anxiety – Page 26

A train trip.

Well, it was last week that I arrived back in Vancouver after my Vancouver to Toronto and back train trip on VIA.

Twas an interesting four days out and four days back.

I stayed in Toronto one night.

As I said before, this trip was supposed to be to allow me to reflect on my application for Medical Assistance in Dying that I was originally going to apply for on March 20th, 2023 before the government caved into the demands of astroturf campaigns funded by American evangelical dark money.

I turned this trip into a chance to get some writing done on my book.

There were two spots that I could sit down and write.

Between 2nd breakfast and 2nd supper I could use my berth as it was configured during the day as two seats and I could ask for the portable “games” table to be set up.

My other favourite location to write was up front in the “economy class” “games” room. This was an area in the starlight dome car that was set up with six tables.

I actually managed to get the layout of the book figured out along with how I want the chapters to work. Whether I have time to publish this book before I take my leave is the unknown. I’d like to at least see this book in print, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

I’ve always had bladder issues with difficulty getting to sleep due to a constant “not empty” feeling, so I took the lower berth which as it turned out had the advantage of having the window.

This is what the berths look like converted to “sleeping mode”

There’s a very heavy curtain that covers both openings. The top berth has a ladder.

The berths are actually quite roomy considering that they only exist between 2nd supper and 2nd breakfast.

The porters on each sleeping car have to assemble and disassemble these berths twice per day and convert them between sleeping berths and the dual chairs. Make sure you tip these people at the end of the ride.

I didn’t spend as much time taking pictures as I thought that I would. I didn’t even spend all that much time in the dome of the Park at the end of the train where the Sleeper + class were supposed to hang out and mingle.

There are three classes on the train.

Economy class is basically just regular seats with no sleeping accommodations.

Sleeper class has two different types of sleeping arrangements. Berths, semi-private rooms, or private rooms.

And then there is the Prestige class in which the rooms are like private hotel rooms.

Berths in sleeper class is what I could afford, so it’s what I got.

Not too bad of a deal either as you get three really good meals per day.

But yeah, writing is what I did.

And it was enjoyable.

No interruptions

No distractions.

Nothing but me and my keyboard.

I felt more at home in the economy class as everyone up there more or less kept to themselves. I never felt welcome back in the park car, not due to my tattoos or my dresses, but because I didn’t partake in “small talk” and I didn’t share their politics.

Riding VIA rail you discover just how bad the politicians have fucked this country. There are thousands of towns along the rail lines with no passenger bus service and absolutely no low fare air service. Key markets for rail passenger service.

The problem is that companies like CN Rail, albeit Canadian in name, are heavily owned by foreign shareholders that really don’t give a rat’s ass about allowing VIA to have access to the rails for passenger service.

You often hear the argument that Canada is just too large for rail passenger service.

Canada is smaller than Northern Africa. Canada is roughly a little larger than Australia. Over 75% of Canada’s population exists between Hamilton ON and Montreal, PQ. Over 95% of Canada’s population lives within 100 km of the US Border.

Yes, on a Mercator projection map, Canada looks like a very large landmass. But the Earth is a sphere, not an 11×17 sheet of paper. When you take a sphere and flatten in out, everything at the equator of that sphere will somewhat be correct in size, but the close you get to the poles of that now flattened sphere everything gains massive errors in horizontal distances. Vertical distances stay correct, horizontal distances become more wrong the further away from the equator they are. A proper globe projection will show you just how small Canada actually is.

Try this: https://www.thetruesize.com/

If politicians wanted passenger rail service from one side of the country to the other they could easily implement it. But then they’d have to endure the ire of the automobile industry, the petroleum industry, and the aviation industries. All three of which wouldn’t exist without massive tax payer subsidies to make their operations and their products affordable.

So what you end up with is the VIA trains sitting on sidings waiting for freight trains to go past. The rule used to be, and it still actually is, that passenger service had the right-of-way, but with lack of enforcement and freight trains becoming far too long for the siding, the passenger trains are stuck waiting.

But enough about politics.

I had time to reflect upon the irony that even though I am the representative plaintiff in my class action against the DND and the CAF over the Captain Father Angus McRae affair that I stand a very good chance of not collecting a single red cent from the action.

This comes down to the fact that in 1980 the “brass” within the Canadian Armed Forces didn’t want the babysitter handed over to the RCMP, nor did the CAF JAG want the CFSIU to spend any time truly investigating the babysitter for what he had done.

What that means is that even though most of the 25 children that Captain McRae was suspected of molesting were also being molested by Captain McRae’s teenaged accomplice, and most of the children being molested by Captain McRae were being supplied to Captain McRae by his teenaged accomplice, the Department of Justice and the Canadian Armed Forces are only willing to compensate victims of Captain McRae himself.

Does this mean that in all of my persistence for justice I’ve just set the babysitter up as being the only person to receive any type of settlement from my class action?

And there’s no doubt in my mind that the DOJ and the DND will point to the 2011 CFNIS investigation to show that there was no connection between the babysitter and I, therefore there could be no possible connection between Captain McRae and myself.

This even though the CFNIS in 2011 had the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork and the 1980 Court Martial transcripts that heavily implicated the babysitter with molesting numerous children on the base and it was the investigation of the babysitter by the base military police that uncovered the Captain Father Angus McRae military child sexual abuse scandal which DND quickly moved out of the public eye.

Yes, sure, the CFNIS should never have been involved with investigating my complaint against the babysitter.

Yes, sure, two independent reviews by retired supreme court judges found that the CFNIS are incompetent and out of their league when it comes to sexual assault investigations.

That doesn’t matter.

The DOJ and the DND need to prove that I wasn’t connected to Captain McRae so that they can show the public that if I am making things up about being involved with the babysitter and Captain McRae, then what else am I making up? Maybe everything that I’ve said about the “Summary Investigation Flaw”, and the “3-year-time-bar flaw” is also a lie.

