucking child inside – that’s the fucking quickest turnoff going.
Don’t call me a fucking warrior – I’m not a fucking warrior. I’m someone who had their fucking brain fucked with by people more concerned with keeping fucking secrets than helping me overcome the trauma.
Don’t fucking tell me that I should be happy that I wasn’t a girl because girls have a much harder time in life. I’ve lost count of the number of cocks and fingers I had inside my asshole before I turned 8, so fucking stuff that horseshit. Just because I’m male doesn’t mean that what happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao was any less traumatic or was just fucking “childhood curiosity and experimentation”.
You want to help me?
Help me fucking die.
Let me get my Medical Assistance in Dying so that I don’t have to live with this horseshit.
The time for fixing this crap was back in the early 1980s.
The Canadian Forces shat all over that idea.
So the only way to fix this now is to allow me to die a dignified death.
A death that will be recorded properly in the records as being due to psychological trauma due to childhood sexual abuse on a Canadian Armed Forces base.
Don’t force me to die by suicide where I get written down in some coroner’s ledger as being a suicide due to “unknown circumstances”.
Another hideous flaw in the pre-1998 National Defence Act
In 1998, another flaw was removed from the National Defence Act.
This flaw in a way was even more hideous than the Summary Investigation that I talked about in a previous blog entry.
The problem with the 3-year-time-bar is that it prohibited the laying of charges more than 3 years after the date of the alleged Service Offence.
You’ll remember from the previous post that the National Defence Act enumerates Criminal Code offences as Service Offences. As such crimes such as Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery were service offences that could be tried by Service Tribunal. This is why Captain McRae was tried in a military court martial for committing “Acts of Homosexuality” such as “Gross Indecency”, “Indecent Assault”, “Buggery” with boys under the age of 15 on Canada Forces Base Namao.
The interesting thing about this 3-year-time-bar is that it applies to ALL service offences prior to 1998.
Also, even if a member of the Canadian Armed Forces is currently retired and no longer subject to the Code of Service Discipline, if the member was subject to the Code of Service discipline when they sexually abused a child on a military base they would still enjoy all of the rights that the National Defence Act bestowed upon the service member at the time of the offence.
What this means is that even if the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service were to find the man from the sauna who Peter provided me to for the purposes of oral sex this man could never be charged if he was a member of the Canadian Forces regular force in 1980.
If this man by some small miracle is a civilian with no connection to the Canadian Armed Forces and was never subject to the Code of Service Discipline, then he could be charged under the criminal code.
Don’t believe me?
In 2017, in a telephone call with Sergeant Damon Tenaschuk of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service Pacific Region, I asked Mr. Tenaschuk if he could try to talk to Colonel Dan Munro. I thought that this would be a simple matter seeing as how Sgt. Tenaschuk was on CFB Esquimalt just outside of Victoria, BC and Daniel Edward Munro lived in a suburb of Victoria, BC.
Instead, I received the following email from Sgt. Tenaschuk:
So there you have it.
The three year time bar is real, and it affects all Service Offence and all Criminal Code matters that occurred prior to 1998.
All I had asked for was for Sgt. Tenaschuk to talk to Daniel Edward Munro to see if Daniel had improperly bent the rules when he preferred the charges that Captain McRae faced in court martial and dismissed the other charges.
For Tenaschuk’s legal officer to say right of the bat that the 3-year-time-bar would prevent the laying of charges makes me wonder how many Canadian Forces personnel got away with Service Offences / Criminal Code offences prior to 1998.
Anyone who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline prior to 1998, and who sexually abused a child on a defence establishment, will NEVER face their accuser in court. Their victim will NEVER receive justice.
And this suits the Minister of National Defence and the Chief of Defence staff just fine. As it stands right now, you don’t hear anything about children being sexually abused on military bases by military personnel from the pre-1998 days. And as it turns out this isn’t because no child was ever sexually abused on base. It’s because if these kids didn’t report their crimes within the period of three years they would never be able to report their crimes..
In 2010, charges were brought against retired Brigadier General Roger Bazin. He was accused of sexually abusing a child on Canadian Forces Base Borden in the early 1970s. The matter made it so far as court, and then suddenly everything was dropped. No explanation was ever made to the media as to why the charges were dropped. You’d think that if the Crown has just smeared someone’s name through the media that they’d be obligated to explain to the public why the charges were dropped at the last minute.
No lawyer in the media claiming “my client has been vindicated”. Nothing. Radio Silence.
In my matter, Captain Father Angus McRae was alive until May 20th, 2011.
The investigation into my complaint started on March 5th, 2011.
The CFNIS knew about the connection between my babysitter, Peter, and Captain Angus McRae right from the get-go.
This means that the JAG, the Provost Marshal, and the CFNIS were aware at the start of the investigation that even if they were able to arrest Peter, that they’d never be able to charge Captain Father Angus McRae. This must have posed quite the dilemma for the Canadian Forces.
They had the CFSIU paperwork from 1980. They knew what Peter had been doing.
But they also knew that they would never be able to charge Angus McRae.
This would be quite the scandal, no?
When the CFNIS started the investigation in March of 2011, they couldn’t have possibly known that Captain McRae would have been about to die. They would have had to structure the investigation with the knowledge that Angus McRae was alive.
Anyways, here’s what Legislative Summary LS-311E had to say about the 3-year-time-bar-flaw.
Cover PageInformation3-year-time-barLS-311E Section 2 a 1
What did you do that the Judge Advocate General won’t allow an officer of the Canadian Forces Special Investigation Unit to talk to you about the events that occurred on your base from May of 1980 until July of 1980?
Can you actually sleep with this on your conscience?
Or do you rest well at night know that the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence will cover your ass, not because you’re a great guy, but because if they uncover something unsavoury from Canadian Forces Base Namao that this will snowball into unsavoury events on many of the other Canadian Forces Bases where men such as yourself were able to hide things that had occurred on the bases that you were commanding.
How many kids did commanding officer bury on the bases?
And that’s probably for the better. Peering too deep into the black pit of his soul would probably drive anyone insane.
I don’t remember Richard very much from CFB Shearwater. I vaguely remember a motorcycle ride.
I remember some sort of string controlled model airplane that he had.
I remember him walking to work once in the fog.
But that’s it.
I remember him on CFB Summerside, but again, not that much.
