Okay, after trying a couple of different timeline plugins for WordPress I think I’ve found one that will work.
I have a new timeline that is accessible from my homepage at:
https://beeshive.ca
It’s the button labelled “A Timeline of Things”
I’ve just started on this, so it will probably take a weeks for me to get is all fleshed out.
I’m also going to try to get a post out on the latest news involving the CFNIS .
Below is the 1993 Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada decision related to a Leading Seaman George Z.
LS Z. molested three female underage children while he was stationed at Canadian Forces Base Lahr in Germany.
The CMAC indicates that LS Z. has a daughter of his own, and was separated from his wife.
As LS Z was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and was on active duty he was dealt with through the military justice system.
And the court martial that led to this court martial appeal shows two issues with the jurisdiction of the Canadian Armed Forces justice system
The first issue being that the military did in fact prosecute their members through the military tribunals for civilian criminal code offences such as child sexual abuse. This means also that it would have been LS Z.’s commanding officer that reviewed the charges brought against LS Z. As I’ve mentioned before, and as was discussed during the Somlia affair inquiry, these commanding officers were not trained in the law, they were not lawyers, and they would often let their own parochial interests get in the way of justice for the victims.
The second issue being that even though the offences occurred in Germany, the court martial occurred in Ottawa, Ontario and not overseas in Germany on CFB Lahr. If the CAF could wait until LS Z. was returned to Canada, why didn’t the CAF just hand LS Z. over to the civilian courts where he would have faced substantially harsher sentences, or where a civilian crown prosecutor could have reviewed the charges to make sure the LS Z. was in fact being charged with every offence that there was evidence for.
And this matter brings up the topic of liability.
The three victims in this matter. Did they ever receive compensation?
From my personal experience, the CAF has always been lousy with the care of military dependents. In fact it took years of pressure from the Canadian Forces Ombudsman to get the CAF and the DND to stop referring to us as “DF&E”, “Dependents, Furniture, and Effects” as if we were just the personal belongings of the service member.
The CAF, and the DND are ultimately responsible for the actions of LS Z.
They recruited him.
They vetted him.
They hired him.
They sent him and his daughter on a posting to a foreign country.
They provided living accommodations on a defence establishment.
They were responsible for the security of these defence establishments.
They exposed children located in Germany, potentially of other service members, to LS Z. Aren’t the CAF and the DND supposed to do full evaluations of their employees before sending them off to foreign postings outside of the country?
As LS Z. was a member of the regular forces, he was on the clock 24/7/365 from the day he enlisted until the day he left.
The court martial heard expert evidence that LS Z. suffered from a psychiatric condition called “heterosexual pedophilia” which involved sexual attraction to children. Why couldn’t the CAF or the DND detect this in their employee before he damaged three young children?
And much like in my matter when my father abused the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations and had my mother thrown out of the military housing at Summerside, PEI, did LS Z. do the same thing with his ex-wife. This wasn’t an uncommon tactic as highlighted by the report released in 2000 that looked at spousal abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces. The Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations were practically green-lighting this behaviour.
And finally, and this is the one that upsets me the most, is somehow military service is somehow supposed to offset the severity of the damage from the abuse? Not only was LS Z.’s military service brought up during his court martial appeal, but Captain McRae’s military service was brought up during his court martial. Does the Canadian Armed Forces actually view child sexual abuse as such a low risk for long term emotional and psychological damage that just following orders for 10 years means more that ruining some kid’s life?
Well, it’s less than a year now until Canada legalizes Medical Assistance in Dying when Mental Illness is the Sole Underlying Medical Condition.
That is unless government chickens out at the last moment and delays M.A.i.D. MI-SUMC again out of fear of the religious right in this country.
M.A.i.D. where mental illness is the sole underlying condition was originally set to be legalized on March 17, 2023. At the last minute, it was delayed to March 17, 2024, and then again in February 2024, pushed further to March 17, 2027.
Both times M.A.i.D. MI-SUMC was delayed because those who think that everyone should live their lives as per the dictates of their holy teachings managed to push narratives about abuse of the system and loss of safeguards that don’t reflect how the law actually operates.
If your religion says that you shouldn’t obtain M.A.i.D., then don’t obtain M.A.i.D. It’s that plain and simple.
It’s the same thing when your religion says for you to not eat shellfish, don’t eat shellfish. And if your religion is against gay marriage, then don’t marry your spouse of the same gender.
What I choose to do with my life is my decision and my decision alone.
I am not here for your personal comfort.
I am not here for you to score brownie points with your religious daddy figure.
It is not my job to keep trying mental health treatment after mental health treatment designed to show me how to hide my mental trauma so that you can feel comfortable about yourself.
Y’all had your chance to help back in 1980.
But instead you let the Canadian Armed Forces, the Archdiocese of Edmonton and their respective disciplinary systems handle Captain Father Angus McRae while all of his victims, with the exception of his accomplice, were swept under the rug to suffer in silence.
We only get one chance at this life. There are no do-overs. There isn’t a second time around. There is no lake of fire to burn in for eternity. There are no heavenly clouds to float on playing harps.
Sticking around for another 15 to 20 years is of no benefit to me.
If I want to die, that’s a calamity.
If society says that it’s okay for me to die for the convenience of others, then that’s okay.
If I got run over by a drunk driver tomorrow, there would be no great outcry of anguish. Nobody would be calling for significant restrictions on car drivers while driving while intoxicated. It’s a “free society”.