When no one believes.

Well, it looks as if one of the aspects of the CFB Namao child sexual abuse scandal that the DOJ and the DND aren’t willing to look after is the psychological harm done to the victims of Captain Father Angus McRae and his teenaged accomplice.

And I’m not referring to the psychological harm done as a direct result of the sexual abuse. I’m talking about the psychological malpractice that came from being dealt with by military social workers.

It’s very clear from my involvement with the military social worker that his goal was to keep the civilian authorities from discovering what had occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao from 1978 until 1980.

How many other kids were dealt with by military social workers in the aftermath of the Captain Father Angus McRae child sexual abuse scandal?

No one knows.

I’ve tried to retrieve my medical records from Captain Terry Totzke, but the Department of National Defence says that these records cannot be found unless I myself tell DND where these records currently are and who currently has them.

If it wasn’t for my Alberta Social Service records and my Children’s Aid Society of Toronto records, I would never have know that I had been in the care of military social workers in Alberta and in Ontario.

And no doubt there are others like me.

Others who were dealt with by the military social workers.

Others who were blamed by the military social workers for wanting what happened.

Other who were blamed for their younger siblings having been abused by the babysitter and Captain McRae.

How many kids from Canadian Forces Base Namao went on to commit suicide?

Not only as a result of the sexual abuse in a military environment that viewed such abuse as nothing more than homosexuality.

How many kids involved with the CFB Namao child sexual abuse scandal went on to commit suicide due to their involvement with the military social workers and their serving parent’s refusal to disobey the directions of the military social workers.

The DOJ and the DND will do anything to keep the public from ever discovering that not only were children sexually abused on military bases, but children were often mindfucked and gaslit by the military.

This means that my application for M.A.i.D. is going to be one hell of a battle.

One of the complication my nurse practitioner says that I might still face in my request for Medical Assistance in Dying is that I haven’t sought or participated in treatment for my mental illnesses.

In May of 2021 I had to take time off from work. I was in crisis. The stress of dealing with my past along with the stress of dealing with a major hospital that was trying to become COVID proof using ventilation systems that were designed long before viruses like SARS or COVID pushed me over the edge.

I went to see a psychiatrists at Vancouver General Hospital at their Access and Assessment Program.

I had a talk with one of the psychiatrists.

As I listed off to him what I was going through and what I had been through, I could see his eyes glaze over. He must have literally been wondering what fucking rock I crawled out from under and why I wasn’t wearing my tinfoil hat.

It’s the same look I’ve had from counsellors and psychiatrists before.

A look of complete disbelief.

A look that says that they think I am unloading 100 percent horseshit on them.

Military child sexual abuse?

Get the fuck outta here!

Military hiding child sexual abuse?

Get the fuck outta here!

Children with Military Social Workers?

Get the fuck outta here!

Children being gaslit by military social workers into believing that they’re to blame for being sexually abused?

Get the fuck outta here!

So yeah, it’s hard to get help when those offering the help don’t believe 1/10th of what you’re telling them.

And it’s absolutely maddening to think that I won’t be able to obtain M.A.i.D. because everyone who should have helped instead wanted to pass me off as some tinfoil hat lunatic.

So, it looks like I might be left with taking care of things by myself.

But that’s the way it has always been all of my life.

The fucking irony of ironies.

Hold on to you fucking hats boys and girls………

Guess who might not see a single red fucking cent from his class action brought against the Canadian Armed Forces.

I kid you not.

Even if the DOJ goes ahead and settles this matter out of court, I might not see a single nickel from the action.

See, even though the babysitter had been groomed by Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae. And even though the babysitter had been recommended to families such as mine by Captain Father Angus McRae in his role as padre for the base. And even though Captain McRae was using the babysitter to bring us young children over to the rectory attached to the chapel. And even though the chain of command made decisions to not bring the RCMP to deal with the babysitter and the horrific crimes he committed against the children living on the base, the Government is arguing that the babysitter was not a member of the Canadian Forces and that Captain McRae had no real authority over the babysitter and therefore the Government of Canada is not responsible to compensate those who were only abused by the babysitter.

But Bobbie, didn’t you say that the babysitter had taken you over to the chapel on five different occasions and that at Captain McRae’s request he gave you a “sickly sweet grape juice” which was later determined to be wine?

Well, because the CFNIS never undertook that investigative path in 2011 after I told the CFNIS about the visits to the chapel, there was never any investigation into this.

And the CFSIU investigation paperwork from 1980 doesn’t help much as the military police and the CFSIU conceded during their investigations that they had only touched the tip of the iceberg, that not all of the parents on Canadian Forces Base Name wanted their children associated with the obvious taint that would have come from being a male victim of male-on-male sexual abuse and so they wouldn’t let their children be interviewed by the investigators.

And then there’s that fact the some of Captain McRae’s abuse victims along with the victims of the babysitter had moved off the base during the summer of 1979 posting season and weren’t around to be interviewed by the military police and the CFSIU in May of 1980 when the babysitter’s activities along with Captain McRae’s activities became know to the military police, the CFSIU, and the base chain of command.

Am I angry?

nope.

Am I upset?

nope.

Am I surprised?

nope.

I’ve spent the last 12 years learning about the military justice system.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Canadian Armed Forces are literally fucked seven ways from Sunday.

It’s an organization, that while not brimming full of child molesters and pedophiles, will do anything it can to not own up to the fact that its twisted and broken “justice system” as well as its self-interested parochial chain of command knew that there were pedophiles and child molesters praying on military dependents but was happy to look the other way so as not to create a public relations nightmare.

I can’t ever see the Department of National Defence or the Canadian Armed Forces owning up to and fixing this mess. They don’t have to. They’re so fucking untouchable that they never have to worry.

They’re not legally obligated to look after military dependents.

Ethically, sure. Legally, no.

