The Canadian Armed Forces have always enjoyed their own separate justice system that is geared towards military discipline and does not concern itself with the victims of crime.
The military justice system as it was prior to 1998 also had two flaws that greatly affected the ability of sexually abused children to receive any type of acknowledgment or justice.
The first flaw of the National Defence Act that is of concern is that it was the commanding officer of the accused and not the provincial crown prosecutors that would determine if a member of the Canadian Armed Forces would be charged with sexual assault offences against children.
The second flaw of the National Defence Act that is of concern is that there was a 3-year-time-bar for all service offences. Service offences included all criminal code offences. While children in the civilian world can lay charges against their abusers so long as their abuser is still alive, children that lived on Canadian Armed Forces bases and who were sexually abused by members of the Canadian Armed Forces had to bring charges against their abuser in a period of time that would allow for the service tribunal to commence against the accused.
Commanding officers and the chain of command had reasons for not wishing to proceed with charges, to minimize charges, or to substitute charges.
How does this affect you?
If you were a child living on a Canadian Armed Forces base prior to 1998, and you were sexually abused, and you abuser was never dealt with, there may be unethical reasons as to why these charges were never dealt with.
What can you do?
I have one class action pending against the Canadian Armed Forces.
However, there’s no reason that an other class action couldn’t be brought against the Canadian Armed Forces to deal with a blanket group of persons who as children were sexually abused on the bases and received no justice solely due to chain of command decisions or flaws in the National Defence Act.
There were at least 67 Canadian Armed Forces bases and at least 20 Canadian Forces Radar Stations in Canada prior to 1998.
All bases and stations had living accommodations on base for service members and their families. These were the PMQs, Private Married Quarters.
The bases, the PMQs, and the members of the regular forces committing the abuse were under the sole jurisdiction of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence.
A class against against the Government of Canada for the actions of service members on the bases is about the only way that you will be able to get a modicum of justice. It’s not in the best interests of the Canadian Armed Forces or the Department of National Defence to admit that there were problems prior to 1998, hence why the CAF and the DND have taken the “let sleeping dogs lie” approach.
The best thing to do is to drop me a line at: mailto:info@cafclassaction.ca and we can see if there are enough victims to warrant a class action excluding the other bases.
Beeshive 