If I die in a plane crash due to some middle manager saving pennies by cutting back on the lubrication schedule for jackscrews, I don’t get to start over.
Existing for another 15 to 20 years just allows me to continue suffering from untreated depression, anxiety, and the non-stop memories of the horrors of CFB Namao and the aftermath just don’t really appeal to me.
One of the most dangerous habits in modern crime reporting is the casual misuse of legal terms—followed by a refusal to correct them when challenged.
Recently, CTV news ran a story about the release of Darren Scott Ray from prison on a three-day pass.
The story mentions how Darren was convicted of “raping” Darren Pepin.
Sexual assault, especially sexual assault that results in murder, is horrific, but attaching the wrong labels can actually do more harm than good.
Rape only existed as a Criminal Code offence up to 1984. Rape was a very specific offence that primarily applied to intercourse with females where lack of consent had to be proven.
Also, you’ll note that a male could only be charged with rape so long as the victim wasn’t his wife.
Section 143 only dealt with females and it only dealt with consent. Rape was the preferred charge in instances where force, threats, or deception were used to obtain sexual intercourse with a female who was not the suspect’s wife. Under the old law it was assumed that when a wife made her wedding vows, she was giving permanent consent to sexual intercourse whenever her husband desired it.
Prior to 2008, the age of consent was 14. And under the pre-1985 criminal code rape wasn’t the only charge that could be applied.
Section 146 (1) and Section 146 (2) define sexual intercourse of any type with a female under the age of 16 as being a criminal code offence, unless the girl was the man’s wife.
Section 146(2) introduced the concept of ‘previously chaste character,’ meaning prosecution depended on whether the complainant was considered ‘chaste’—a deeply problematic and now-discredited legal standard, and Section 142 (3) provided evidentiary avenues that allowed the defence to shift blame onto the complainant.
Charges under Sections 143, 144, 145 and 146 could be brought against an accused with section 146 serving as a sort of backup catch-all should the Crown fail to prove offences under sections 143, 144, and 145.
The maximum sentence for “Rape” was life imprisonment and a whipping.
The maximum sentence for “Sexual intercourse with female under 14” was life imprisonment and a whipping.
The maximum sentence for “Sexual intercourse with a ‘chaste’ female between the ages of 14 and 16” was 5 years in prison with no provision for whipping.
In 1983–1984, the offence of ‘rape’ was removed from the Criminal Code and replaced with a gender-neutral framework of sexual assault offences—marking a fundamental shift in how the law recognized victims.
Rape was replaced by the offence of ‘sexual assault’. However, there remained other offences that were not classified as ‘sexual assault’, and these offences not only applied specifically to children, but also sidestepped the inability of the Canadian Armed Forces to hold a service tribunal for Murder, Manslaughter, and Sexual Assault.
Section 151 is sexual interference and applies specifically to victims under the age of 14 -no specified gender for the victim.
Section 152 is invitation to sexual touching and applies to crimes committed against victims under the age of 14 – no specified gender for the victim.
Section 153(1) is sexual exploitation and applies to crimes committed against “young victims” by a person in a position of trust or authority.
Section 153(2) defines a “young person” as any person fourteen years of age or more but under the age of eighteen years, gender not specified.
Section 155(1) is Incest.
Section 159(1) deals with Anal Intercourse.
Section 160(1) is committing the act of bestiality in the presence of a person under the age of fourteen, or incites a person under the age of fourteen to commit bestiality – no specified gender for the victim
The following sections are those classified as ‘sexual assault’ and from 1985 until 1998 the Canadian Armed Forces could not hold a service tribunal for these offences.
Section 271 is sexual assault – no specified gender for the victim
Section 272 is sexual assault with a weapon, threatens a third party, or causes bodily harm, again no specified gender for the victim
Section 273 is aggravated sexual assault. And again, gender is not specified.
Why does this matter? Because words have real-world implications.
When the wrong legal label is applied, it doesn’t just distort history—it obscures how the law actually operated.
I have had to deal with people who were utterly convinced that the Canadian Armed Forces could not have subjected Captain McRae to a court martial for sexual offences involving children as the Canadian Armed Forces were prohibited from holding a service tribunal (summary trial or court martial proceeding) for the criminal code offence of “rape”.
Under the pre-1985 Criminal Code:
Boys could not be raped.
Rape was defined as a crime against females.
That was the law.
And what charges was the military precluded from conducting a service tribunal for?
But there were alternative routes for prosecution involving females under the age of 16.
All the commanding officer of the accused had to do during the prescribed summary investigation was to dismiss the rape charge(s) that had been brought against their subordinate while allowing charges under sections 146(1), 146(2), 150(1), and 153(1) to proceed to court martial proceedings.
Sections 155, 156, and 157 always applied to sexual crimes involving male children. This meant that the Canadian Armed Forces could keep these in house and try them through the military justice system. There was almost no opportunity for sexually abused male children to have their matters heard in civilian courts.
One of the most troubling aspects of the pre-1998 National Defence Act was that prosecutorial functions within the military justice system were exercised by officers within the chain of command, rather than independent civilian Crown prosecutors, raising serious concerns about legal expertise and independence.
Now I have a much better understanding as to why the DOJ, the DND, and the CAF are fighting against the sexually abused victims of one of their officers.
This is not about a single case. It raises a far more uncomfortable question: how often did commanding officers quietly redirect or narrow charges in ways that limited accountability?