I know that Marie drove him to the airfield at the base a couple of times when he had to go away on training exercises.
I remember my grandmother, and Kimberly Wood, and even my mother before she left, but I don’t ever remember Richard except for when he picked me up from the hospital after my bicycle incident in July of 1978.
I remember he almost set the PMQ on fire once when he left the kettle on the stove and he fell asleep. The kettle melted and the handle started burning.
I remember him wanting to build me a wooden go-cart but that came to an end the night he came home drunk and went to the basement.
CFB Namao, he was rarely around. Just like on Summerside, it was his mother raising us, not him. He would occasionally stop in and take my brother and I down to Wetaskiwin to visit his girlfriend Vicki. When Richard started seeing Sue around the summer of 1979 he would occasionally pick my brother and I up and we’d go over and stay at Sue’s place for the weekend.
But again, I didn’t see much of Richard until he moved back in to the house in August / September of 1980. He brought Sue to live with him as well at this point.
I remember thinking after Richard had moved back in with us that my real father had died in a military exercise and that the Canadian Forces had replaced my real father with an imposter hoping that I wouldn’t notice.
He was so very different from what I had remembered before. Also, he was around a lot more now than he had ever been before.
In October of 1980 we were moved 10km down the road from CFB Namao to CFB Griesbach at taxpayer expense .
By the summer of 1981 Grandma had moved off base and moved into her own apartment on 107th Ave and 111th street.
Richard still was going away on training exercises and dumping my brother and I on Sue’s lap.
Things under Richard’s domain were not all that pleasant.
Richard was the ultimate control freak. And as my brother was 7 and I was 10, nothing was ever going to be as perfect as he wanted it.
It got to the point that Richard put my brother and I in the base daycare centre before we’d go to school. Richard would wake us up in the morning, we’d get dressed, have breakfast, and then we’d have to go sit in the day care centre until it was time to go to school.
If you ever want to get tormented and teased and get the shit beaten out of you, try being a 10 year old military dependent living on a military base and going to a day care centre for toddlers on a military base.
After school was just as bad. We weren’t allowed to have keys for the house. So after school we’d have to stand on the front porch of the PMQ and wait. School would get out at 15:00. Richard would get off work at around 16:30. Winter time in Edmonton could get really fucking cold. And no, we could’t go over to other people’s PMQs and wait there. We had to be standing on the porch when he got home.
One winter day my brother decided that he had enough of freezing, so he went and kicked one of the basement windows in and then climbed down into the PMQ. Richard went through the fucking roof. I can’t remember what he did to my brother, but it was my fault for not keeping an eye on my brother and letting my brother do something that he could have hurt himself doing.
“The boys did not seem to show fear” Yeah, that’s always a good thing. Yep. Mr. Gill sure didn’t have any problem disciplining me or my brother. And yes, when Richard made a decision YOU DID NOT question it.
Yeah, it was funny but in a sad funny way how Richard was. Other kids on base could “whine” or “cry” and usually get “their way” with their parents. But when it came to Richard. His decisions were final. And any questioning his decisions were taken as a direct challenge to his authority. And you did not challenge his authority. Period.
Not overly warm.
Yeah, that was Richard. “Not overly warm”.
When I tried to track down my Uncle Doug in 2011 I made contact with his widow Yvonne. She said almost exactly thing this social service worker had to say. Richard could appear to be friendly. And he would help out. But you had to stay out of his way while he was helping or he would explode in anger.
Bob Becker said the same thing. Ed Blaha said the same thing. Almost anyone who met my father would say the same thing.
He was “pleasant”, he “seemed nice”, but he seemed to be troubled by something.
In 2011 he told the CFNIS that I was nothing but trouble in school. But in 1982 he told Alberta Social Services that he wasn’t aware of my brother or I having any trouble in school as the school never tells him anything.
More than likely it was he didn’t want to hear what the schools had to say.
Richard kept my brother and I not out of love but out of a desire to “control the costs”. His friends were always asking him why if having kids was so upsetting to him why he didn’t ship us off to live with our mother. His answer was always that as long as we lived under his roof, he could control the costs, but if we went to live with our mother he’d have to sign his paycheque over to her, and that was not going to happen.
You’ll also notice that it’s not my imagination. It’s right there in black and white. Richard had abdicated his parenting role for my brother and dropped my brother in my lap.
This is how Richard was. Richard wasn’t going to wear my brother. Any issues that my brother had obviously weren’t due to Richard’s complete lack of parenting skills. No, it was painfully obvious that any issues that my brother had were due to me not looking after or raising my brother properly.
Swimming, bowling, hockey, cubs, beavers
When I examined Richard for Federal Court in 2013 he said the reason that my brother and I were never involved in activities after we moved from CFB Griesbach was because I showed no interest.
Again, here I am showing absolutely no interest and it’s obvious that I not getting anything.
Here he is telling social services that we were involved with “swimming, bowling, hockey, cubs, beavers” but that we aren’t involved with these any longer as he “doesn’t feel the boys get enough from them”.
What a fucking load of shit.
When I lived on CFB Namao, Grandma had me in bowling, beavers, swimming, basketball, and hockey. The fees for military dependents on base were minimal, but the parents still had to buy the equipment. My grandmother would use her CPP cheques to pay the fees and buy some of the equipment. She would force Richard to pay for the rest.
Grandma is the one who took me swimming. She’d take me to bowling. She’d take me to basket ball. She’d take me to hockey. She would always coax one of the other fathers to tie up my skates for me as her hands were too arthritic.
The reason why we didn’t do these sports on CFB Griesbach was twofold.
First, the arena, the pool, and the bowling centre were up on CFB Namao. Richard was not going to waste his time driving up to the other base and then waiting around.
And as Richard had told me in the fall of 1982 when Westfield was going on a swimming trip to the Kinsmen Sports Centre for a swimming trip and he refused to sign the permission slip “There will be other naked boys around and you won’t be able to control yourself”.
That’s why there were no more sports activities like swimming, or bowling, or hockey……. Richard didn’t want me becoming aroused around other naked boys like I had done with P.S. on CFB Namao.
Which make it even more painful every time I look at his 2011 statement that he gave to the CFNIS when he professed he knew nothing about the babysitter P.S. from CFB Namao.
Richard made my life a living fucking hell because of what P.S. had done to me and my brother on CFB Namao. Or more specifically, what I had enjoyed doing with the babysitter and what I had allowed the babysitter to do to my younger brother.
