Quick flight from YYZ to YVR. Took less than the 5 hour scheduled time.
The 777 is a nice plane.
The concert that I went to was a bust.
The artist is definitely a studio musician. Their songs and their song writing are great, but they just don’t translate into live performance songs, especially not if they’re being stripped down and performed as “acoustic” versions.
And I’m sure that the venue works very well for EDM raves and Hip-Hop shows that need to give the audience a lot of space to move to the energy, but this artist doesn’t have that type of energy to give. They’re more appropriate for a seated venue.
While partaking in some wandering around in Toronto I came across an interesting news story.
It was related to child sexual abuse in the British military.
She went through it with the British Forces as opposed to the Canadian Forces.
But same shit.
Which would make sense as Canada used to be a British colony and our justice system and our military are based upon British origins.
It’s shocking but also a relief to see that the same fuck-ups and flaws that harmed children on Canadian Armed Forces bases across Canada also harmed children on British Forces bases in the UK. What’s interesting is that the victim that is the initial subject of this story was sexually abused in Germany on a British base there. Canada had bases in Germany as well. Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest that Canadian base brats were sexually abused there as well.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if the stats for child sexual abuse are grossly under reported to the public by British military officials as is alluded to in the article. A few years ago I requested from the Department of National Defence a list of all sexual assault investigation undertaken by the CFNIS since its inception in 1998.
I received a document that listed hundreds of sexual assault investigations.
You know what this document didn’t list?
GO 2011-5754.
The 2011 CFNIS investigation into my complaint of childhood sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao was not included on a list of sexual assault investigations from 1998 onwards.
So, if DND withheld the existence of my own case from me, how many other cases are they hiding and refusing to acknowledge?
The article also mentions the parochial patriarchal society that existed within these military communities which would often lead to the victims of child sexual abuse being forced and intimidated into silence.
Sadly I don’t think that we’ll ever see this type of reporting here in North America.
All of our Canadian Newspapers of any importance are owned by America hedge funds. And no society based upon subordination to patriarchal capitalism will do anything to upset its military.
Men fucking and raping women in the military is apparently okay. There is still some consensus in the military community and those around the military community that blame the sexually assaulted women for their own assaults as “they knew what they were getting into”.
Men fucking and abusing children in the military can’t be acknowledged least our enemies use it as propaganda to demoralize our troops and our society.
Children that commit suicide due to military sexual abuse don’t commit suicide due to military sexual abuse. Oh no, they commit suicide because they were nutcases or societal malcontents. And as long as the military pretends that child sexual abuse doesn’t exist in the military community, military dependents that kill themselves either as children or later in life as adults are just written off as mentally unstable nutcases seeking attention.
The Canadian Armed Forces will not, under any circumstance, disturb that old timey quaint notion that children are the safest in military communities. I would never trust the military to ever properly investigate any matter involving children on defence establishments, especially not if it risked tainting the public image of the military.
This is why I really want some form of basic acknowledgement for what I went through before I die so that the Canadian Armed Forces can’t simply write me off as some insane nutcase.
I am really hoping to undergo medical assistance in dying for this exact reason. If I were to commit suicide, then the Canadian Armed Forces win. If I undergo medical assistance in dying then the Canadian Armed Forces don’t win. I get to die knowing that medical professionals agreed that the events of CFB Namao were too traumatic and more than what anyone should have ever had to go through.
I’ve been in Hogtown for a couple of days now. Just in town to see a concert, then I’ll be back off to Vancouver.
Haven’t done too much over the last few day except wander around downtown, ride some streetcars and the subway, and mainly veg out.
Yes, I used to live “here” and by “here” I mean on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in North York.
We arrived here in April of 1983 after fleeing my apprehension by Alberta social services.
We first lived at 94 Sunfield Road in the Lower Dividend Houses that were on lease to the CAF for use as military housing. In the fall of 1983 my family was moved to our new PMQ #223F Stanley Green Park that was located on the base itself.
I moved out of the PMQ and off the base in late 1987 just after I had turned 16. So in actual fact I only lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview for 4 years even though my father had been posted to CFB Downsview for 7 years.
The base is long since gone. It’s now a public park with a subway station in it.
Everything that I knew from 1983 until 1990 is pretty well gone.
I don’t know anyone out here, and to be honest I didn’t really know anyone back then either.
Places that I used to frequent as a teen on Queen Street West like Active Surplus and the other electronic surplus retailers have long since disappeared. Replaced with fine fashion and sneakers.
I often wondered over the years how things would have worked out in 1990 when I had about $40k in the bank from a 6 month contract job.
Somehow my father found out that I was in the process of trying to rent an apartment. “I’m getting my final posting back to Edmonton. I’d like you to move with us. We could try to be a family again”.
He wasn’t interested in trying fuck all. He figured out that I had some money in the bank and now it was time for me to pay him back for all of the years that he looked after my brother and I as kids.