Again, look at how the Canadian Armed Forces fucked over the 12 to 18 year old Army Cadets from Canadian Forces Base Valcartier in 1974 from the “grenade incident”. The only people in the room who received any type of help when a grenade detonated were the regular force members who were negligent in their duties and allowed the grenade in to the barracks and allowed the cadets to handle and play with it.

From 1974 until 2011 the Canadian Armed Forces told the victims and the families of the victims who died to basically fuck off and go pound sand due to the civilian nature of the cadets. The DND and the CAF weren’t legally responsible, the kids were on the base at their own risk.

Finally in 2011 the Ombudsman released a scathing report that chastised the Canadian Forces for compensating the negligent members of the Canadian Forces who allowed the bloodshed to occur while at the same time ignoring the death, pain, and suffering that the cadets aged 12 to 18 endured.

And that’s where I am at along with all of the other victims of the babysitter.

So far as General W.D. EYRE and the rest of the chain of command at National Defence Head Quarters are concerned, the child victims of Captain Father Angus McRae and his teenaged accomplice can go fuck themselves in the politest of terms.

To men such as General W.D. EYRE and even women such as Minister of National Defence Anita Anand are concerned the children from Canadian Forces Base Name and the other bases that Captain McRae served at are just collateral damage that must be endured in order to keep the image of the Canadian Armed Forces unblemished.

Vacation time.

Well, it’s vacation time again.

When I first entered the wonderful world of full time work after I left the house at 16 vacation time would always cause me panic.

Sure, vacation time was mandated by law. But I always felt ashamed for taking it, like somehow I was stealing.

Probably had a lot to do with my father always chiding me for being a lazy fucking asshole.

And as the years went on my anxiety would get the best of me and I’d be certain that my employers were going to use my vacation time to replace me and that when I’d come back from vacation I’d find my job gone.

You would think that in 36 years that I’ve lived on my own that I would have gone somewhere on a trip.

Nope.

Going camping or going on trips wasn’t something that Richard was in to. I don’t ever remember going anywhere with him on vacation. Well, there was the one trip to Jasper, but that turned into a disaster as Richard just couldn’t fucking relax and chill. It was like the fucker was on drill 24/7.

Anyways, just never went anywhere.

Well, there was the one time in the summer of 1984 when my brother and I were staying with our grandmother in Edmonton and she took us on a two-way bus ride from Edmonton AB to Terrace BC to see our uncle Norman. I’ll save this for another post.

And no, the summers spent with grandma in 1984 and 1985 don’t count. Those weren’t vacations. Those were just Richard offloading his parental responsibilities onto his mother.

Starting back in 2013 I went places. In Canada, but still I went places and stayed in backpacking hostels.

Even though these trips were done during my “vacation” time, these were anything but vacations. I had to go places to get documents and look through archives.

Which brings me to this year.

I have two trips planned this year.

The first trip is by train. Just out to Toronto and back. 4 days to Toronto, 1 night in Toronto, and then 4 days back to Vancouver.

I booked this trip last year just after I had booked my doctor’s appointment to make my formal request for Medical Assistance in Dying. I figured that after making the formal application that I was going to need some time off work to let the gravitas of my decision settle in.

Well, as we all know, the government caved to the demands of various American evangelical dark money funded astroturfing groups. Hopefully this only delays M.A.i.D. for one more year.

I’m still gonna take the train trip.

Not my first time on a train. Back in the spring of 1989 when Ed loant me out to Barry in Timmins Ontario for the summer to help Barry with his video game route I took the Ontario Northlander to Timmins from Toronto.

Next time I’d take a train was in the summer of 2014. I flew to Ottawa to deliver a letter to the Minister of National Defence at NDHQ. On the spur of the moment I took the train to Montreal for a couple of days.

But yeah, this will be the first time taking the train and sleeping on it. Didn’t have enough money to splurge on a private room so I’ve got a sleeping berth. This ought to be interesting.

Am I going to reconsider my desire for MAiD? Will I suddenly discover the meaning of life? Will the trauma from my past magically evaporate?

No.

But I need something to kill the time.

This train trip really wasn’t a “bucket list” thing, but I’ll include it on my bucket list.

A potential road block.

I’m already not liking some of the “safe guards” that seem to be in place. See, as MAiD was never legalized for mental health issues agencies such as Vancouver Coastal Health were never able to give me any information on MAiD for reasons of mental health.

They could give me all of the information I needed to understand the procedure such as where I could undergo the procedure. The drugs involved with the procedure. What I would potentially feel during the procedure. And what would happen to my body after the procedure.

But what they could never give me information on was how a person with mental illness would apply to the program.

So when Canadian Senator states that “People who request & receive approval for MAID MD-SUMC will have received a substantial amount of different kinds of mental health care for a long time and found that nothing could alleviate their intolerable suffering.” this causes me great concern.

In the aftermath of being sexually abused on Canadian Forces Base Namao for 1-1/2 years I was placed into the care of Canadian Armed Forces social worker Captain Terry Totzke.

In November of 1980 I was diagnosed as suffering from major depression, severe anxiety, haphephobia. It was noted that I was terrified of being killed by my father.

Yet, I never received help with these issues.

Instead Captain Totzke was adamant that I had a mental illness called “homosexuality”. I receive 2-1/2 years of conversion therapy for this “illness”.

Even when Alberta Social Services were called in to deal with my brother and I, Captain Totzke still wouldn’t allow me to receive treatment for my issues.

Even when my issues had become so bad that my civilian social workers said that I required immediate psychiatric institutionalization, Captain Totzke wouldn’t comply.

At home, things were not good. My father had a very hair trigger temper. And if Captain Totzke told master corporal Gill that his son’s only problem is that he’s a homosexual, you can imagine that Richard wasn’t too concerned about my issues.

In fact, Richard’s response to my depression and my anxiety or even my haphephobia was a back hand, a slap, the belt, no supper, etc.