And once you understand how the law actually worked, the question is no longer whether this could happen—but how often it did.
Because if that happened more than once, the issue isn’t individual failure—it’s systemic design.
Cold War policies, Criminal Code language, and the institutional blind spots behind the McRae scandal
If a boy was sexually abused on a Canadian military base in 1980, there was a very real possibility that the system investigating the crime did not primarily see him as a victim.
Instead, he might be seen as evidence of a “homosexual problem.”
That may sound absurd today, but it reflects the reality of how the Canadian Armed Forces understood sexuality during the Cold War.
The language used in the investigations involving the babysitter and Captain Father Angus McRae reveals something uncomfortable about that era. The institutions responsible for investigating abuse were operating inside a framework where homosexuality itself was treated as deviant, dangerous, and incompatible with military life.
When abuse involved male victims, that framework blurred the line between predator and victim.
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The Cold War Purge and CFAO 19-20
Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and into the early 1980s, the Canadian military treated homosexuality as both a disciplinary problem and a national security concern.
This belief was written directly into policy.
One of the most significant instruments was Canadian Forces Administrative Order (CFAO) 19-20, which governed the investigation and removal of personnel suspected of homosexual conduct.
CFAO 19-20 existed within a broader Cold War purge that targeted homosexuals across Canadian government institutions, including:
• the Canadian Armed Forces
• the RCMP
• the federal civil service
The logic behind the policy was rooted in Cold War paranoia. Officials believed homosexuals could be blackmailed by foreign intelligence services, particularly by Soviet agents.
As a result, the military created investigative structures designed to identify, interrogate, and remove suspected homosexual personnel.
The policy environment produced several consequences:
• homosexuality was framed as a threat to institutional integrity
• investigators were trained to detect homosexual behaviour
• once the label appeared in an investigation, it influenced how everything else was interpreted
That mindset shaped how the military reacted when allegations of abuse surfaced on a Canadian base.
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The “Fruit Machine”: The Era’s Most Bizarre Investigation Tool
The Cold War purge of homosexuals produced one of the strangest devices in Canadian intelligence history.
It was known as the “Fruit Machine.”
Developed during the 1950s and used by Canadian security services, the device attempted to identify homosexuals through physiological testing.
Subjects were shown images of men and women while sensors measured:
• pupil dilation
• perspiration
• heart rate
Investigators believed these physical reactions could reveal sexual orientation.
The concept was deeply flawed and scientifically dubious. But for years it was treated seriously by Canadian security officials.
The existence of programs like this shows how strongly the Canadian state believed homosexuality posed a threat to national security.
Inside that mindset, sexual acts between males were rarely interpreted in neutral terms.
They were treated as signs of deviance, corruption, or institutional danger.
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The Criminal Code Language of the Era
The legal vocabulary used in the McRae investigation also reflected the Criminal Code provisions that existed in Canada during the late 1970s.
Several sections governed sexual activity between males.
Among them were:
Section 155 – Buggery
This provision criminalized anal intercourse except in narrow circumstances.
Even after partial decriminalization reforms in 1969, the offence remained illegal under many conditions and carried heavy stigma.
Section 157 – Gross Indecency
This section criminalized a broad range of sexual conduct between males that did not meet the definition of buggery.
For decades it was widely used by police to prosecute same-sex behaviour.
Section 149 – Indecent Assault on a Male
This offence criminalized sexual assault involving male victims.
Although this section addressed abuse directly, the surrounding legal environment still framed male-male sexual activity primarily as a criminal phenomenon.
When investigators documented the acts committed by Captain McRae, the terminology used in military court records echoed this Criminal Code language.
Terms appearing repeatedly in the documentary record include:
• buggery
• gross indecency
• homosexual acts
• immoral conduct
The problem was that this vocabulary did not clearly separate sexual orientation from sexual abuse.
Both were described using overlapping terminology.
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When Abuse Was Interpreted as a “Homosexual Problem”
Once the investigation entered that legal and institutional framework, the narrative could easily shift.
Instead of focusing exclusively on the exploitation of children, the investigation often framed the events as part of a broader issue involving homosexual behaviour on the base.
This pattern appears across multiple records connected to the scandal, including:
• CFSIU investigative files
• court martial transcripts
• ecclesiastical disciplinary proceedings
• administrative military documentation
Within these records, the abuse of boys by an adult priest was frequently described using the same legal language applied to consensual homosexual acts.
That distinction mattered enormously.
Because once the discussion centred on homosexuality, the victims themselves could become entangled in the stigma surrounding it.
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When Victims Inherited the Stigma
In a military culture that treated homosexuality as deviant or dangerous, the presence of sexual acts between males could cast suspicion on everyone involved.
That included the children.
Investigative language sometimes described victims using the same legal vocabulary applied to the perpetrator.
In practical terms, this meant that boys who had been manipulated or abused could be perceived not purely as victims, but as participants in behaviour that the institution viewed with suspicion.
For children living in military communities where homosexuality was widely condemned, that label carried enormous social consequences.
The stigma surrounding homosexuality acted as a shield that protected abusers while simultaneously harming the victims.
⸻
The Interrogation Culture of the Era
Another piece of the historical puzzle that modern readers often miss is how suspected homosexual behaviour was investigated during the Cold War.
Investigations conducted by military police, intelligence officers, and sometimes the RCMP were not limited to simply asking questions.
They often involved aggressive interrogation techniques designed to identify sexual networks.