I was a dumb 18 year old at the time. Couldn’t figure out why I was paying for all of the food and gas and stuff on the move from Downsview to Griesbach, but Richard wanted to keep the receipts “just in case”. If I was a betting man, I’d say that he submitted all of the receipts to DND for reimbursement. I know that he claimed me on his taxes even for the years that I wasn’t living with him.
I don’t know how things would have worked out had I stayed.
Far too many memories of people like Earl Stevens.
I got sexually assaulted so many times in Toronto.
I don’t know how, but the pervs always find the damaged kids and fuck them up even more. Couldn’t tell my father about Earl. Couldn’t tell my father about the man from Funland arcade. Couldn’t tell my father about the guy on the subway. Couldn’t tell my father about Al M. either.
Riding around on the subway earlier I remembered something that Scott had said about riding the subway for hours on end just to kill time. I did that myself. Get on the Subway at Wilson, find a seat, and just basically ride from one end to the other and back. And then get on the Bloor – Danforth line and ride from Kipling to Kennedy.
Back in the ’80s you could stay on the subway petty well all day and as long as you changed trains periodically, no one would be any the wiser. And as scrawny as I was back then I could easily pass for a couple years younger so it was something like $0.25 to kill the day.
I even got off the train at the Yonge Southbound platform to reminisce of all of the times as a kid that I wanted to jump in front of a train but just couldn’t work up the courage to do so. The layout of the Bloor-Yonge station gives the perfect running start.
Adam, who was a fellow cadet in Sea Cadets had asked me to never kill myself by jumping in front of a train because his father was a motorman and apparently jumping in front of a train fucks up the motorman a lot.
When you come from a family like mine you did anything you could to get the fuck out of the house and away from Richard.
As I walk around Toronto I’m not really filled with nostalgia for the place.
I remember my time downtown spent just wandering aimlessly trying to kill time. Except for places like Active Surplus, I didn’t really go shopping or browsing anywhere. With no money for food or for entertainment and no ability to make friends, Toronto wasn’t really a “home” as it was a distraction.
Maybe that’s why I’m not overtaken by feelings of nostalgia but instead feelings of sadness, despair, and boredom.
Anyways, going to see my concert and then I head back to Vancouver.
Don’t ask me what the concert is like. I keep this shit to myself.
I really don’t share this stuff with anyone as I don’t like to be judged or ridiculed for my taste in music.
If there’s one thing that I’ve had to learn in my life it’s to not to count my chickens before they hatch.
As I mentioned previously, the justice in my matter has stated that the class action has merit and that I am okay to be the representative plaintiff.
I can promise you that this very much displeases the Department of Justice, the Department of National Defence, and the Canadian Armed Forces.
The DOJ has 30 days to respond to the decision. They can accept it, which will be very unlikely. Or they can appeal the decision, which is more than likely. I see no reason whatsoever as to why they wouldn’t appeal. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. This decision can’t get any worse for them.
And if they do appeal, they’ll file their documents 30 minutes before the deadline.
The power imbalance that exists between myself and the Department of Justice is incalculable.
I have already made it clear that I want my name made public, this is why my name shows in the decision.
The DOJ still has the ability to request all names be censored.
The DOJ and the DND could also make applications to move this matter “in-camera” for reasons of National Security. This is the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces that we are talking about.
The Department of Justice has access to records and documents that I wouldn’t even know exist.
And don’t forget, but the DOJ also represented the Military Police Complaints Commission and by extension the Canadian Armed Forces Provost in February of 2013 when I filed my application for Judicial Review of the heavily flawed 2012 MPCC review of the 2011 CFNIS investigation.
The DOJ knew then exactly what the Canadian Forces hid and buried, but the DOJ was more than happy to sweep everything under the rug and assist the Canadian Armed Forces with further hiding their dirty laundry from the public eye.
If the DOJ had any ethics or morals it would have requested the RCMP become involved in reviewing historical matters of child sexual abuse on the bases in the days of the pre-1998 National Defence Act once it saw the wealth of documents that indicated how much the CFNIS had willing and intentionally withheld from the Military Police Complaints Commission.
Nope, the DOJ was more than happy just to argue about “new evidence” and “rules”.
You can be certain that the lawyers with the DOJ have already talked to the current and historical Minister of National Defence, the current and historical Chief of Defence Staff, the current and historical Vice Chief of Defence Staff, the current and historical Provost Marshal, the current and historical Judge Advocate General, etc. They’ve probably already had meetings with Daniel Edward Munro.
The DOJ will have access to internal communications that my lawyers and I will never have access to.
These communications will allow the DOJ to formulate an attack and a defence that will not be made clear during discovery.
And I know that documents like this exist. In my case I have records of emails with subject lines being changed to reflect less serious issues and that these files were further relegated to “encrypted files” so that they avoid any searches triggered Access to Information requests.
I also know that the Department of National Defence has a very strict retention period of 7 years for documentations and files.