In April of 1983 we suddenly, and without warning, moved from Canadian Forces Base Griesbach in Edmonton to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Toronto. At the time my father told me that we were moving because the counsellors wanted to give me drugs to help me stop being sexually attracted to other boys. I would learn in 2011 that the actual truth was Captain Totzke was helping my father flee the jurisdiction of Alberta as Alberta Social Services wanted to remove me from the home and place me into either foster care or residential care.

I suffered my entire life from the demons of depression, anxiety, as well as gender and orientation issues.

I never sought help with these issues as my father and Captain Totzke had both drilled into my head that I was a homosexual and that I just loved to seek attention and that’s why I was acting the way I did.

It wouldn’t be until August of 2011 that I had discovered the truth. The truth that I had been unfairly blamed for what had occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao and that I had suffered with major depression, severe anxiety, haphephobia, and a plethora of other mental health issues.

It’s not my fault that I never received treatment.

It’s not my fault that I never sought treatment.

Even when I became aware of these issues in August of 2011 whenever I tried to seek treatment counsellors were very confused as to why I had a military social worker and why my father never got me treatment.

I am hoping that in the end that bypasses are put into the M.A.i.D. legislation that allow for extenuating circumstances to be taken into consideration. I would really hate to be told that I don’t deserve to undergo M.A.i.D. due to the decisions that the Canadian Forces chain of command made when I was 8 years old.

The Anti-Eugenics Crusaders

One of the most significant road blocks that I will encounter in my desire to obtain Medical Assistance in Dying is the “MAiD is eugenics” crusader.

These people are hellbent to ensure that the general public understand that the government is secretly plotting to kill off all the disabled people in an attempt to save money, free up resources, and clean up the gene pool in order to introduce a “superior race”.

However, there’s a problem with this whole “eugenics” argument.

If you’re not having sex and reproducing, you yourself are committing eugenics.

Eugenics has sweet bugger fuck all to do with a 52 year old man seeking to end his mental suffering.

I have no intention of reproducing. I haven’t been in a position to reproduce. After having grown up in my father’s dysfunctional household I made a decision early on in life that I never wanted to have kids. Period.

Allowing me to die peacefully at the hands of a trained and licenced medical professional is not eugenics.

Eugenics would have been if the government exterminated me or sterilized me when I was a kid. That would be eugenics.

Eugenics is not allowing me to choose a peaceful death a little ahead of my natural time. I’m fifty-fucking-two years old, not eleven.

I’ve dealt with major depression, severe anxiety, haphephobia, sexual orientation issues, and a whole host of other issues since I was 9 years old.

Yes, I understand now that what happened wasn’t my fault, but it still doesn’t erase the damage in my brain. Knowing the truth doesn’t undo any of the suffering that I’ve endured all these years.

And stop using the word “Eugenics” if you have no idea of what it means.

An update…..

The matter is still with the lawyers, and it does seem to be moving forward.

The Department of Justice has indicated that the government would like to settle this matter out of court.

The DOJ is no longer objecting to me being the representative plaintiff due to my very public desire to obtain Medical Assistance in Dying at the conclusion of this matter.

The DOJ is even entertaining the inclusion of base brats that may have been abused by Captain McRae and his “agents” on previous posting such as:
Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island;
Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie in Manitoba;
Canadian Forces Base Kingston in Ontario from when McRae was at the Royal Military College at Kingston.
And any other base or station that Captain McRae may have been stationed at during his brief career in the Canadian Forces.

The feeling that I get is that the DOJ would like to exclude the children abused by McRae’s “agents” if they can.

“Agents” are the older kids that Captain McRae abused and groomed and in then in turn used these “agents” to bring younger children to visit with Captain McRae.

In my case I can remember five very distinct visits to the rectory at the base chapel. Each visit ended with me being given a tumbler full of what I remembered at the time as being a “sickly sweet grape juice”.

I have no memories of what happened after the “grape juice”.

I don’t even remember how I got back home after the visits.

And no, there would have been no one at home who would have noticed that their 7 – 8 year old charge was shitfaced drunk as both of his guardians were piss-tank alcoholics. My father was rarely home, and my grandmother was usually in the city on the weekends visiting with her husband in the nursing home, at the Rosslyn Inn drinking, at the Canadian Legion drinking, or just pissed drunk in the PMQ.

And yes, it doesn’t matter that I lived on a Canadian Forces Base in housing for military families. Dysfunctional families existed in the military community just as they existed in the civilian world. But unlike in the civilian world, it was very hard for the children of these dysfunctional military families to receive any type of assistance as the military communities on base were the epitome of the “company town”.

For instance, when my family was shuffled off from CFB Namao in the aftermath of the Captain McRae fiasco the teachers at the school for the children of military families ob CFB Griesbach brought my brother and I to the attention of the military social worker.

When our teachers brought us to the attention of the civilian social workers with Alberta Child and Family Services, the military social worker didn’t cooperate. The military social worker ran interference and acted to stymie our civilian social workers.

But back to the matter of “agents”.

The DOJ is trying to argue that the Government of Canada should only have to pay damages to those for whom Captain McRae was charged with molesting and that no damages are owed to the victims of the “agents” or the victims of Captain McRae who were drugged or intoxicated prior to their sexual abuse.

Remember that in my case when the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service conducted their investigation into my complaint against Captain McRae’s agent “P.S.” the CFNIS had in their possession the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork and the 1980 court martial transcripts that indicated:

that the investigation into Captain McRae was commenced as a result of the base military police investigation of Captain McRae’s teenaged “agent” that had been accused by numerous parents on the base of sexually assaulting their pre-pubescent children.
that Captain McRae admitted to the military police in 1980 that he took boys into the rectory of the chapel, gave them beer, wine, and alcohol, and then took them into the bedroom and “messed around with them”.
That during McRae’s court martial, his defence officer tried to use the fact that his “agent” P.S. had molested numerous children on base as a way to discredit the testimony of “P.S.”
That P.S. was in fact receiving treatment for his sexual attraction to children.
And that Captain McRae had confessed during his ecclesiastical trial with the Archdiocese of Edmonton that he had abused children for numerous year.