Yeah. As a kid I had no fucking idea of what was going on. If I did something wrong I’d get a spanking, or sent to my room without supper, or grounded. And if my brother did something wrong I’d get a spanking, or sent to my room without supper, or grounded. There was absolutely no fucking winning no matter what.
P.S. was twice my age. There was nothing I could do to stop P.S.. But that’s not the way that Richard saw things.
As I said in a previous post. I was Richard’s scapegoat. Anything that went wrong with my brother or with me was obviously my fault. And he needed a scapegoat as he sure as he couldn’t take responsibility.
All I need are horns and a red ribbon in my hair.
When it was his responsibility to look after us, school wasn’t telling him anything, his mother wasn’t telling him anything, social services wasn’t telling him anything, the psychiatrists and psychologists weren’t telling him anything.
When my brother got into to trouble. It wasn’t Richard’s responsibility. Richard couldn’t take responsibility. So the responsibility had to become someone else’s responsibility.
I fully understand this now. Fuck, I fully understood this when I got my social service / foster care paperwork in 2011.
But understanding this does nothing to erase the memories of the beltings, the backhands, the open handed slaps, the shoves to the ground, the hours and hours of frustrated crying not understanding what the fuck it was that I was doing wrong.
From Home Visit in November of 1981
Yeah, this would be an understatement. My brother and I didn’t like each other much. And I don’t think Richard really cared.
I was suffering from major depression and severe anxiety and receiving no treatment for either. I was still dealing with the fallout from CFB Namao. And here I am at age 10 being held responsible to raise a 6 year old who was having his own issues due to CFB Namao and the dysfunctional household that we were living in.
The rivalry between us had become so extreme that the North York Board of Education had to separate us and send us to other school.
In the school year of 1983-1984 my brother and I went to Sheppard Public. We had to be separated. I stayed at Sheppard, my brother went to Downsview Public. This report was written in September of 1984 when I started Gr. 7 at Elia Jr. High.
And Richard gave not the single slightest fuck whatsoever.
Richard was controlling the costs.
Richard wasn’t signing his paycheque over to “that bitch”.
That’s all that mattered to Richard.
“I like responsibility”
It’s not so much that I liked responsibility. I just liked being away from Richard. I liked not being anywhere near Sue. I liked not having to be in their house. I liked the fact that the owner of the pet shop appreciated the work I was doing. I liked the fact that the owner of the store never once yelled at me or hit me. I liked having little animals to play with. I liked being able to buy a hot dog at the Julius stand in the mall or go over and get a cheese burger and fries at the McDonalds in the parking lot. I liked being able to play arcade games at the Wizard’s Castle in the mall.
It’s not that I liked responsibility. It’s that I found somethings that were sorely missing from my life at home. Respect. Trust. Admiration.
I guess that’s one thing that always irked Richard, ’cause he sure mentions it a lot in the social service records. I “admire” my mother. Fuck, this must have made him absolutely sick. After everything that he was doing for me that I still had the audacity to “admire” or “adore” my mother, the women who in his words was a “miserable bitch” that “ran away” and “abandoned” him and left him with her kids to raise.
When Sue first moved in with us she did a few good things. We stopped going to church with Grandma on Sundays. Sue said that if we didn’t want to go to church we didn’t have to. The Dutch have never been very religious. The Netherlands has always been a highly irreligious country.
Sue also put her foot down with Grandma’s drinking and Richard’s drinking. I know that Grandma’s drinking caused a lot of tension between her and Sue.
Sue also said at the start that she was going to get Richard to stop hitting us. In the end Richard’s ability to play the victim and to blame the actual victims got Sue hitting my brother and I. To be very clear, she was never anywhere near as violent as Richard could be.
She was more of the flyswatter type. And she was also good with pinching.
I think the only reason that Sue started hitting my brother and I was out of frustration and inexperience. At the time she would have been in her very early twenties. I had always joked that she was the older sister that I had never asked for.
Her and I were so close in age that one day Sue had me on the ground on my back in the front yard and she was slapping me. The female military police officer that lived in PMQ #69 came over and grabbed Sue and pulled her off of me. The female MP told Sue that if she ever caught her fighting with her little brother that she was going to tell our father. Yeah, the MP thought that Sue was my older sister.
On more than one time Sue referred to me as a “retard”.
And due to my untreated major depression I was prone to fits of crying. On more than one occasion she would tell me that if I didn’t stop crying like a little girl that she was going to take me to Sears and buy me a dress.
I don’t hold any grudges against her.
She was a kid herself back in the early ’80s.
She had fallen in love with a man that had some very major psychological issues.
The man she fell in love with had children that he refused to accept responsibility for.
Both of the kids that she was expected to look after had “secrets” that Richard and the Canadian Armed Forces were doing everything they could to keep hidden. I often wonder what she would have done if she had known that my brother and I had been sexually abused by our babysitter P.S. and at least in my case Captain Father Angus McRae for 1-1/2 years.
The only person that I blame for back then is Richard.
He could have looked after these issues had he been 1/4 of the man he pretended to be.
But to be honest, it wasn’t just Richard that was to blame.
The Canadian Armed Forces also share a lot of the blame.
Men like my father were a dime-a-dozen in the Canadian Forces. Men who couldn’t fit into society anywhere else. They fit into the military. As long as guys like my father were willing to put their lives on the line for the country, the Canadian Forces was more than willing to turn a blind eye to what went on in the PMQ patches. A guy like my father could never have survived out on civvy street. He needed to be amongst other guys like him. Other guys who maybe drank too much, or hit their wives a little too often, or who maybe disciplined their kids a little too frequently.
My father wasn’t the only alky with rage issues and some form of untreated military related psychological trauma.
There were others.
There were many others.
In the end, there is no fixing or undoing the damage that Richard created.
I honestly don’t believe that at any point in time the mental health wellbeing of military dependents has ever been a concern of the Canadian Armed Forces or the Department of National Defence.
Sure, the DND, the CF, and the Minister of National Defence will bloviate about the Military Family Resource Centre and other meaningless programs that the DND and the CF have instituted over the years.
But if they really cared, why does the CF and the DND draw such a hard line in the sand as to which dependents they will support, and which dependents can piss off and go get bent?