And you can bet your bottom dollar that the DOJ is not beyond urging the DND and the CAF to follow their retention policy posthaste.
Okay, so I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but the justice reviewing the certification portion of my class action against the Canadian Armed Forces has agreed that the class action has merit to proceed.
The justice has also stated that I am okay to be the representative plaintiff.
I don’t know if the Department of Justice and the Canadian Armed Forces will try to appeal these decisions. I don’t know if they will be allowed to appeal. So I’ll have to wait and see.
If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt in my life it’s that nothing usually goes as planned.
Maybe it’s the eternal pessimist in me, but I have a very good reason to expect things to fail.
I come from a very long line of systemic failures.
It’s like my life has been falling through each and every crack imaginable.
My grandmother going through residential school
My father joining the Royal Canadian Navy.
The HMCS Kootenay incident.
The military’s lack of acknowledgment of PTSD and stigma to mental illness
The military’s culture of self medicating with alcohol and other substances
The military’s rules and regulations that put non-serving spouses at great disadvantage on the bases, especially in matters of child custody.
The military’s defective by design justice system.
The flaws in the National Defence Act
The “blame the victim” culture that existed on the bases.
The rampant homophobia that existed on the bases and which was condoned by Canadian Forces Administrative Order 19-20 which really made it almost impossible for male victims of sexual assault to be taken seriously.
The ability for dysfunctional military parents to use the transfer system to skip out on social services.
The fact that civilians such as civilian law enforcement and civilian social services needed permission to enter defence establishments.
So, will I continue to fall through more cracks?
Or will long overdue acknowledgements be forthcoming?
I came across this video on TikTok yesterday and it really blew me away as to how naive people, especially adults, can be.
I can assure you that this is not the way it worked on any military base in Canada. Especially not if you had the misfortune of coming from a dysfunctional family such as mine.
My mother left in 1977 while my father was stationed at CFB Summerside. It wasn’t her choice to leave.
Military housing could only be rented to the serving member, the non-serving parent had no legal rights to remain in the house if the serving member didn’t want them there. In fact the language in the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations meant that the non-serving spouses were only able to remain in the military housing so long as they had the “permission” of their serving spouse. If the serving spouse didn’t want the non-serving spouse there, the non-serving spouse had no options but to leave.
In the aftermath of my mother leaving my grandmother came to Summerside to live with us from the spring of 1977 until the spring of 1978. When she returned to Edmonton my father requested a posting to Edmonton specifically so that his mother could look after his children as his “wife had abandoned him”.
As I mentioned elsewhere in my blog, my grandmother had been through Indian Residential school as a child. She didn’t have much of a formal education having entered school when she was 13 and leaving school when she was 15.
From all accounts she was an alcoholic by the time my father was born in 1946.
When she came to live with us in the military housing in Summerside she was mostly drunk and would often haul my brother and I off to the Royal Canadian Legion or other pubs while she drank.
When my father received his posting from Summerside to Namao he brought her and her husband Roy (Andy) Anderson into the PMQ on Namao to raise my brother and I while he literally buggered off to who knowns where.
It was grandma’s and Andy’s drinking that landed Andy in long term nursing care when he slipped in the bathtub and cracked his skull open. It was because of this that my brother and I ended up in the care of the babysitter.
My father was asked by Alberta Social Services after we became involved with civilian social services in 1981 if he knew why my brother and I were having emotional and behavioural issues.
My father explained to social services that his mother was “extremely cruel to his children, especially when she was intoxicated, which was frequent”.
He would further tell social services on different occasions that his mother would not admit to being an alcoholic, and that she refused to seek help for her alcoholism.
There’s a couple of “not so funny things” about my father’s statements to the CFNIS in 2011 which serve to illustrate just how fucked up the military justice system actually is.
First, my father seemed to imply that my grandmother never lived with us, and even if she did it was just a very brief period of time.
The CFNIS in 2011 knew from my statement to them that grandma had raised my brother and I from the spring of 1977 until the spring of 1981 and that even before we moved to Downsview in 1983 we’d spend a lot of our weekends at grandma’s apartment.
And when I obtained a copy of my social service records from the Alberta government in August of 2011, I gave the CFNIS a copy of the entire set of records.
The CFNIS never attempted to question my father about the discrepancies between his statement and the contents of the social service records. Instead the CFNIS gave Alberta Crown prosecutor Jon Werbicki my father’s statement with absolutely no mention of my father’s statement to social services after Alberta social services became involved with my family.
This resulted in Jon Werbicki stating that “it was very significant that Mr. Bees never told anyone in a position of authority about the abuse”.
And of course in 2012 the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal did not make the existence of these records known to the Military Police Complaints Commission. So these records became “new evidence” that the MPCC wasn’t able to review. And these records became “new evidence” that couldn’t be introduce during my application for Judicial Review in federal court.