Individuals suspected of homosexual behaviour could be subjected to prolonged questioning about:
• their personal relationships
• sexual experiences
• private social circles
• other individuals who might also be homosexual
Investigators frequently attempted to build lists of names, treating suspected homosexuals as part of a hidden network that needed to be uncovered.
In that environment, the goal of the investigation was often not simply to determine whether a crime had occurred. The goal was to expose what investigators believed to be a subculture operating inside the military.
When abuse cases involved male victims, this investigative mindset could create dangerous distortions.
Instead of focusing exclusively on the conduct of the adult offender, investigators might treat the situation as evidence of a wider homosexual environment.
That perspective could easily shift attention away from the central fact that a child had been exploited.
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When Military Social Workers Misinterpreted Trauma
The same cultural attitudes sometimes appeared in child welfare systems connected to military communities.
During the 1970s, 1980s, and into the 1990s, military psychological and social work literature still contained deeply flawed assumptions about male victims of sexual abuse.
One of the most damaging beliefs was the idea that boys who had been abused by males might develop “homosexual tendencies” or that sexually abused boys would go on to become “pedophiles”.
In some cases, abused boys were not simply treated as victims of trauma. Instead, professionals attempted to interpret their experiences through theories about sexual orientation.
This could produce disturbing conclusions.
Rather than asking why a child had been targeted by an abuser, military personel sometimes focused on whether the child’s behaviour indicated the development of homosexuality.
For boys already living in military environments where homosexuality was heavily stigmatized, this interpretation could be devastating.
It meant that the very systems meant to help them sometimes reinforced the idea that they themselves were the problem.
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How These Attitudes Shaped the Narrative
When these investigative and psychological assumptions combined, they created a powerful institutional blind spot.
Investigators trained to search for homosexual networks, combined with social theories that linked abuse to sexual orientation, could unintentionally reinforce a narrative that obscured the central issue.
The question that should have been asked was simple:
Who harmed these children?
But in the cultural environment of the time, the question often drifted toward something very different:
What kind of sexual behaviour is happening here?
That shift in focus allowed the stigma surrounding homosexuality to seep into the way victims themselves were perceived.
⸻
The Result: Victims Trapped in the Wrong Story
For boys caught inside that system, the consequences could last for decades.
Instead of being clearly recognized as victims of sexual abuse, some were implicitly drawn into the same moral category as the adults who exploited them.
The institutional narrative blurred the line between:
• victim
• witness
• participant
That distortion did not simply affect how cases were investigated.
It shaped how those events were remembered, documented, and interpreted long after the original investigation ended.
And once that narrative became embedded in official records, it could follow the victims for the rest of their lives.
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A System That Could Not See Clearly
Looking back at the records today, the most striking feature is how deeply institutional language shaped the investigation itself.
The system struggled to clearly distinguish between:
• homosexuality
• sexual misconduct
• sexual abuse of children
When those categories blurred together, the truth became harder to see.
The abuse did not occur because of these policies.
But the policies influenced how the abuse was interpreted, documented, and remembered.
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Why This Still Matters: The Echo in the 2011 CFNIS Investigation
The legacy of these attitudes did not disappear when the Cold War ended.
Decades later, when historical abuse allegations resurfaced and were investigated again by the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS), the institutional framework surrounding the case was still shaped by the earlier narrative.
Historical records, investigative summaries, and institutional memory all originated in an era where the language of homosexuality had shaped the original investigation.
When modern investigators reviewed those records, they were inheriting a documentary trail that had already been filtered through that lens.
The consequences of those early interpretations did not vanish with time.
They became embedded in the archival record.
And those records continue to shape how the events are understood today.
⸻
The Lesson Hidden in the Documents
The documents surrounding the McRae scandal reveal more than the actions of individual offenders.
They expose the institutional mindset of an era.
Cold War policies like CFAO 19-20, the Criminal Code provisions governing same-sex behaviour, and the broader purge of homosexuals from Canadian institutions created a framework that distorted how abuse was understood.
Within that framework, the most important fact could become obscured:
Children had been exploited.
Understanding that institutional context is essential for understanding why some victims were not recognized, believed, or protected when the events first came to light.
And why the consequences of those failures continue to echo decades later.
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Why Institutions Still Struggle With These Cases
Understanding the cultural and legal environment of the 1970s and early 1980s raises an uncomfortable question.
If the investigative framework of that era blurred the line between homosexuality and sexual abuse, what happens when institutions are asked to revisit those cases today?
For organizations like the Canadian Armed Forces, the answer is complicated.
Re-examining those investigations does not simply require reviewing the conduct of individual offenders. It requires confronting the possibility that the institutional mindset of the time contributed to the harm experienced by victims.
That is a much more difficult admission.
Acknowledging it would mean recognizing that the policies, assumptions, and investigative methods of the era may have distorted how abuse was understood and documented.
It would mean admitting that victims may have been misunderstood, stigmatized, or even implicitly blamed because of the framework through which investigators interpreted the events.
For large institutions, that kind of realization carries consequences.
It raises questions about:
• the fairness of past investigations
• the accuracy of official records
• the treatment of victims
• and the institutional culture that shaped those outcomes
These are not merely historical questions.
They affect how modern investigators interpret archival records, how institutions respond to survivors today, and how the public understands what happened in the past.
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The Weight of the Archival Record
Another difficulty lies in the nature of the records themselves.
Investigations create documents.
Those documents become files.