In my day as a military dependent the maximum age for a dependent to live in a PMQ on base was 18. The only way you could remain living in the PMQ after your 19th birthday was if you were mentally disabled or if you were attending an institution of higher learning. But even if you were attending an institution of higher learning 24 was the maximum age that you could live in a PMQ on base.
In my day dependents were officially referred to as “D.F.& E.” which means “Dependents, Furniture, and Effects”. The Office of the Ombudsman for the Canadian Forces, which only existed as of 1999, was so taken back by this callousness that they kept asking DND to stop dehumanizing the military dependents and to stop referring to them as D.F.& E. which implied that military dependents were of no more worth than the service member’s furniture.
As a kid, there were times when kids would just stop coming to school. Or kids would just one day leave the base. Never to be seen again. And this wasn’t due to postings. If it was a posting nine times out of ten the posting would occur between late June and early September. These absences were often due to their serving parent dying. Training exercise, workplace incident, health issue, it didn’t matter. PMQs could only be rented to active service members. Deceased persons cannot serve in the military. So off the base the family went.
It was rare that a base commander would intervene and make an exception, because once you’ve made one exception how can you not make another? And allowing the deceased member’s family to remain on base in a PMQ could prove to be an issue for DND and the CF. DND and the CF had fought numerous court battles over the PMQs with regard to civilian family courts granting the non-serving spouse possession of the PMQ in which to raise their children. DND would obviously have an issue on their hands if non-serving spouses were suddenly taking possession of PMQs in the PMQ patches. And schools on base prior to 1994 were run by DND and the CF. These schools were exclusively for the children of active service members. How long was the DND and the CF supposed to support the education of a deceased member’s children?
So, back in my day once a service member died, that was it, the DND and the CF washed their hands of the service member’s dependents.
There was no support.
There was no aftercare.
There was nothing.
We weren’t eligible for social programs from the provinces related to a serving parent’s death as the provinces considered that the be the responsibility of the DND and the CF.
Living on base wasn’t as easy as it’s often portrayed.
The children of dysfunctional families were often tormented and ostracized by their peers. When you live in a regimented community like a military PMQ patch you either conform or you will have trouble.
Dysfunctional parents, like my father, could easily use the Canadian Forces to stay one step ahead of civilian social services. Sure civilian parents could move to a different town, but at great expense. In the Canadian Forces your dysfunctional parent’s moving and travel expenses were covered.
Back in my day the military social workers were more concerned with containing problems. But again, that’s the way the military functioned back then and still functions to this day.
The rank of your serving parent had its privilege, especially if your serving parent was an officer or above. Anybody who says that this wasn’t the case is absolutely full of shit.
There was no way that the base military police were going to go after the son of a Lt. Col. for beating the crap out of the son of a Corporal. No Warrant Officer MP is going to risk getting transferred to CFS Alert over two kids having a donnybrook out behind the rec centre. And yes, this still holds true to today. The provost marshal himself even said that he would never investigate a senior officer of the military.
Sure, Simon Trudeau was talking about investigating his commanding officer. However, if his commanding officer is good buddies with a lower ranking officer, and the Trudeau’s commander doesn’t want the PM to investigate the other lower ranking officer who is the Trudeau to argue with a lawful command from his superior?
Don’t forget, the Canadian Forces didn’t have a Provost Marshal from about 1968 until the office of the Provost Marshal was stood up again in 1998. Prior to that, the base military police and even the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit were under the influence of the local chain of command. Yes, when the CFNIS was created in 1998 along with the Provost Marshal being stood back up, the idea was that the CFNIS and the base military police would operate without chain of command influence. That’s all fine and dandy, but someone forget to rewrite the National Defence Act and the Queen’s Regulations and Orders to exempt members of the CFNIS and the base military police from section 83 of the National Defence Act.
The Provost Marshal was stood up in 1998 as a result of the findings of the Somalia Inquiry. The Inquiry found that the base military police and the CFSIU were ripe for interference from the local chain of command and that superior officers would often put their own parochial interests above any semblance of justice. So it was suggested that the command of the base military police and the new CFNIS be transferred to the command of the freshly stood up Provost Marshal who would be of significant enough rank that they would be immune from chain of command influence. That hasn’t worked out.
How many wife beatings or child beatings were the base MPs and the CFSIU told to ignore and look away from?
And as I said, things were far worse back in my day as a military dependent.
As retired Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham told the CFNIS in 2016 when he was interviewed, the Assistant Judge Advocate General threw Cunningham and the CFSIU “to the dogs” in 1980 during the Captain Father Angus McRae Investigation and subsequent court martial.
When I spoke with retired Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham on November 27th, 2011 he said that it was the “brass” that made the decision to limit the number of charges brought against Captain McRae and that the military police had “many, many more” charges ready to go against McRae but that the “brass” wasn’t going for it, and that the military police tried to move the Captain McRae matter into the civilian system, but again the brass wasn’t going for it.
Most of Captain McRae’s victims were under 14 years of age. In 1980 the age of consent at which a child could agree to have sex with an adult was 14. P.S. was the only boy over the age of 14. If the Canadian Forces had insisted on prosecuting Captain McRae for abusing the children under the age of consent, this whole matter would have had to have been moved into the civilian courts. For obvious reasons the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces were not going to ever agree to this as in the civilian courts the DND and the CF would be hard pressed to “throw a veil of secrecy” over the trial and the evidence. A trial and evidence that would have shown that Captain McRae sexually abused over 25 children on Canadian Forces Base Namao and an untold number of children on Canadian Forces Station Holberg, Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie, and Canadian Forces Base Kingston.
So the fact that the “brass” and the “AJAG” were able to insert themselves into a criminal matter again shows that rank in the Canadian Armed Forces carries a significant amount of weight.
And according to retired Warrant Officer Fred Cunningham it was also the Assistant Judge Advocate General that made the decision to not call in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to deal with P.S. under the false assumption that P.S. was only 12 years old in 1980. P.S. was born on June 20th, 1965. P.S. turned 15 on June 20th, 1980. And as the court martial transcripts and the CFSIU paperwork indicate, it was the abuse of young children on base that brought P.S. to the attention of the base military police and it was that attention that brought Captin McRae to the attention of the CFSIU.
Again, the base military police and the CFSIU were not independent. They followed the whims and desires of the chain of command.
That’s why spousal abuse was grossly under reported on the bases.