Long story short, unlike in the video there was no one at home that I could run to tell.
My father was living off base with whatever girlfriend he had at the moment. He honestly barely lived with us in PMQ #11 on 12th street on CFB Namao. He didn’t move back into the PMQ until August of 1980.
His mother came to live with us on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach. She looked after my brother and I until the summer of 1981 when she moved out and got her own apartment.
My father’s drinking was just as bad as my grandmother’s drinking. And when the two got drunk together there would often be swearing, yelling, and shoving. If my uncle Doug showed up and the three of them were drinking things would really get out of control.
The thing was alcoholism on the bases in the PMQ patches back in the day was always seen as normal. “It’s a tough job”. “It’s a hard life”. “It’s camaraderie and cohesion building”.
It wasn’t until I moved off base and started living in the civilian world that I began to realize that not every weekend was supposed to be a booze fuelled festival.
The dirty secret of the Canadian Forces is that there was a lot of “trailer trash” living on the bases back then.
My new stepmother didn’t like any of this and she decided to try to put an end to my father’s drinking. She blamed my grandmother for my father’s drinking and the relationship between my stepmother and my grandmother was described as “frosty”. One of them had to go, and it wasn’t going to be my father’s girlfriend.
There was one time that I asked my uncle Doug why my father always believed everything that my stepmother said over what I had said. His response was that the father slept with her, not with me. It would be a few years before I would truly understand what that comment meant.
My grandmother lived by two maxims, and no doubt this was beat into her during her stay at Holy Angels in Fort Chipewyan. “Children are to be seen and not heard” and “Children only speak when spoken to”. And yes, Richard was the exact same. Richard did not under any-fucking-circumstance want to be disturbed. You only spoke when he said it was okay to speak. You stood silently beside him and waited for him to acknowledge you before you said anything. And when you said something to him, it had better not be a stupid waste of his fucking time.
Grandma was the same. If you talked at the kitchen table you either got rapped on the knuckles with the wooden spoon, or you got smacked across the mouth.
But yeah, tell me again who exactly I was supposed to tell about the abuse.
My alcoholic grandmother?
My alcoholic father?
My stepmother, who no no doubt had been told nothing about CFB Namao by her new husband, but had been told that his kids were acting up like they were because they liked their mother better than her?
And besides, with the comments of my father and Captain Totzke, everyone knew what had happened.
It wasn’t like I should have had to tell anyone. That base was a secured defence establishment. How the base chaplain and at least one of his altar boys could molest over 25 children for over 2 years is something that I will never understand.
But whatever. It doesn’t matter if my father lied to the CFNIS in 2011 or if the CFNIS guided my father into saying what he said, the CFNIS accomplished what it needed to do. And that was to sever any potential connection to myself and the babysitter as the babysitter and the babysitter’s documented abuse of young children on the base is what led to the discovery of Captain Father Angus McRae.
If there’s one thing that the public misunderstands about base brats it’s that as kids we moved around a lot. And not only were we moving, but the other kids on base would move as well.
Kids from dysfunctional families were pretty well segregated and ignored on base.
The Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence will bray endlessly that your serving parent’s rank had no influence in the PMQ patch and that your serving parent would drop their military mindset at the front door of the PMQ.
That was absolute bullshit.
The PMQ patches were in all sense of the word the ultimate company town.
And as such children from dysfunctional homes were pretty well isolated from the others.
Sexually abused children, especially males, were seen to be willing participants in their own abuse and as such they were seen to be a risk to the other kids on base.
In the days after the CFB Namao child sexual abuse sex scandal my family, like others, were posted off CFB Namao. The babysitter’s family was the first to move. This more than likely had to do with rumblings on base that some of the junior ranks wanted to lynch the babysitter.
My family was punted off CFB Namao and down to CFB Griesbach in October of 1980. This was a total trip distance of 10 km, paid for by the Canadian tax payers.
So, how am I supposed to know who the other kids are or how to find them.
The DND, the CAF, and the DOJ all have access to the listings of military families that resided on the base from the summer of 1978 until the summer of 1980, but this is “protected” as personal information.
The CFSIU investigation paperwork and the courts martial transcripts contain the names of the other potential victims, but again this is “personal information” and can’t be released to protect the victims.
There was a crime stoppers appeal for victims of sexual assault on the base between 1978 to 1980 that was released in 2018. According to the MPCC paperwork this provided “hits”, but nothing that could be directly tied to me. This could be used to find other victims. But the DOJ, the DND, and the CAF would fight this tooth and nail.
Why don’t I go on line to the facebook groups? or Xitter, or Bluesky, or Threads?
The one problem with that is there is a certain contingent of former military dependent that will not acknowledge that bad things happened to children on the bases because if they did then they would have to face the fact that they were often the ones shunning, teasing, taunting, and isolating the hurt kids.
So, here we are in 2024.
My clock is quickly winding down.