Those files eventually become the historical record.
But if the original investigation was shaped by flawed assumptions, the record it produced can carry those assumptions forward.
Later investigators reviewing those files may believe they are reading a neutral account of events.
In reality, they may be reading a narrative already filtered through the institutional attitudes of another era.
That means the past can quietly shape the present.
Not through deliberate deception, but through the simple persistence of documents created within an outdated framework.
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A Story That Was Never Fully Told
When the scandal involving the babysitter and Captain Father Angus McRae surfaced at CFB Edmonton, it exposed a serious problem.
Children had been exploited.
But the institutional language used to describe the events often framed the situation differently.
Instead of clearly identifying abuse, the narrative frequently drifted toward discussions of homosexuality, morality, and deviant behaviour.
In that environment, victims could become entangled in the stigma attached to the very acts committed against them.
The story that ended up recorded in official documents was therefore incomplete.
It described acts.
It described investigations.
But it did not always clearly describe the children as victims of exploitation.
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Why This History Needs to Be Understood
Revisiting these events today is not about rewriting history.
It is about understanding the context in which that history was recorded.
The Cold War policies that governed the military, the Criminal Code language that framed sexual acts between males, and the investigative culture of the time all shaped how the scandal was interpreted.
Without understanding those factors, it is impossible to fully understand the documentary record that remains.
And without understanding the record, it becomes much harder to recognize the experiences of the victims whose lives were shaped by those events.
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The Real Lesson
The story surrounding the McRae scandal ultimately reveals something larger than the actions of any single individual.
It shows how institutional assumptions can shape the way abuse is perceived, investigated, and remembered.
When the framework used to interpret events is flawed, the truth can become distorted long before it reaches a courtroom, an investigative report, or an archival file.
For the children who lived through those events, the consequences of that distortion have lasted for decades.
Understanding the mindset of the era does not change what happened.
But it helps explain why the full story took so long to emerge.
And why some parts of it are still difficult for institutions to confront.
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A Personal Note About Why This Matters
For me, this history is not abstract.
I was one of the children living on the base when these events unfolded. Like many of the boys who became entangled in the investigations that followed, I grew up inside a system that did not clearly distinguish between abuse and the stigma attached to homosexuality.
The labels and assumptions of that era shaped how adults interpreted what had happened, how institutions documented those events, and how some of the children involved were viewed afterward.
The purpose of examining these historical records today is not simply to revisit an old scandal. It is to understand how the investigative framework of the time shaped the narrative that was ultimately written into official documents.
Only by understanding that framework can we fully understand the record that remains.
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At first glance the 1980 investigation of Captain Father Angus McRae looks like a typical military scandal from another era. But the real story is not about one officer or one investigation. It is about the system that surrounded them. The military police, the investigators, and the legal authorities responsible for the case were all operating inside the same chain of command that governed the base itself. That was not an accident. It was how the National Defence Act was designed to function at the time.
In November of 2011 I had a conversation that would later become surprisingly important.
The man I spoke with was Warrant Officer Frederick R. Cunningham, the former Acting Section Commander of the Canadian Forces Special Investigation Unit (CFSIU) Western Region. Decades earlier he had been tasked with investigating Captain Father Angus McRae during the 1980 sexual abuse scandal at CFB Edmonton (then CFB Namao).
Cunningham did not speak to me as a stranger repeating rumours.
He spoke as the investigator who had been assigned to the case.
Within weeks of that conversation I raised what he had told me with the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal (CFPM) as part of my complaint regarding the handling of my 2011 CFNIS investigation.
What happened after that is worth examining closely, because it reveals something about how the Canadian military justice system actually worked in 1980.
The Base Security Officer: The Hidden Gatekeeper
To understand the structure of the 1980 investigation, you have to understand the role of the Base Security Officer (BSO).
At CFB Edmonton that position was held by Captain David Pilling.
The BSO was not merely a staff officer concerned with physical security. In the Canadian Forces of the 1970s and early 1980s, the BSO was the officer responsible for coordinating serious investigations on the base and supervising the military police detachment.
In practice this meant that when a serious criminal matter arose, the process often flowed like this:
Incident occurs
↓
Base military police become aware
↓
Base Security Officer assesses the situation
↓
Special Investigation Unit assistance is requested
In the McRae case, the CFSIU file shows that Captain Pilling personally tasked WO Cunningham with investigating McRae.
This detail matters because it reveals where the investigation actually began: inside the base command structure.
Command Authority and the Investigation
The base commander at the time was Colonel Daniel Edward Munro.
Colonel Munro was not just the commander of the base.
He was also Captain McRae’s direct superior officer.
This created a structural reality that is easy to overlook today.
The investigative chain began within the same command environment that included the officer being investigated.
The sequence looked something like this:
Colonel Munro – Base Commander
↓
Captain David Pilling – Base Security Officer
↓
Base Military Police
↓
CFSIU investigators (including WO Cunningham)
Even though specialized investigators were brought in, the investigation itself was triggered and coordinated through the base command structure.
This was not unusual for the era.
It was how the system was designed to function.
The Canadian military justice system in 1980 was governed by the National Defence Act as it existed before the major reforms of the late 1990s.
Under that framework, commanding officers exercised enormous influence over disciplinary matters.
They could:
• receive and assess allegations
• determine whether charges should proceed
• decide whether a case would move toward court martial or be handled in other ways
Military police were not institutionally independent in the way civilian police services are today.