That’s why child sexual abuse was grossly under reported on the bases.
That’s why child physical and mental abuse was grossly under reported on the bases.
Far too much chain of command influence and far too many parochial decisions.
Most of the children from CFB Namao never received any form of meaningful help. Some went on to have troubled lives. Some have attempted suicide. Some have committed suicide. And that’s only on CFB Namao. What about the other bases that McRae was at?
In 2010 retired Brigadier General Roger Bazin was investigated by the CFSIU for having sexually abused a young boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1974. How many other kids, now adults, are out there that may have been abused on Canadian Forces Base Borden who have never come forward due to not knowing their abuser’s name? How many other former military dependents have never come forward because they were posted around so many times that they can’t remember on which base the abuse occurred on?
Our attempts at suicide and our suicides will never be recorded as being military related. Our deaths and our psychological trauma will always be written off as having been due to something unrelated to our time living on base as children.
When I die it won’t be recorded as being the end result of untreated childhood sexual trauma.
My death will simply be recorded as someone who sought Medical Assistance in Dying due to psychological issues caused by childhood trauma.
And that’s it.
There will be no mention of Captain Father Angus McRae;
There will be no mention of Captain Terry Totzke;
There will be no mention of Colonel Dan Munro
There will be no mention of AJAG J.D. Boan.
The media won’t really show any interest, because what’s interesting about one person seeking M.A.i.D. to get away from their demons?
Between 1950 and today, how many military dependents have attempted suicide, committed suicide, or have wound up with profound psychological issues due to the childhood spent living on military bases?
No one knows.
And the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces would love for it to stay this way.
In the past there have been murmurs and burbles of organizations noticing that children of service members or adult who once were children living on base are committing suicide.
However, sadly this latest research falls well short of other research projects in the past.
The common flaw being that these researchers overlook events that occurred on base and how these events impacted the children living on the bases. This current research looks at how events that impacted service members might lead to family members of the service member committing suicide. For example, if a serving member of the Canadian Forces commits suicide and then their parent commits suicide.
However, what this research seems to completely overlook and omit are suicides or attempted suicides that came about due to events that occurred on the base that the military dependent endured first hand and received little or no support after the event or received inappropriate support.
Like it or not, children were sexually abused on base, children were physically abused on base, children were neglected on base, children were ostracized on base, children couldn’t cope with postings, children couldn’t cope with constantly losing friends, children had to deal with serving parents that had issues made worse by military service such as excessive drinking, anger outbursts, and untreated PTSD.
Persons who lived on base between the 1950s and the 2000’s grew up in a very homophobic, LGBTQ phobic, misogynistic, environment in which psychological issues were to be hidden away and not discussed.
Is it any wonder that no one in the DND, the CF, or even the media really wants to tackle this subject.
Kids who committed suicide already will forever be silent, so the DND and the CF don’t have to worry about them ever talking.
Kids who were 8 years old on base in 1950 are now in their late 70s. They won’t be around for much longer.
Kids who were 8 years old on the bases in 1970 are now pushing 58. Even if the CF and the DND were serious about tackling issues that may have effected these persons, by the time DND and the CF have finished the requisite number of committee meetings these people will easily be in their late 60s and early 70s.
So far as the Government of Canada, the DND, and the CF are concerned, military dependents were never the responsibility of the DND or the CF. As such, they’re more than willing to play the waiting game until we’re all gone.
I’ll be gone in about 2 years. And that’ll be one less issue for the DND and the CF to worry about.
How DND apologized and made sure that they didn’t go anywhere near the children living on the bases.
Well, today was the day we were all waiting for.
I am so happy that I’ve been through this rigamarole before and I had absolutely no illusions or delusions that the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed were ever going to entertain an apology for the children who were sexually abused on base.
How long has it taken the DND and the CF to give this apology?
Well, the DND and the CF had a policy in place from 1950 until 1994 of expelling homosexuals, gays, lesbians, and others from the ranks of the military and the civil service.
The DND and the CF have known since the ’80s that there was a problem with women in the military being sexually assaulted and the assaults being dismissed by the Chain of Command and the military justice system.
So, if we go from 1994 to 2021 that’s 27 years from the time when the Supreme Court of Canada basically told the DND and the CF to stop expelling homosexuals, gays, lesbians, and others until the DND and the CF finally made their apology.
And let’s be very fucking clear about this. The DND and the CF did NOT apologize because it was the right thing to do.
Those heartless and cruel bastards only apologized because it was part of the terms of the settlement of the class action lawsuit.
If there had been no class action lawsuit, there never would have been an apology.
I’m 50 years old now.
I’ve fought with the DND and the CF for ten years now.
And in those ten years I obtained the court martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork that shows that the CF and the DND knew exactly what the fuck was happening on Canadian Forces Base Namao from the fall of 1978 until the spring of 1980.
They knew.
In 2011 the CFNIS knew what happened on that base, yet they pulled out all of the stops to make me look like some crackpot out to juice the military for some quick money.
So as of yet, the DND and the CF haven’t even officially admitted that anything occurred on CFB Namao.
And my 27 year clock won’t start ticking until the DND and the CF admit that something bad happened on CFB Namao.
As I said, I’m 50 years old now. 27 years from now would put me at 77 years of age.
Who the fuck wants an apology at 77 years of age?
What use will an apology be to me at 77 years of age?
Lots of flags, lots of badges and coloured pins.Commander Kelly Williamson was the M.C. of the event.Anita Anand the Minister of National DefenceChief of Defence Staff General Wayne EyreJody Thomas Deputy Minister of National Defence
Well, I watched the entire livestream hoping for some sliver of an acknowledgment. But no, the lawyers who vetted or even hand crafted the apology made sure that it was known that the apology was only for members of the Canadian Forces and for very specific civilian employees of the Department of National Defence.
Every statement was so heavily qualified that there was no way that it could be misinterpreted.
This apology took pains to make sure that everyone understood that only members of the Canadian Armed Forces and civilian employees of the Department of National Defence were sexually abused, sexually assaulted, and had to endure mistreatment based upon gender, gender identity, sexual identity, and sexual orientation.
Of course, what this meant is that NO ONE ELSE was sexually assaulted, sexually abused, or endured mistreatment based upon gender, gender identity, sexual identity, and sexual orientation.
Oh well.
Time to go home, it’s a little rainy outside right now. Might actually snow a bit.