And the DOJ knows full well well that they have nothing to fear as the organization that I am squaring off against controls all of the information required for my claim to be successful.
Unlike the kids who got diddled by sports players, priests, police officers, school teachers, etc., I have to contend with an agency that can legally silence potential witnesses that were part of the military back in the day. The security of information act / the official secrets act is so extremely vague when it comes to persons who were subject to the code of service discipline when they learnt about “information” on a defence establishment.
The section of the official secrets act / security of information act that deals with members of the Canadian Armed Forces on base isn’t limited to “secret” or “classified” documents, plans, sketches, etc. These acts cover “all information” which could include “police investigations”, “reasons for chain of command decisions”, “orders to subordinates”, etc.
Also, the 3-year-time-bar legally protects anyone who was subjected to the code of service discipline in 1980 from any modern day legal action, and I would also interpret that to also protect these people from any civil liabilities.
Even if the RCMP wanted to go have a chit-chat with retired Canadian Armed Forces officer Brigadier General Daniel Edward Munro, the National Defence Act protects Munro from any criminal investigation.
Charges against McRae pg1Charges Against McRae pg2
The above two pages are from the 1980 courts martial of Captain McRae. They are what are known as the “charge sheets”.
Yes, the Canadian Forces have ALWAYS had the authority to try service members on Code of Service Discipline matters, and that the National Defence Act allowed the military to try Criminal Code offences as Service Offences.
This also meant that the crimes of Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, Buggery, and just about every other charge related to sexual offences against children were subject to the 3-year-time-bar that stipulated that no person that committed a service offence could be prosecuted for that offence if the tribunal for said offence commenced more that 3 years after the date of the offence.
The fact that the Canadian Forces could try sexual assaults against children as service offences meant that the summary investigation flaw would also apply. The Summary Investigation Flaw required that the commanding officer of the accused review the charges that had been brought against their subordinate. If the charges would result in a sentence of less than 2 years and not dismissal from the Canadian Forces , the commanding officer could conduct a summary trial where the commanding officer would be the judge.
If there was the risk that the charges would in charges of more than two years or dismissal from the Canadian Forces the commanding officer would cause the charges to proceed to courts martial or the civilian justice system.
However, the commanding officer could also chose to simply dismiss any or all of the charges brought against their subordinate. And once dismissed, those charges or similar charges arising out of the same or similar facts could never be brought against the subordinate at a later date by either a military or civilian tribunal.
When I asked the CFNIS in 2018 if they could talk to Daniel Edward Munro, whom was residing in the vicinity of the CFNIS detachment at CFB Esquimalt, this was the response the CFNIS investigator received from Ottawa.
3 year time bar pg13 year time bar pg2
So, not only is Munro immune from explaining to the military or civilian police what he did in 1980 and who may have possibly ordered him to do what he did, but he would also be silenced by the Security of Information Act as anything that he did on CFB Namao related to the investigation and prosecution of Captain McRae would be considered “information”.
As I mentioned in other blog postings, I had become acquainted with Fredrick R. Cunningham on November 27th, 2011. He filled me in on numerous details of the Captain McRae fiasco. He wouldn’t name names, but he would state that the military police were prevented by the “brass” from calling in the RCMP to deal with the babysitter, and that the military police had many more charges against Captain McRae but that the “brass” reduced that number of charges to those only related to the babysitter, all other charges related to other children had been dropped. Cunningham also noted that the military police at the time wanted to move this case into the civilian justice system but that the “brass” refused their requests. Cunningham wouldn’t say what his rank was or what unit that he was involved with, but he also begged me not to tell anyone that he had told me anything about the babysitter and Captain McRae.
I mentioned the contents of my conversation with Cunningham in a letter to the Provost Marshal. Weeks later Gilles Sansterre, the commander of the CFNIS telephoned me to say that the CFNIS couldn’t find any evidence to substantiate what this “Cunningham” guy said. Sansterre said he doubted that Cunningham could have known anything about the 1980 investigation and that Cunningham probably heard about this information 2nd or 3rd hand.
In 2020 with the release of the CFSIU investigation paperwork I would learn that Cunningham was in fact the Acting Section Commander of the CFSIU on CFB Namao and that he had been personally tasked by the base security officer, Captain David Pilling, with investigating Captain McRae for having committed “Acts of Homosexuality” with young boys on the base.
Everything that Cunningham had told me had been backed up by the CFSIU paperwork.
How powerful are the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence at keeping secrets?
In 2016, during part 2 of the CFNIS investigation into my complaint against the babysitter, the CFNIS tried to talk to Fred Cunningham. Fred outright refused to go for an interview at the CFNIS detachment located on Canadian Forces Garrison Steele Barracks (formerly CFB Namao). He would only talk to the CFNIS as long as no audio or video recordings were made. That’s an odd thing for the lead investigator of a major child sexual abuse scandal involving more than 25 children to say.
What was Fred afraid of?