Yet, during the 2011 Canadian Forces National Investigation Service investigation the CFNIS was hellbent on the following:

Portraying me as a “societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the military”
Portraying me as someone who frequently jumped from job to job and was unable to hold down steady employment and therefore I was only doing this for money.
Changed statements that I had given to them such as when I told master corporal Christian Cyr about the five visits to the chapel ending with the “sickly sweet grape juice”, master corporal Cyr entered into his log books that “Mr. Bees remembers going to visits at the chapel, but that nothing sexual ever occurred”
Master corporal Christian Cyr would try to convince me that I was confused and that I didn’t know what I was talking about in relation to the chapel as his insisted during our various telephone calls that the chapel I indicated to him didn’t exist in 1980, and no military chapel on that base ever had a rectory, and that the military chaplain never lived on base. The CFSIU paperwork from 1980 clearly indicates everything that I told him about the chapel was true. So did the blueprints that I obtained of the chapel.
Investigators with the CFNIS tried their utmost to convince me that I was “misremembering things”. For example they tried their damndest to convince me that there was no house fire at PMQ #26 in the summer of 1980 and that I was attributing a fire from a different base to my memories of 1980. It turned out that the CFNIS had the Canadian Forces Fire Marshal’s paperwork for the June 23rd, 1980 house fire that did $56k (1980) dollars in damage to a house worth $75k (1980) dollars and that a construction engineer suffered a fatal heart attack during the fire while trying to shut off the natural gas.
Warrant officer Blair Hart told the Morinville RCMP in July of 2011 that the investigation into my complaint was likely to go nowhere due to a lack of evidence. This was well before the CFNIS had tried to talk to any of the other victims / witnesses.
The CFNIS removed all mention of my grandmother from the investigation, and never questioned my father about his failure to mention my grandmother when I supplied the CFNIS with my social service paperwork in which my father acknowledges that my grandmother was brought into his house to raise my brother and I after our mother “abandoned” us.
The CFNIS had access to the CPIC of P.S. that indicated that he had numerous charges between 1982 and 1999 that were for sexual crimes against children. Even still, on November 4th, 2011 Petty Officer Steve Morris called me and told me that the CFNIS “just couldn’t find any evidence to indicate that P.S. was capable of the crimes that I had accused him of”.

Why would the CFNIS do this? Why would the CFNIS go all out to ridicule and belittle a victim of childhood sexual abuse?

No matter the PR spin that the Canadian Armed Forces like to give the public, the CFNIS are NOT independent of the Chain of Command.

The Minister of National Defence has unfettered command authority over the CFNIS via the military chain of command.

The VCDS is only a step or two away from the Minister of National Defence.

It is extremely concerning that the National Defence Act gives the Vice Chief of Defence Staff the ability to advise and issue instructions to ANY CFNIS investigation.

Yes, the Provost Marshal is supposed to notify the public of this advisement or of the directions, but the VCDS also has the authority to issue “lawful” commands to the Provost Marshal, such as to NOT release this information to the public.

Remember, under the National Defence Act that the penalty for “Insubordination” which is to disobey a “lawful” command from a superior is “Life in prison or a lesser sentence”. The Provost Marshal is subject to this, so is the CFNIS chain of command as are the investigators with the CFNIS.

No civilian police officer in Canada or for that matter anywhere in the western world faces life in prison for disobeying the commands of their superiors.

The only place you find civilian police officers under this type of threat are in third world dictatorships or in goon-thug theocracies.

I mention this for two reasons.

First is that in February of 2016 I met with then Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan at his constituency office on Victoria St. in Vancouver. Mr. Sajjan spared no time in accusing me of “playing games” and of “having an angle” insinuating that I was just trying to milk the Canadian Forces for some easy money.

Second is that the DOJ will rely heavily upon the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service to conduct investigations into the victims of Captain McRae and his various “agents”. I have no doubt that the CFNIS will conduct investigations in such a manner as to minimize the number of victims of Captain McRae and to totally prevent the establishment of a valid connection between Captain McRae, his various agents, and the children abused by those agents..

The Canadian Armed Forces are in a public relations battle with the general public. The CAF have been in a PR battle for a very long time. This is why in 1980 the court martial of Captain McRae was moved in-camera and why the number of charges against McRae were minimized and why the Canadian Forces refused to call the RCMP in to deal with the pedophile babysitter. It was a PR battle then, and it’s a PR battle now.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/military-leaders-told-sex-misconduct-scandal-was-a-pr-war

Can you imagine how the Canadian Public would react if it were to discover that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence have been aware for a very long time of the problem of child sexual abuse in the military communities on base and how the chain of command would rather bury the victims instead of punishing the offenders, all for the optics of public relations.

Or for that matter, can you imagine how upset the general public would be to discover that victims of male-on-male child sexual abuse were treated as homosexuals and were given life altering “conversion therapy” at the hands of the Canadian Forces military social workers?

The Acts are stacked Against Us.

It’s hard enough in the civilian world for sexually abused children to obtain justice.

In the military world, it’s almost impossible.

In the civilian world, it’s almost impossible for a perpetrator or a perpetrator’s employer to have influence over the police, the prosecutor, or the judiciary.

In the military world, especially in the days of the pre-1998 National Defence Act, the perpetrator’s employer could have direct influence over the police, and the judiciary.

Because of the chain of command and the military hierarchy, it is completely possible for the chain of command to have undue and irresponsible influence over any investigation undertaken by the military police, the CFSIU, or the CFNIS.

This was an established fact that led to the crafting of Bill C-25 which made some very serious changes to the National Defence Act in 1998.

The National Defence Act both pre and post 1998 states that every person subject to the Code of Service Discipline shall obey the lawful commands of their superior.