Recently I made acquaintances with a woman named Nacy who was married to Jean-Yves Dagenais. Jean-Yves is the younger brother of my mother. He was the uncle I don’t think I ever met.
I met my uncle Albert (Al) Dagenais various times while we lived on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater. But I honestly can’t remember meeting Jean-Yves.
One interesting thing that Nancy did mention is that Marie, Nancy, and Jean-Yves drove up from Regina because Marie was in a panic that her children were in danger. It turns out that Marie was still on Prince Edward Island and had been told where Richard had moved to. Marie called up Jean-Yves and borrowed some money to fly from PEI to Regina, and then the three of them drove up to Canadian Forces Base Namao.
Apparently when they arrived the found grandma feeing my brother and I at the kitchen table. We didn’t appear to be in any distress.
I remember this visit. Not too much detail. I sure didn’t remember Nancy or Jean-Yves. I know that I had been told about my mother coming for a visit as I went and waited by the entrance to the PMQs with a flashlight for them to come. I figured that with the flashlight she’d see me better and she wouldn’t drive past.
I remember Marie bitching about the house numbering. And yes, the houses were numbered weird. Or at least weird when compared to the civilian world. In the civilian world the houses tend to be numbered odds on one side and evens on the other. The house numbers also increase typically from the lower cross street to the higher cross street.
This was not how they were numbered on CFB Namao. The houses were numbered sequentially down one side of the street and then sequentially up the other side. This is how our PMQ #11 on 12th street was literally across the street from P.S.’s PMQ #26 on 12th street.
I’ll never figure out who it was that told Marie that we were living on Canadian Forces Base Namao. There were only two people who would have told her. And they’re both dead now. It was either my grandmother, or my uncle Doug. There is no way on Earth that Richard would have ever called Marie.
Grandma was always of the opinion that Marie and Richard should never have separated and that Richard should have swallowed his pride and asked Marie back in.
Doug never really liked Richard. When uncle Doug would come back from the oilfield every six weeks or so, Doug would buy my brother and I toys and other things to Richard’s chagrin.
Most of the xmas present that my brother and I received like our little B&W tvs and the little Coleco rifle games for those TVs were bought by Doug in Marie’s name.
If I was a gambling man I’d have to say that it was Doug and not grandma that called Marie to let her know where Richard had technically kidnapped her children to.
Grandma was too afraid of Richard to have gone behind his back to tell Marie where he had moved to with their kids and without a valid custody order.
Uncle Doug just didn’t seem to give a fuck. Yeah, he wouldn’t outright antagonize Richard, but he would do things that he knew would rub Richard the wrong way.
For example, when I moved back to Edmonton in June of 1990 with Richard “so we could try to be a family again”, it was Doug that introduced me to Marie. It was also Doug that tried to get me to go for my small “m” metis papers.
Small “m” metis papers really don’t amount to too much, other than you can rightfully say that you have First Nations DNA. I think Doug knew this would kill Richard as Richard had spent his entire life pretending that he wasn’t Half Cree and Half Irish.
Nancy said that when Marie, Nancy, and Jean-Yves arrived that my brother and I were sitting at the kitchen table happily eating our breakfast. So I don’t know if Nancy and Jean-Yves came at a later time, but I do know that when Marie arrived I had my father’s military issue flashlight because it was getting dark.
Maybe Marie came up by herself initially and then Nancy and Jean-Yves came up the next morning.
Nancy said that after seeing that my brother and I weren’t in any danger that things became testy between Jean-Yves and Marie.
Nancy would go on to say that because Marie had abandoned my brother and I on Prince Edward Island and left us in the house alone by ourselves Uncle Al was furious with Marie and she didn’t think those two ever spoke again. Probably explains why Marie was never mentioned in Uncle Al’s obituary. And this probably explains why Marie wouldn’t say anything about Al when I went to visit her in 2013 and 2014.
I don’t honestly remember too much about when Marie left. I know I was crying. I know my brother was crying. And I know that Marie was crying. She packed my brother and I a suitcase each of our clothes.
Marie took us over to another PMQ on base and left us with one of Richard’s airforce buddies. I can’t remember who this guy was other than he had two kids that were older than me. It was one of these older boys that gave me their bicycle when his father bought him a new bicycle. What I also remember about this guy is that he had a reel-to-reel tape deck that I was fascinated with.
I can’t remember which PMQ we were dropped off at, but it was one of these.
So yeah, my brother and I weren’t abandoned.
Until the day I die I will never forgive Marie for leaving me with an alcoholic rage fuelled monster suffering from PTSD and intergenerational family trauma. But no, she didn’t abandon us like Richard and his melodramatic outbursts would make it sound like.
Richard would have been fucking pissed. Richard was at sea with the airforce when Marie left. Richard was fine with having children so long as he didn’t have to look after them. And now with Marie gone, he was going to have to look after his own kids. So he brought his alcoholic and psychologically damaged mother out from Edmonton, AB to raise my brother and I.
And as we know from my Alberta Foster Care records, Richard always had to play the victim. And I kid you not, Richard was excellent at bullshitting. There’s a reason why Alberta Social Services noted Richard as “frequently telling different stories from one meeting to another”. He lied, and he lied good.
And I also know for a fact that Marie didn’t abandon us like Richard said she did. Richard made an application to the PEI courts for child custody. The application never went anywhere in the court. The court made no determination as to child custody. If Marie had abandoned my brother and I like Richard claimed she did, it would have been a slam dunk. Richard would have been awarded custody and in fact the courts may have awarded Richard child support payments from Marie.
Yet, none of this happened. Richard wasn’t a kind old man who didn’t want free money from Marie because he had a kind heart and didn’t want to cause her further distress. Richard was a man who could carry a fucking grudge better than Allied Van Lines carries furniture.
At the time it wasn’t common knowledge, but it is now that service members back in the day often abused the National Defence Act and the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations to their own advantage.
The Hillcrest housing development was built to DND spec by a private builder and was then leased to DND by this builder. Any property that is leased by DND becomes a “Defence Establishment”. Only members of the Canadian Armed Forces or civilian employees of the Department of National Defence have any legal right to be on a Defence Establishment.
Military dependents such as my brother and I and our mother have no legal right to be on a defence establishment. We’re only there at our serving parent’s pleasure.