Well, I think that Fred was afraid that if what he told the CFNIS in 2016 came anywhere near close to what he told me in 2011, then that meant that we would have run afoul of the security of information act / official secrets act. The actual penalties aren’t anything too serious under the acts.
BUT……..
What if the Canadian Forces were to retroactively dishonourably discharge Fred from the Canadian Forces effective the time period of the Captain McRae fiasco. I don’t know when Fred retired, but that would be a hell of a lot of pension money, wages, and housing allowances to have to pay back to the government.
Do I think it would have resulted in that? No. But who the hell would want to go against a government agency governed by intentionally vague and overreaching acts and regulations and spend all sorts of retirement money and retirement time fighting the government?
And this is the problem facing any lawyer dealing with matters against the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. You’re not dealing with acts and regulations that are set in concrete. You’re dealing with acts and regulations that are so vague that they can be whatever the DND and the CAF want them to be from one day to the next.
The catholic church or even the scouts can be required to hand over the names of members of their organizations to police investigators, prosecutors, and even civil litigants. The DND and the CAF don’t have to meet those obligations as any information they have is considered “personal information” as the abusers and the serving parents of the victims were members of the Canadian Armed Forces and as such were “employees” and as such they would need to seek the permission of the involved parties to release said information.
So back to the topic at the start of this post, “why don’t I simply find other brats”? The secrecy surrounding the CAF and the military communities guards the military community with a large impenetrable wall of secrecy.
Throw into this the number of frequent relocations across the country, and then the children moving off and on their own when they “age off” the bases, and you have former brats scatted all over the country.
In the day and age that I lived on the bases children could only live in the PMQs on base until the 19th birthday. There were exceptions for children going to college or university. They had until 24 to get out of the military housing. The only other exception was for handicapped children.
I lived in 7 different PMQs, on 5 different bases, in four different provinces by the time I was 12. Might not be a lot of moves in and of itself, but when the other kids are also moving around this creates a lot of churn.
As I said, dysfunctional families on base were a dime a dozen. I spoke to my father only a handful of times between 1990 when I moved out of the house for the second time and 2006. I never spoke to my father again between 2006 and when he died in 2017. I suspect that there were a lot of other brats like this.
I know of another department manager at work that was a base brat as a child. They absolutely refuse to talk about their childhood as they’re ashamed of what they went through and they’re afraid of others finding out.
And this is why I don’t think that the Canadian Armed Forces or the Department of National Defence will ever have to own up to the full extent of child sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao nor any other defence establishment across Canada.
The impenetrable walls of secrecy, and the online army of flying monkey base brats ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence never have to worry their pretty little heads off. When the tools of secrecy can’t conceal the child sexual abuse, the legion of flying monkey base brats will attack the abused brats.
From the report: “Our most significant challenge this year was the erosion of the MPCC’s ability to exercise civilian oversight of the military police. The MPCC used a great deal of resources and effort to obtain relevant documents from the CFPM to enable it to conduct fair and fulsome investigations. In too many instances, we have seen resistance or refusal to disclose information the MPCC needs to investigate complaints; a reduction in the number of recommendations accepted by the CFPM; a refusal to respond to recommendations; a refusal to provide updates on files currently being reviewed by the Office of Professional Standards of the CFPM; and restrictive and unilateral interpretation of the MPCC’s jurisdiction. The MPCC has been forced to turn to the Federal Court to obtain the documents it is legally entitled to review as part of its mandate. These unfortunate barriers dilute the will of Parliament in setting up a strong oversight system for the police and must be addressed.”
The MPCC was created in 1998 as part of the passing of Bill C-25 in 1998 and the restructuring of the military police in the aftermath of the fallout from the failures of the military police to conduct proper criminal investigations in Bosnia and Somalia when the Canadian Forces were on “peace keeping” missions there but ended up with members of the CAF conducting illegal activities.
The Military Police Complaints Commission was created with input from the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence, meaning that the CAF and the DND knew how they wanted their new police forces to operate and that through careful consideration the MPCC would be relegated to the status of toothless hound dog.
The issues that Madame Tammy Tremblay raised above are nothing new. In 2015 then outgoing MPCC chairman Glenn Stannard has this to say in his interview with Gloria Galloway of The Globe and Mail.
The Canadian Forces Provost Marshal has the ability to control the findings of the Military Police Complaints Commission.
During a review, the MPCC cannot subpoena documents or witnesses. The MPCC also cannot administer oaths.
Without the ability to administer oaths the members of the CFNIS subject to the complaint can utter falsehoods all day long and there will be absolutely no repercussions.
If a person such as myself wishes to make a complaint against the base military police or the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit we have to first submit our complaint to the Provost Marshal. The Provost Marshal then knows what the complaint is about and can then tailor the documents released to the MPCC to paint the narrative that the Provost Marshal or the Vice Chief of Defence Staff which for the MPCC to see.