So first, a superior isn’t limited to their immediate chain of command. A superior is anyone with a superior rank who has the authority to issue lawful commands

Lawful is an interesting word choice. Lawful does not equate with legal.

Lawful and legal are two completely different concepts.

Lawful just means that the superior has the authority to issue a command. Lawful does not ensure that this command is legal and that by following this lawful command the subordinate is not placing themselves in a position of violating the Criminal Code of Canada.

There have been many court martial tribunals both in Canada and in the United States in which it has been argued that it is unfair for a subordinate to be expected to disobey an illegal lawful command if the subordinate is not given access to a legal officer to review the lawful command to see if it is an illegal command.

According to the Military Police Complaints Commission in 2020, someone in 1980 made the decision to not call the RCMP in to deal with the babysitter because someone believed the babysitter to be only 12 or 13 years old in May of 1980.

The babysitter has been confirmed from various sources as having been born on June 20th, 1965. When the babysitter was interviewed in May of 1980 by the CFSIU he would have been 14 years and 10 months old.

This also proves that the CFNIS had the CFSIU investigation paperwork as early as March of 2011 as when master corporal Christian Cyr called me on May 3rd, 2011, he repeated this same “error”, that the babysitter was only 12 or 13 when he was caught buggering me.

The CFNIS in 2011 had no excuse for going with what the CFSIU investigation paperwork stated for the babysitter’s age as the CFNIS in 2011 had access to the babysitter’s Canadian Police Information Centre “CPIC” file which listed all of the dates of his charges and his convections. This CPIC file would have also clearly stated his Date of Birth D.O.B..

In 1980, the babysitter’s birthdate would have easily been obtainable from Guthrie School. Guthrie School was the school on base for children of military families and it was run by the Canadian Armed Forces as were all the other schools for children of military families on bases across Canada.

There is also another place where the babysitter’s date of birth would have been obtainable. Birth records of all military dependents are deposited into their serving parent service file.

So, someone with authority made the decision to not turn the babysitter over to the RCMP.

Why?

In the lead up to the Court Martial of Captain McRae the decision was made to move the entire court martial “In Camera”. This caused outrage in the media at the time. But I can promise you that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence were not going to allow the Canadian public to learn that Captain McRae and his teenage accomplice had molested 25 children, if not more, on a secure defence establishment.

The Canadian Forces couldn’t do bugger all had the babysitter gone to Juvenile Court. And yes, the media were allowed to report on juvenile cases back then with the courts usually ordering the press not to divulge the juvenile’s name or anything that could potentially identify the juvenile. The Canadian Forces would have had to throw around a lot of weight to get a civilian juvenile court judge to throw a publication ban over the trial.

Also, under the juvenile delinquents act, the adult who contributed to the delinquency of a minor could be found guilty by summary conviction in the juvenile court system. This would have meant that the Canadian Forces throwing a “veil of secrecy” over Captain McRae’s military court martial could have been all for naught as his exploits would have been made public by juvenile court.

The Somalia Report and supporting documents indicated that back in the pre-1998 days, Base Commanders could often interfere with investigations due to their rank and due to the fact that the military police were contained within the local chain of command.

My father, and just about everyone else on that base were subordinate to Colonel Munro.

Now, one thing that you’ll hear in the modern day is how when the military police or the CFNIS want to lay charges related to Criminal Code offences, they need to get the approval of a Crown Prosecutor.

This is not how it worked prior to 1998.

Prior to 1998, it was the military police or the CFSIU that laid charges.

The military police or the CFSIU were then required to present these charges to the commanding officer of the accused.

In the case of Captain Father Angus McRae the Canadian Forces have confirmed that Colonel Daniel Edward Munro, base commander of CFB Namao, was Captain McRae’s direct superior.

Colonel Munro would have then been required to conduct a summary investigation to determine if the charges brought against Captain McRae would proceed to summary trial, military tribunal, or civilian tribunal. Colonel Munro would have also had the full authority to drop these charges if he so desired. Or Colonel Munro could drop some charges while allowing other charges to proceed.

And once dropped, these charges or similar charges arising out of the same facts could never be brought against Captain McRae again at a later date.

As the Somalia Inquiry found, these commanding officers had no legal training and were not peace officers, but had the full authority under the National Defence Act to dismiss charges that they wouldn’t have even had the authority to conduct a summary trial for.

The three year time bar is another hurdle. Recently I was told by a CFNIS investigator who had investigated “the man in the sauna” that if the CFNIS ever discover the identity of the “man in the sauna” that the babysitter provided me to for the purposes of oral sex, the CFNIS will be able to prosecute this man in civilian court.

That’s not true though.

Just as the man in the sauna would have to be charged with Criminal Code offences as they were in 1980. The man from the sauna would also enjoy all of the legal protections that he had back in 1980.

Captain McRae was given a court martial for Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery.

These charges were reviewed by his commanding officer, Colonel Dan Munro.

Even though I would have been to young at age 8 to have been able to consent to the oral sex I performed on the man, and even though the Supreme Court of Canada, as discussed in Corporal Donal Joseph Sullivan vs. Regina, stated that the military could only conduct a court martial if the victim was over the age of 14 when consent was a possibility, the fact of the matter is the military police or the CFSIU would have had to submit the findings of their investigation to the Commanding Officer of the accused.

In 1998 when Bill C-25 removed the requirement for commanding officers to conduct summary investigations AFTER the military police or the CFSIU laid charges against the commanding officer’s subordinate, that’s all it did. Bill C-25 simply removed the requirement for a summary investigation. It did nothing to retro-actively remove this requirement.

And this poses a very significant problem. The command structure as it existed in 1980 no longer exists.

Persons who were subject to the Code of Service discipline at the time of the offence remain liable to be charged with Code of Service Discipline offences committed during their service even after they leave the military.

If the man in the sauna is discovered tomorrow, how will the military charge him? Nothing prevents the CFNIS or the base military police from conducting investigations into child sexual abuse matters. But who is going to approve charges brought against the former member?