There was a report commissioned by the Canadian Forces in 1996 to look at spousal abuse in the Canadian Forces. The report was finished in the spring of 2000 and released.
The report found that men would often use the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations to eject their spouse out of the PMQ and off the base when the marriage was breaking down.
Once kicked out of the military housing and off the base the non-serving spouse often found it impossible to serve papers on the service member as they and their lawyers would be barred from the base or from approaching military housing which was located on a base.
The report would also discover that the serving member’s superiors would often lie to outside social service agencies about the child custody status of the children, implying that the service member had custody. This would deny the non-serving spouse of any civil benefits.
Now, the odd thing about Richard’s claim that Marie abandoned my brother and I is that he himself would readily abandon my brother and I when it fit his needs.
(father will be back from Iceland tonight)
I have no idea of who the woman was that brought me to the hospital after my bicycle incident.
But I do know that Iceland is nowhere near Prince Edward. In fact it’s 3,341km from Prince Edward Island to Iceland. By way of comparison it’s 3,359km between Vancouver, BC and Toronto, ON.
Grandma had already returned to Edmonton to be with her husband Andy Anderson when I was admitted to the hospital.
Richard received a compassionate posting from Captain Lynda Tyrell in August of 1978 and we ended up moving to Canadian Forces Base Edmonton in August of 1978.
This isn’t the only time Richard would abandon my brother and I.
One of Richard’s favourite places to drop off my brother and I was Canada’s Wonderland north of Toronto. Richard would buy my brother and I the $29.99 season’s pass. He’d drop us off just about every weekend that the park was open during the spring and the fall. He’d drop us off just about every day of the week in the summer. He’d drop us off at 08:00 in the morning and he’d pick us up again at 22:00 after the park closed. That’s almost 14 hours in that fucking park.
He’d give my brother and I $10 each for the day. Even back then, $10 didn’t go very far in a park where hotdogs were about $4 ea. I don’t know about my brother, but I used to just go hide and try to sleep for the afternoon and evening. You can only ride the same rides so many times before they become outright boring.
As my brother would call it, this was “Richard’s Discount Babysitting Service”.
I used to pray that every time that Richard would drop me off there that I would be kidnapped and killed and then when the police found my body they’d arrest Richard for child endangerment.
That’s why when I read Richard’s statement to the CFNIS on June 9th, 2011 I nearly choked.
Richard’s statement to the CFNIS in 2011
” – In T.O. he (Richard) refused to take him(Robert / Bobbie) to Canada’s Wonderland because of (sic) he was bad; the school found out and said it was child abuse.”
“- He (Robert / Bobbie) threatened to call the police”
You get the feeling that Richard loved good ol’ melodrama and playing the victim?
I have my records from the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto. There’s nothing at all mentioned in there about Canada’s Wonderland or abuse.
The Children’s Aid records make note of the intense sibling rivalry that existed between my brother and I. The records also noted that my father didn’t perceive any trouble between my brother and I, that he but it down to “boys will be boys”. He was also adamant that our family didn’t need to be involved with social services, that our involvement with social services in Alberta was unwarranted. But the Children’s Aid records also make note that due to budget constraints and staffing issues they couldn’t dedicate a lot of resources towards my family unless someone called them about witnessing physical abuse. And living on a military base meant that no one would rat-out another family.
And I highly doubt that the school or Children’s Aid would really give a sweet flying fuck if I went to Canada’s Wonderland or not. But I’ll bet you that Children’s Aid would have loved to have known about Richard’s discount babysitting service.
Yeah, I don’t care how much my murder would have hurt, the suffering and the agony I would have gone through would have been worth seeing the police and the courts destroy Richard.
Now, back to the part where Nancy and Jean-Yves were startled to see my brother and I sitting at the kitchen table happily eating our breakfast.
In our interviews with Alberta Social Services both my brother and I described our grandmother as a threat and very authoritarian.
In my initial assessments with the psychologist hired by Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke this is what I had to say.
From my psychological review in November of 1980
My desire to die is nothing new. It’s been with me for so long as I can remember. It’s just that the fear of pain has kept me alive. But yeah, I would have been 9 years old when I said this.
I guess that first impressions can be very, very deceptive and very misleading.
When Nancy, Jean-Yves, and Marie first showed up in September or October of 1978, Andy Anderson had yet to slip in the bathtub and crack his skull open. Grandma had yet to start drinking. And P.S. had yet to be our babysitter.
And almost two years to the date in 1980 I have major depression, severe anxiety, and I want to kill myself.
When I talked to my brother back in 2013, one of the things that I mentioned was that I remembered grandma having a “Block Parent” sign in her bedroom window.
My brother remarked that kids would have been better off getting into the “Free Candy Van” than coming to our house for help.
I think someone forgot to flush the toilets at 101 Colonel By Drive…. the shit is overflowing at NDHQ.
Well David Pugliese had this article in the Ottawa Citizen today. The story involves the Minister of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces Chain of Command using the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service to harass and intimidate the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Armed Forces.
The Federal court has rebuked the military and compensation has been paid to members of the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces.
The Office of the Ombudsman for the Canadian Forces enjoys a rather unique position of independence from the Canadian Armed Forces.
Unlike the Military Police Complaints Commission which may only ‘ask’ for documents from the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal during investigations of complaints against the CFNIS. And unlike the Military Police Complaints Commission which may only ‘ask’ for persons to participate in their investigation. The National Defence Act makes mandatory the participation of military members in any Ombudsman investigation.
This is because criminal charges cannot result from any Ombudsman investigation or inquiry. The Ombudsman may only recommend changes and possibly compensation or other remedies.
The Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Armed Forces was the agency that recommended that while the Canadian Armed Forces were “technically correct” to deny benefits or compensation to any of the 12 to 18 year old cadets that were killed or injured in the 1974 grenade explosion at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier, it was absolutely the immoral thing to do considering that the regular force member whose negligence led to this disaster was allowed to receive benefits and compensation from the Canadian Armed Forces. The Ombudsman recommended that the Canadian Forces make amendments posthaste and offer the survivors compensation, counselling, and therapy.
There is one problem with the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces. That problem is that the Ombudsman may only undertake investigations that the Minister of National Defence agrees to.
See, the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces would have been the perfect agency to investigate the matter from Canadian Forces Base Namao. No criminal charges could ever flow from an Ombudsman investigation or findings.