Even if the MPCC suspects that something is off and not right, there’s nothing the MPCC can do as the MPCC cannot demand the release of documents from the Provost Marshal. Sure, they can go to Federal Court to ask the court to instruct the Provost Marshal to hand over the records, but that would mean that the MPCC would have to know what documents to request.
As I learnt during the 2012 review of my complaint against the 2011 CFNIS investigation, the complainant cannot simply supply the MPCC with all the documents in their possession. The MPCC can only consider documents that are relevant to the documents supplied to the MPCC by the Provost Marshal.
And as the Provost Marshal is under no obligation to tell the complainant what they’ve supplied and what they’ve withheld from the Military Police Complaints Commission, following through with a MPCC review is almost 100% a waste of time.
This is why when I was interviewed by Claude Bergeron and Peter Cicalo of the MPCC in July of 2012 they were practically popping the champagne and cheering for the CFNIS.
I’m on the left….. the MPCC is on the right.
Peter and Claude were very impressed with the CFNIS investigation even though the Provost Marshal had actually withheld all of my email communications between myself and Master Corporal Christian Cyr detailing the 5 visits to the chapel.
After my interview with Peter and Claude I was so fucking nauseated that I just wandered around the city aimlessly until about 03:00 in the morning trying to work up the courage to jump off the Granville Street bridge.
The Provost Marshal withheld the fact that the CFNIS had in its possession the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork and the 1980 courts martial transcripts from the MPCC.
Both of these sets of documents indicated that in 1980 the military police and the CFSIU were very well aware of the babysitter’s abuse of young children on the base and the fact that it was the investigation of the babysitter that exposed the actions of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae.
This of course ran counter to was I was told by Petty Officer Steve Morris on November 4th, 2011 when he stated that the CFNIS could find absolutely no evidence that the babysitter was capable of what I accused him of.
Well, if you don’t like the findings of the MPCC, file an application for Judicial Review.
Don’t think that the Federal Court will be of any relief. The Federal Court can only render judgements based upon the documents that the Provost Marshal submitted to the MPCC. Anything else is considered “New Evidence” and the Department of Justice will fight tooth and nail to have all “new evidence” dismissed.
When I entered all of my emails between myself and Master Corporal Christian Cyr detailing the visits to the chapel the DOJ demanded that these be struck from the proceedings as they were “new evidence”. Because the Provost Marshal failed to notify the MPCC about these emails, I couldn’t introduce these emails at Federal Court level.
And it gets goofier than this.
In 1998, the Provost Marshal issued CFPM 2120-4-0 to the commanding officers of the new CFNIS, and all of the detachments across Canada. This document was further reissued in 2006. This document stated that matters involving civilian victim are to be handed over to the outside civilian authorities having jurisdiction. This document further stipulated that the CFNIS could only conduct an investigation of offences involving civilian victims if the outside civilian authorities outright refused to conduct the investigation.
I introduced this document into my applicant’s records for my application for judicial review.
The Department of Justice requested this document be struck from my hearing as this was also “New Evidence”. New evidence even though this was a standing operating procedure of the Canadian Forces Military Police. But it appears that the Military Police Complaints Commission was never given a copy of this document even though this document has guided military police and CFNIS operations since 1998.
I can’t help but wonder if the Provost Marshal’s new found energy to fight the MPCC over documents has to do with the fact that the MPCC went around the firewall that the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal had constructed around the investigation into my complaint of sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao and accesses a parallel investigation being conducted into the sexual assaults on CFB Namao and discovered the CFSIU investigation paperwork and the 1980 courts martial transcripts in the possession of the CFNIS.
Militaries like the Canadian Armed Forces really don’t like outside civilian agencies and do-gooders sticking their noses into the military’s business. Militaries view themselves as being the saviours of their respective country, and therefore they should never be questioned.
The Catholic church did the exact same thing that the Canadian Armed Forces are doing. And that’s using their immense power and prestige to place themselves above examination by pesky civilians.
The only difference between the Catholic church and the Canadian Armed Forces is that the Catholic church is subject to civilian laws and the civilian courts. The Canadian Armed Forces are a law unto themselves.
It’s often said that Canadians have rights and freedoms that most of the world don’t enjoy.
The one right that I don’t have is the right to request that my life be terminated.
For some reason my desire to die is either taking rights away from people who don’t want to die, or if I am allowed to die then the man in the sky will be angry.
I didn’t ask for this life.
I didn’t ask for my grandmother to be a residential school survivor.
I didn’t ask for my father to be a pissed tank alcoholic like his mother.
I didn’t ask for military rules and regulations to allow dead beats like my father to have my mother discharged from military housing.
I didn’t ask for Captain Father Angus McRae to be a sexual pervert.
I didn’t ask for my babysitter, Captain McRae’s altar boy, to work as McRae’s agent.
I didn’t ask to be sexually abused by the babysitter when my grandmother would go into town to visit her husband in the nursing home.