They were embedded within the military chain of command.
This meant that when allegations arose involving an officer within the base hierarchy, the investigation inevitably unfolded within that same command structure.
In November 2011 I spoke with WO Cunningham about the historical investigation.
What he described to me reflected his position inside the original investigative machinery.
He spoke about:
These were not abstract opinions. They were observations from someone who had been positioned inside the investigation itself.
In December 2011 I raised what Cunningham had told me in a complaint sent to the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal.
The Institutional Response
In January 2012 I received a response from the Provost Marshal’s office stating that the Professional Standards review had concluded that CFNIS investigators had acted appropriately.
The letter also included a strikingly narrow statement:
The review found no indication that military police in the 1980s were aware of incidents involving me personally.
This wording is significant.
It does not say that military police were unaware of abuse occurring on the base.
It only states that investigators were unaware of incidents involving me specifically.
That distinction leaves open a much larger question about what investigators knew regarding other victims and events at the time.
In his January 2012 response, which came less than one month after I informed the Provost Marshal of my conversation with Fredrick R. Cunningham, Deputy Commander Lt.-Col. Gilles Santerre concluded that he could find no evidence that the military police in 1980 were aware of incidents involving me personally.
That statement may be technically correct in the narrowest possible sense, but it sidesteps the far more important fact that the individual I have long identified as the person who molested my brother and me was already under investigation by the base military police in 1980 for sexually abusing the children that he was babysitting. According to both former SIU investigator Fred Cunningham and the father of babysitter, it was this very investigation into the babysitter that led investigators to uncover the activities of Captain Father Angus McRae. In other words, the military police did not need to know my name to know that children on the base were being abused. The investigation that ultimately exposed McRae began precisely because those abuses were already being reported.
Also, Bobbie Garnet Bees became my legal name in the mid ’00s. The CFNIS were aware of my legal change of name and what my name was during the time of the abuse. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Provost Marshal and the CFNIS only searched the 1980 files for my current legal name and not my birth name. If it ever came to light at a later date that my name was in fact contained in the 1980 military police investigation of the babysitter or the CFSIU investigation of Captain McRae, the CFPM and the CFNIS could say “ooops, sorry, we honestly forgot about your change of name”.
The Curious Silence in 2016
Several years later, during a later phase of the investigation, CFNIS investigators attempted to contact Cunningham.
His response was notable.
He declined to participate in a recorded interview and refused to meet investigators in person. Instead, he spoke briefly by telephone and avoided giving detailed answers.
This was a stark contrast to the way he had spoken with me in 2011.
Why Cunningham became so cautious remains unclear.
But the timeline raises an obvious possibility.
After my complaint reached the Provost Marshal in December 2011 and included information Cunningham had shared, it is entirely possible that he was advised to avoid discussing the investigation further.
If that occurred, it would explain why he became extremely careful when investigators contacted him again years later.
The Official Secrets Act and the Security of Information Act allow the Canadian Armed Forces to control what information becomes public and what information is never to be discussed with the public.
A Structural Problem, Not a Conspiracy
The purpose of examining this structure is not to claim that a conspiracy occurred.
The issue is structural.
The system that existed in 1980 placed investigations, command authority, and disciplinary decisions within the same organizational chain.
When serious allegations arose involving members of that chain of command, investigators inevitably had to operate within an environment influenced by the same hierarchy.
This was precisely the kind of structural problem that later inquiries into the Canadian military justice system criticized.
Reforms implemented after the Somalia Inquiry were intended to create a clearer separation between investigators and the command authority whose members they might be required to investigate.
The Larger Question
Looking back at the McRae investigation today raises a simple question.
When a serious criminal investigation begins inside the same command structure that includes the accused officer, how independent can that investigation truly be?
The answer to that question is not found in speculation.
It is found in the structure of the system itself.
And that structure is preserved in the documents that still exist today.
Below is a closing section you can append to the blog post. I wrote it so it ties the command structure, the National Defence Act flaw you’ve been analyzing, and the chilling effect of secrecy laws together in a coherent way. You can trim or sharpen the tone to match your usual style.
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The Structural Flaw Behind It All
When you step back from the personalities involved in the 1980 investigation, a larger structural problem comes into focus.
The issue is not simply that the investigation occurred on a military base, or that the accused officer was part of the command structure.
The issue lies in how the National Defence Act operated before the reforms of the late 1990s.
At the time, the Code of Service Discipline effectively placed the entire disciplinary process under command authority. Commanding officers were not merely supervisors. They were central actors in the decision-making process that determined how allegations would proceed.
They could influence whether:
• allegations were pursued as service offences
• charges were referred for court martial
• matters remained within the military system
• civilian police were notified
This arrangement created what can only be described as a prosecutorial bottleneck.
Every major decision flowed upward through the chain of command.
In the McRae investigation, the chain of command ran directly through Colonel Daniel Edward Munro, who was both the base commander and the direct superior officer of the accused.
Even though specialized investigators such as the CFSIU were brought in, the investigation itself still originated inside that command structure through the Base Security Officer.
The system was not designed to isolate investigators from command influence. It was designed to operate within the command structure itself.
That distinction matters.
Because when serious allegations involve individuals within that same hierarchy, investigators inevitably find themselves operating in an environment shaped by the very authority structure connected to the case.
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Silence Through Secrecy
There is another layer to this story that is rarely discussed.
Investigators and military personnel operating in this environment were also bound by the Official Secrets Act, legislation that imposed strict legal obligations regarding the disclosure of information obtained through official duties.