Prior to 1998 the military police or the CFSIU didn’t take Code of Service Discipline charges to the Provincial Crowns for approval. These charges flowed to the commanding officer. After 1998 charges can go two ways. One is to the Military Prosecutor that didn’t exist prior to 1998. The other is to the Provincial Crown.

But you can’t apply this to Code of Service Discipline charges prior to 1998. Sure, you hear stories all the time of cases in civilian court where a civilian teacher, or a civilian priest from 1956 or 1966 gets sentenced to jail for sexual abuse of children. But these people are civilians. Civilians were never subject to the Code of Service Discipline, nor were their employers / supervisors required to approve charges brought against their employee.

Another issue that prevents the laying of charges for offences that occurred prior to 1998 is the 3-year-time-bar.

Even if the CFNIS do manage to figure out who the man in the sauna was that I gave a blow job to when I was 8 years old, more than three years have elapsed.

Section 59(2) of the 1970 National Defence Act states ” no person is liable to be tried by a service tribunal unless his trial begins before the expiration of a period of 3 years from the day upon which the service offence was alleged to have been convinced.

Section 120(1) of the 1970 National Defence Act enumerated ALL criminal code offences as service offences.

Section 120(2) allowed the Canadian Forces to apply minimum penalties based upon what the Criminal Code of Canada would call for.

Section 134(a) allows any military police officer to arrest anyone subject to the Code of Service Discipline WITHOUT WARRANT who is subject to the Code of Service Discipline who has committed, is found committing, is suspected of being about to commit, or is suspected of or charged with having committed a service offence.

Section 140 of the 1970 National Defence Act calls for a Commanding Officer to conduct a summary investigation AFTER the laying of charges. The Commanding officer shall either cause the charge to proceed, or shall dismiss the charges.

Section 140 would have to be undertaken before the charges could proceed to Summary Trial, Court Martial, or Civilian Tribunal.

So, here’s the problem for the modern day prosecution of child sexual abuse which occurred on Canadian Armed Forces bases prior to 1998.

The military police in 1980, had they arrested the man in the sauna would have laid charges against him.

The military police would have been required to present these charges to the commanding officer of the accused.

Now, even though the commanding officer of the accused would not have been able to conduct a summary trial for the charges related to sexual offences committed against a child under the age of consent, and even though a court martial would have been precluded for trying these charges, nothing would have stopped the commanding officer from dismissing these charges and replacing them with charges that the commanding officer or a court martial could conduct a trial for.

And I think this is what keeps the Canadian Forces from successfully prosecuting for historical child sexual abuse which occurred prior to 1998.

This would be one hell of a massive Charter Challenge by the accused.

If the accused had been arrested back in 1980 and charged with receiving oral sex from me, under the National Defence Act he had the legal right to make a plea to his commanding officer.

That avenue does not exist today.

So even though the law allows for the man in the sauna to be charged in the modern day with 1980 criminal code offences that he committed back in May to June of 1980 he wouldn’t be allowed to enjoy the legal protections that the National Defence Act would have allowed him to enjoy back in 1980.

And I can’t help but wonder if this is why you don’t hear of any modern day military or civilian tribunals for service offences which occurred prior to 1998.

I would imagine that anyone who committed a service offence prior to 1998, and is charged in the modern day with having committed that service offence prior to 1998, would simply raise the argument in court that it is unfair to try them by modern laws and practices when the laws and practices at the time of the offence would have allowed them to plead with their commanding officer for leniency or forgiveness, which the commanding officer had the full authority to offer.

March 17, 2023

March 17th 2023 was supposed to be the date that Medical Assistance in Dying became legal in Canada for those suffering from mental health issues.

I had already booked the weeks of March 20th and March 27th off.

I had already booked my appointment for March 21st with my family doctor to make my official request for Medical Assistance in Dying.

I booked additional time off from work as I theorized that I would probably require some time to acclimatize to my decision. After all, wanting to die and actually making concrete plans to die are two separate things.

Sadly, the religious nutcases in this country evoked nightmares of disabled people being hauled off to Cambodian style killing fields.

And of course our milquetoast politicians caved.

That’s to be expected seeing as how the right wing in this country are having their puppet strings yanked and manipulated by the MAGAt evangelical crowd south of the border where their imaginary friend gets off on pain and suffering.

Anyways, in the meantime I’ve got to deal with an additional year on this planet.

I asked my lawyers recently if as part of the pending class action settlement that language be added into the settlement that would request the Attorney General make exceptions to the current M.A.i.D. legislation that would allow me to obtain M.A.i.D. without having to wait for the government to grow a pair and legalize M.A.i.D. for reasons of mental health.

They both said that this couldn’t be added in to the class action as it would have to apply to all members of the settlement and that this more than likely wouldn’t be something that the courts would entertain.

One of my lawyers suggested that I might want to look at other options to obtain M.A.i.D. via tests and screenings to see if any type of cancer or other potentially fatal medical condition is currently manifesting itself in my body.

My father apparently died of cancer. My father’s brother died of heart disease. My paternal grandmother died of heart disease as well. My mother has had numerous aneurysms. My maternal grandfather died of a heart attack. I’ve had two cardiac issues and no one was able to figure out what caused them.

So, when I go to my doctor on the 21st, even though I can’t officially request M.A.i.D. as we had both agreed at a prior visit, I will mention the suggestion of my lawyer to my doctor to see if he’s game for this.

Either way, I’ve got a train trip coming up.

No. Not that type of train trip.

On the 24th I’m boarding a VIA train for an 8 day round trip to and back from Toronto.

This was one of those “bucket list” things I had started planning out last year. There’s a few things I wanna do before I go. And things like trips are something that I want to experience.

I know it sounds silly, but with the exception of a few trips to Seattle, I’ve never been outside of Canada. I’ve lived in Vancouver for 30 years now and I’ve been to Seattle maybe 6 times in all that time.