I didn’t ask for the 1970 RSC National Defence Act to be written in such a way that unscrupulous members of the Canadian Forces could bend and obstruct a criminal investigation to hide and minimize the true extent of the crimes.
I didn’t ask for Captain Terry Totzke to interfere with my mental health and wellbeing so as to keep a lid on the events of CFB Namao.
I didn’t ask to be blamed for the abuse my brother endured at the hands of the babysitter.
I didn’t ask to be disowned by my father for “fucking” with his military career.
I’m suffering from a myriad of issues that I didn’t ask for and didn’t have any control over.
And then I get ambushed by disabled rights groups and mental health advocates because I can be fixed or cured so long as I am willing to hide, bury, and internalize the shit I went through.
I get ambushed by the members of the Invisible Sky Daddy crowd who seem to think that their invisible friend will be sad and upset if I end my own life.
And then I also get ambushed by the Canadian Armed Forces who will move mountains to prove that nothing whatsoever happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao and that I’m just a “societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the military”.
I should be able to make a simple request, go through a simple verification process, a subsequent cooling down period, and then the procedure if I wish to go through with the procedure.
The fact that others may be upset about my death shouldn’t be a factor in this matter.
Society has absolutely no problem with my death if I get killed by an out-of-control car driver because speed and horsepower are more important than my life.
Society has absolutely no problem with my death due to pollution, because pollution means production, and production means owners get wealthy.
The right-to-die is a basic human right that should never be removed from a person.
Don’t want physically healthy person dying for mental health reasons?
Don’t let children get sexually abused, and if they do, take care of them.
Don’t let them get fucked over by the dysfunctional military sham justice system.
Don’t let unqualified persons fuck with children’s brains.
And don’t hide, minimize, and then victim blame the victim.
I was contacted by the Alberta Medical Examiner’s office on Tuesday. They were returning a phone call that I had placed on Monday.
Scott died sometime close to the beginning of August. The official date of death is August 12th, 2024 as that was when the police found his body in his condo.
It’s coming up on 5 months since his death and the medical examiner still hasn’t been able to determine the cause of death.
I would hazard a guess that he was far too decomposed by the time the police were requested to conduct a wellness check.
It will be interesting to see what the results are.
Is there any chance that I will pass up on Medical Assistance in Dying?
No.
But Bobbie, aren’t you on hormones?
Yes, yes I am.
And aren’t you on anti-depressants?
Yes, yes I am.
Well then, you should be feeling much better, you should be happy.
No. No I’m not, and it’s nothing to do with being happy.
My brain is burnt out.
I can’t escape the ghosts of so many years ago.
40 years of untreated mental illness has taken its toll.
40 years of living with the fallout of Captain Totzke.
A dysfunctional childhood spent hopping from one Canadian Forces base to another being raised by a rage fuelled alcoholic and his cruel alcoholic mother.
I’m going through with the hormones because this is something that I always wanted to do. This was something that I would not have been able to undertake when I was younger. But the hormones won’t fix a damaged brain nor will the hormones erase 40 years of horrific memories.
I get the feeling that society believes that I owe it to society to fix myself and to live so that I continue to be a benefit to society.
I owe nothing to society.
Society in fact owed it to me to allow me to enjoy a normal childhood and a normal adulthood. Society instead said that it valued the image and prestige of the Canadian Armed Forces over my well-being. And as such society really has lost its “right” to tell me that I have live because I owe it to society.
Well, why don’t you commit suicide?
I’ve known for a very long time that if I were to commit suicide that the babysitter and my father would win and their version of reality would become my truth.
Since learning the whole entire truth about the events that occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao and how the modern day Canadian Armed Forces are so very hellbent on keeping the secrets of child sexual abuse on Canadian Forces hidden from the public consciousness, committing suicide would be giving the Canadian Forces an easy way out. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the Canadian Forces would pull out all of the stops to tar and feather my name.
So, you’re not really going to take your own life, you’re just doing this for theatrics, right?
Nope. Just waiting to see if the Department of Justice or the Canadian Armed Forces are willing to do the right thing or if they’re going to do everything in their power to keep this matter hidden and buried from the public eye.
The hospital where I work is in the process of moving. The new facility is supposed to be opened by 2027. The acute portion of the hospital is expected to transfer from the old site to the new site in a couple of weeks. The old hospital will stay in operation for a little while longer as it will have to support the various research programs on site until the new research building is constructed. I’ve already made it very clear that I have no interest in going to the new site, that I’m more than content to stay at the old site and run it until I either decide to pull the plug or the site shuts down.
Management for the most part doesn’t know why I have no interest in going to the new site, but there are a few managers that do. Some co-workers know of my plans, but most don’t.
My plan for when I decide the time is right to die is to simply announce that I’ve received an excellent job offer in the maritimes and that I want to take it as I want to return to Nova Scotia to retire there.
Beeshive 