The Act criminalized unauthorized disclosure of government information connected to official service.
For someone like Warrant Officer Frederick Cunningham, who served as the Acting Section Commander of the CFSIU Western Region during the McRae investigation, this created a powerful constraint.
Anything he learned during the investigation was information acquired through official duties.
Speaking openly about those events decades later could potentially be interpreted as revealing protected information related to military operations, investigations, or internal decision-making.
Even if the events themselves occurred decades earlier, the legal obligations imposed by secrecy legislation do not necessarily expire simply because time has passed.
The result is a quiet but powerful chilling effect.
Former investigators may possess direct knowledge about how an investigation unfolded, but the legal environment surrounding them discourages open discussion.
In many cases they may simply decide that remaining silent is the safest course of action.
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The Problem With Silence
When secrecy laws intersect with a disciplinary system controlled by command authority, an unintended consequence emerges.
The people who know the most about how an investigation actually unfolded are often the least able to speak about it.
Investigators such as Cunningham may possess firsthand knowledge of the investigative environment, the legal advice involved, and the decisions made during the case.
But decades later, those same individuals may feel legally constrained from explaining what they witnessed.
This creates a situation where the historical record becomes shaped almost entirely by institutional documents and official summaries, rather than the voices of the investigators who actually worked the case.
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Why This Matters Today
The Canadian Forces eventually recognized the dangers inherent in this structure.
The reforms that followed the Somalia Inquiry were designed to strengthen the institutional independence of military police investigations and reduce the influence of the chain of command over criminal matters.
Those reforms did not appear out of nowhere.
They were a response to the realization that the previous system placed investigators in a position where command authority, legal control, and secrecy obligations intersected in ways that could obscure the full truth of events.
Looking back at the 1980 investigation through this lens reveals something important.
The question is not simply whether individuals acted correctly or incorrectly.
The deeper question is whether the system itself was designed in a way that made full transparency almost impossible.
And when the structure of the system makes transparency difficult, silence becomes the natural outcome.
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In the end, the McRae investigation tells us less about individual decisions than it does about the design of the system itself. The pre-1998 National Defence Act concentrated investigative power, prosecutorial control, and command authority inside the same chain of command. When serious allegations arose within that chain, the system was forced to investigate itself. That is not simply a historical curiosity. It is a design flaw. And like any flaw built into the foundation of a structure, its consequences were not always visible at the time, but they were inevitable.
People sometimes ask how it was possible for a boy who had been sexually abused to end up being described as a homosexual who had “participated” in what happened to him. To someone reading the story today, that sounds grotesque and unbelievable. Yet in the late-1970s and early-1980s Canadian military environment, it was not unusual. The language of the Criminal Code, the structure of the National Defence Act, and the military’s own policies toward homosexuality all combined to create a framework that could easily distort how male child victims were perceived.
At the time, the Criminal Code still categorized male–male sexual conduct using offences such as “gross indecency” (s.157), “indecent assault on a male” (s.156), and “buggery” (s.155). These provisions were written in a legal era that did not clearly separate two very different things: consensual adult homosexuality and sexual abuse of a child. The offences focused on the act itself, not on the power imbalance between an adult and a child. As a result, when investigators documented an incident involving a boy and an adult male, the wording of the charge could make it read as if two males had simply engaged in prohibited sexual conduct together. Even when the victim was a child under fourteen—someone who could not legally consent—the language could blur the distinction between perpetrator and victim.
That ambiguity mattered in practice. When investigators prepared reports or statements, they often used the terminology of the offence itself. Phrases such as “committed an act of gross indecency with” or “engaged in buggery with” described the conduct in a way that did not emphasize coercion or exploitation. Instead, the wording could imply mutual participation. For a male child victim, that phrasing could become the lens through which the entire case was viewed.
Inside the Canadian Forces, the cultural context reinforced this distortion. During that period the military still treated homosexuality as a serious disciplinary and security concern. Policies such as CFAO 19-20, which addressed homosexual conduct in the Forces, reflected the belief that homosexuality was incompatible with military service. Investigations into suspected homosexual behaviour could involve surveillance, interviews about personal relationships, and administrative action against members suspected of such conduct. In that environment, any allegation involving male-male sexual activity was already being interpreted within a framework that associated it with misconduct or moral failing.
That framework inevitably influenced how professionals within the system interpreted events. Military social workers and support staff were often assigned to assist children involved in investigations. But they were operating within the same institutional structure. The National Defence Act placed criminal matters involving service members within the Code of Service Discipline, meaning that investigations, charging decisions, and disciplinary processes were embedded in the chain of command. When a case involved male-on-male sexual activity, the surrounding policies and assumptions about homosexuality could subtly shape how the situation was understood—even by people whose role was to help the child.
The ripple effects extended into military families as well. A service member raising children on a base lived within a culture where discipline, reputation, and conformity were highly valued. At the same time, the military’s stance toward homosexuality sent a clear message that such behaviour was unacceptable and shameful. When a father learned that his son had been involved in a male-on-male sexual incident, even as a victim, the institutional context could influence how he reacted. The stigma attached to homosexuality could overshadow the reality that the child had been abused.