And even within Canada, the only time I traveled anywhere in Canada was when I went to Ottawa to do some research at Library and Archives Canada. I also stopped out in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I was born there, but other than popping out into the world in Halifax, I have no connection to Halifax as my birth in Halifax was an accident of birth. I could have been born in any hospital next to a Canadian Armed Forces base and that would have been my “home town”.

Travelling was never something my father did with us when we were kids. The one time we went to Banff when my father was stationed at Canadian Forces Base Griesbach was not very pleasant as Richard wasn’t the kind of person who could just chill and fucking relax on a vacation.

When we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario, Richard took us for a weekend trip up to Sue’s brother’s cottage on Georgian Bay. Again, not a fun weekend. Fun and fuckery were not words in Richard’s vocabulary. The only word that Richard knew that was even remotely related to “fun” was dys’fun’ctional.

So, I never developed the travel bug.

Never learnt how to go on vacation and just relax.

So, this train ride should prove interesting. 4 days to Toronto. I spend one night in Toronto. And then it’s 4 days back to Vancouver.

Didn’t book a private room. I got a sleeping berth. The car has showers. All meals provided. Access to the observation car, the coach car, and the dining car.

Why did I pick the train? Why not. As I’ve said I don’t do vacations. For me the travelling part is more entertaining than the journey.

Taking Amtrak back and forth between Seattle and Vancouver is enjoyable. When I go to Seattle there’s only a few places that I like to go. Other than that I skip all of the tourist traps. I don’t think that I could ever go somewhere to go to tourist traps.

When I go to Iceland this summer it’s so that I can see for myself what was so appealing about Iceland that Richard left my brother and I alone while he fucked off with the Canadian Armed Forces to Iceland in July of 1978. Other than that it’s a big expansive island. And it’s the summer solstice. So being that far north on the longest day of the year should prove to be interesting. The only interesting thing that I know of Iceland is that the island is made up from two separate continents crushing together. There’s apparently a fissure that splits the island in two.

The Ever Consuming and often overwhelming Nothingness.

For as long as I can remember, my days have been filled with nothingness.

I have no hopes

I have no dreams

I have no aspirations

I only function at work so that no one can call me lazy and useless.

When I was young, I fully expected to be dead before I left my father’s house.

When I survived that, I still fully expected to be dead before I was 20.

When I made it to 20, I expected to be dead at any moment.

And this isn’t being melodramatic.

The psychologist hired by the Canadian Forces to evaluate my family knew that I felt this way.

My father knew that I felt this way.

Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke knew I felt this way.

But these feelings never received any treatment.

In fact, as far as my father was concerned, my despair, my depression, my anxiety, my desire to die were all just “stunts” to get attention.

It’s apparent that Captain Totzke didn’t give a flying fuck.

It was always me, on my own, left to my own devices, trying to figure out how to make it from one day to the next.

It’s forty years later and people have the audacity to tell me that what I went through was obviously no big deal and that I should simply stop whining about it.

Have you found god?

Have you talked to jesus?

Get a pet!

Start a hobby!

You’re just being an asshole of you don’t try!

You have nobody to blame but yourself!

If you really want to kill yourself, you would have done it by now!

You’re just doing this for attention!

For the last few years I’ve been involved with the planning for the new hospital on False Creek. I had to sign the confidentiality undertaking, I had to pass a conflict of interest check, and I had to be approved by the bidders and their contractors / vendors.

I’ve had input on the selection of the equipment and the design of the mechanical departments.

Because of my choices, physical plant will have one dedicated freight elevator that goes from the workshop levels on P1 to the power plant on the 5th floor to the roof level at the cooling towers.

Physical plant will have its own dedicate IP network to serve all of the plant equipment and all of the HVAC equipment. I got a lot of pushback from other members of the planning committee. But I stood my ground and my agruement eventualy won out that if we used the same network as the rest of the hospital, we’d have to go through IMIT and submit work requests for IMIT to whitelist new MAC addresses every time we had to replace a control board for a piece of HVAC equipment. IMIT tickets can take up to 7 working days.

So yeah, we get our own network.

The funny thing is, I have no plans on going to the new hospital.

As I’ve said before, I have no plans for anything.

I honestly don’t have any plans further into the future than tomorrow.

I just have nothingness.

I have unstoppable memories from 1978 onwards.

I have a never ending desire to die.

Due to governmental dithering I’ve been sentenced to at least one more year.

Will one more year possibly get me to change my mind?

No.

This feeling of nothingness, of emptiness, of meaninglessness, just continues.

It sucks the life out of life.

It consumes all and destroys all.

I sleep a lot.

I get home from work, I sleep.

Most weekends I sleep well into the afternoon.

My recent trip, I spent more time sleeping in the hotel room than anything else.

But, I’ve always been this way.

Getting out of bed in the morning is so fucking hard to do when you don’t want to be here.

I’m usually in bed at a decent hour, maybe between 21:00 and 22:00.

Without alarms, I’d sleep until about 12:00 the next day.

With alarms, it takes so much fucking effort to get out of bed in the morning.

I hate the fucking morning, it means I’m still fucking alive.

Lunchtime I sleep.

Afterwork, I get home and sleep for a couple of hours.

There were times in my teens and my twenties and my thirties where I could sleep for days on end.

Not just not get out of bed.

I mean sleep – solid – for days.

I don’t cry much any more.

I think the tears dried up a long time ago.

But I would often cry when I was alone.

The last good cry I had was back around 2009.

But the CFB Namao / CFNIS fiasco literally killed me.

Learning the truth about the CFB Namao matter literally killed me on the inside.

My insides are dead, they have been for a while.

I’m just waiting for my corpse to realize that it’d dead.

And after what I suffered through in my early years combined with what I learnt from 2011 onwards, there is only nothing.

And that’s the way it will always be, nothing.

Each and every day going forward will be another day of nothing.

No hopes.

No dreams.

No desires.

Just nothing.