P.S. could give all the information that he wished and he would never face criminal charges for what he said. Nor would P.S. be in violation of his Non-Disclosure agreement that he had to sign with the Government of Canada in November of 2008 in order to receive his settlement from the Government of Canada.
The Ombudsman could have called witnesses, including anyone who had been subject to the Code of Service Discipline during the events of the Captain Father Angus McRae affair.
Even though my father is dead now, had the Ombudsman conducted an inquiry while my father was still alive it would have been fun asking my father to explain just exactly who the hell was looking after his children from 1977 until 1981 if he was always away on training exercises and his wife had “abandoned the family” years prior. Was he letting his children run feral on a military base? Did he just drop his kids off at a random neighbour’s house for 6 weeks while he went and played soldier out in the woods?
The Ombudsman could have made recommendations to DND and the Canadian Forces so far as how to deal with the survivors of the Captain McRae fiasco.
But I can see why the Minister of National Defence would have declined the Ombudsman the permission to review the matter.
This would have been far too risky for DND.
If this matter had been reviewed by the Ombudsman, and news of this review made it to the media, how many other former military dependents would come forward with their allegations against DND and the CF?
Would the Ombudsman have made the formal recommendation that any and all child sexual abuse matters be formally handed over to the civilian police?
Would the Ombudsman make the recommendation that the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence hire an independent investigation firm to conduct a completely independent and arm’s length investigation looking at how many children were sexually abused on the bases from 1950 until the present day?
Would the Ombudsman make recommendations that Parliament pass the required legislation to nullify the effects of the pre-1998 3-year-time-bar flaw and the Summary-Investigation flaw for matters that could be considered to be child sexual abuse?
There’s just far too much risk for the Minister to allow the Ombudsman to go digging into the MIlitary’s copious dirty laundry.
And I know from speaking with various investigators with the Office of the Ombudsman that the Ombudsman has been fighting for even more independence from the Canadian Armed Forces and not having to rely on the permission of the Minister of National Defence to conduct investigations that look at historical matters which occurred prior to when the Office of the Ombudsman was created in the late ’90s.
And you should know I have another site that deals specifically with the Canadian Armed Forces. This site is mainly to do with me. But I feel that some of the topics that I post on the other site might me of interest to those following this site.
One of the recurring issues that I’ve always had to deal with throughout my life is the incredible amount of self doubt and self hatred that I have inside.
“But Bobbie, you’re so smart”.
No, actually I’m not. Never have been. Never will be.
I’ve just managed to float along for most of my life.
Sure I can do things and fix things. So can anybody else.
Absolutely nothing special about what I can do.
People can sniff and smell my failings and inadequacies like a horrific stench that permeates everything around me.
I can weld. So can everyone else.
I can repair electronics. So can everyone else.
I’ve programmed in BASIC, Fortran, Cobol, C++, Python, Java. Again so can everyone else.
I can use Word, Excel, Open Office, Pages, etc. And so can everyone else.
I can use computers. So can everyone else.
I can find information. Big deal, did that change anything? Nope.
I discovered that my father actually legally kidnapped my brother and I.
Did anything come of that?
Nope.
I discovered that my father was actually a bigamist.
Did anything come of that?
Nope.
I discovered that the person who had molested my brother and I had criminal convictions in 1982, 1984, 1985, and 1986 for child molestation.
Did anything come of that?
Nope.
I discovered that Donald Joseph Sullivan was molesting children prior to joining the Canadian Armed Forces. He molested more children once he joined the Canadian Armed Forces.
Did anything come of that?
Nope.
I learnt that my family moved in April of 1983, not because my father wanted to “protect me” from the drugs that Pat and Wayne wanted to give me to make me stop trying to kiss boys. As it turned out it wasn’t Pat and Wayne that had concerns about my apparent homosexuality, that was my father and Captain Terry Totzke. We moved because my father was fleeing Alberta so that I wouldn’t be removed from his care and placed into foster care or residential care which would have exposed the fact that my father didn’t have legal custody of my brother and I.
Did anything come of this?
Nope.
I discovered that my father was known to lie and to bullshit and to kiss ass. To actually see in writing that my father “often told people in positions of authority what he thought the wanted to hear”,”or that Mr. Gill often told conflicting stories from on meeting to the next”,”or that Mr. Gill has a tendency to blame others for his problems and often expects others to solve his problems for him” was a beautiful fucking relief.
But did it change anything?
Nope.
I discovered that I had been diagnosed as suffering from major depression, severe anxiety, was terrified of men, was convinced that my father was going to kill me. I even discovered that I had been anorexic as a child. I also discovered that doctors at the IWK children’s hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia had severe concerns about my father and my mother.
Did anything come of this?
Nope.
As my father once told me, “Be very fucking careful of sticking your fucking nose where it doesn’t fucking belong as you might not like what you find”.
Well, I stuck my nose where it didn’t fucking belong and just as Richard warned me, I didn’t really like what I found.
Sure, I’m not a fucking insane basket case, but I’ve realized that my life has been one very tragic fucking joke.
Left to suffer from untreated major depression, severe anxiety, and trauma from sexual abuse all because people people with political ambitions decided that it was politically expedient to sweep the full extent of the Captain McRae fiasco under the rug.
Nobody gave a single fucking shit about me my entire life. Not Richard Gill; Not Marie Dagenais; Not Al Dagenais; Not Susan Zwolle; Not Captain Terry Totzke; Not Colonel Dan Munro; Not Colonel J.D.Boan; Not Gilles Lamontagne; Not Jason Kenny; Not Jody Wilson-Raybould; Not Harjit Sajjan; Not Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock; Not Sgt. Christian Cyr; Not Glenn Stannard; Not Robert Howard; Not the Canadian Armed Forces; Not the Department of National Defence; Not the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; Not the Summerside Police; The fucking worthless media in this country that killed the idea of investigative journalism years ago. Not a single fucking one of these fuckers or worthless fucking entities gave a single flying fuck.
People who cared, but who couldn’t overcome the systematic bullshit. Pat M.; Wayne W; Aviva D; Richard Ford; Mrs. Donskov; Jonathan Bowles; Mr. Atkins; Mr. Richard Brown; The Casson family; Bob Becker; The Toronto Police Service; Constable Dustin Wilkins; David Pugliese; Nora Loreto; And many others.
Beeshive 