Looking back today, the legal and cultural framework of that period is deeply flawed. Modern Canadian law has replaced those offences with a sexual assault framework that focuses on consent, exploitation, and the protection of minors rather than on moral judgments about sexual orientation. The military has also changed many of its policies and attitudes toward homosexuality. But understanding the historical environment is essential. Without that context, it is difficult to explain how a boy who had been abused could end up being labelled in ways that suggested he had participated in the very harm inflicted upon him.
Recognizing the role of outdated legal language and institutional attitudes does not undo what happened. What it does provide is a clearer picture of how the system itself could distort the experience of male victims—and why confronting that history is necessary if we want to understand the past honestly.
Had an appointment with my doctor this morning.
He’s going to work on getting me a referral for a psychiatric reassessment.
I had a psychiatric assessment done back in 2015, which revealed certain issues and concerns.
I don’t know how this will play out.
I really don’t want to get my hopes up too high.
This reassessment could work in my favour, or it could derail my hopes.
One thing that exists in the field of psychiatry is the never ending “we can fix you if you try hard enough” bullshit.
The psychiatrist that I would be off to see will either give me a true assessment, or they can derail my plans for medical assistance in dying with their “patient, heal thyself” claptrap.
And then of course there’s the chance that the government will chicken out at the last moment and declare that they want to wait another four or five years to make sure that they “get it right”.
At this point in life I am so looking forward to that final escape.
To finally be free of the events on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
To finally be free of the decisions of the Colonel Daniel Edward Munro.
To be free from the agenda of Captain Terry Totzke.
To be free of the lies and the hatred of my father.
To no longer be blamed for the babysitter abusing my brother.
To no longer have to realize that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Government of Canada anointed a teenage pedophile and willing accomplice of Captain McRae to be the sole innocent victim while all of the other kids on the base were swept away into the dustbin of history.
To no longer have to endure 41 years of diagnosed but untreated mental illness.
Things might have worked out a little differently in 2011 if the Canadian Armed Forces National Investigation Service had been a little more honest and forthcoming and admitted that the knew the truth about 1980, that they knew that the babysitter had been molesting children, that it was the babysitter’s molestation of children on the base that brought the whole Captain Father Angus McRae matter to the forefront. But that due to the peculiarities of the criminal code and the National Defence Act and the terms reached between the babysitter and the Department of Justice in 2008 that they couldn’t bring charges against the babysitter. But they couldn’t. Secrets needed to be kept. Images and reputations needed to be kept spick and span.
But as it is, I’ll never get to hear my father apologize for putting his military career above anything else. I’ll never get to hear my brother say that he understands that what Richard drilled into his head was just lies to cover for how Richard placed his military career above all else. And as it is, anything that the Minister of National Defence, the Canadian Armed Forces, or even the Department of Justice have to say about apologies will be absolutely fucking meaningless.
So no, there is absolutely no recovery from this.
Not a fucking chance.
The honest answer is that depression is not dramatic. It does not always look like visible despair or constant sadness. Instead, it quietly removes the capacity to feel joy, interest, or anticipation. Things that should matter stop holding meaning. You can take an interest in something and then lose that interest almost immediately. You expect negative outcomes as a default setting. Over time, effort begins to feel irrational because experience has taught you that change rarely produces anything beneficial.
Fatigue is part of it, but not in the way people assume. I can sleep for long periods and still feel no sense of restoration. Getting out of bed has always been a struggle, not because I am physically exhausted, but because I am disappointed to still be here and required to function again. It is less about tiredness and more about a persistent absence of motivation that has existed for as long as I can remember.
What people often misunderstand is that my depression was not caused solely by a single traumatic event. It was shaped far more by the prolonged aftermath of that event: the blame, the neglect, the institutional framing, and the environment in which I was expected to continue functioning as though nothing significant had occurred.
I once knew a man named Ray through a mutual acquaintance. We were not particularly close, but we did cross paths occasionally. Around 2004, Ray and I stopped to get something to eat. While we were eating he asked why I never seemed interested in getting close to people or forming attachments. I mentioned, in passing, what had happened with the babysitter and explained that I had never been comfortable getting close to other people afterward. I told Ray that I believed that what I had endured with my father and Terry had caused more lasting damage than the abuse itself.
Ray reacted with anger. In his view, I was supposed to be furious with the babysitter. I was supposed to want revenge or justice directed at a single individual. What he could not understand was that the psychological damage that has stayed with me was not primarily the acts of a violent and impulsive teenage boy with little empathy. The more enduring harm came from the environment that followed: the responses of the adults, the institutions, and the household I was forced to live within.
Being told that I was a willing participant in my own abuse did not help.
Being told that I was responsible for what happened to my younger brother did not help.
Being told that my reactions reflected a mental illness rather than trauma did not help.
Being subjected to my father’s rage for allegedly jeopardizing his military career did not help.
These were not isolated incidents. They formed a consistent pattern of blame and emotional invalidation.
At the same time, I was effectively saddled with responsibilities far beyond what a child should be expected to carry. I was blamed for my brother’s behaviour, blamed for not raising him properly, and blamed for the abuse that had been inflicted upon him, all while living in a household defined by neglect and hostility. Being placed in a caregiving role while simultaneously being treated as the source of the problem does not build resilience or self-worth. It reinforces chronic guilt, self-doubt, and emotional withdrawal.
Over time, repeated messages shape internal beliefs. When a child is consistently told that abuse is their fault, that their distress is pathological, and that their needs are burdensome, those messages become internalized. Boundaries erode. Compliance becomes a survival strategy. Later victimization is not uncommon in such contexts, not because the child is inherently vulnerable, but because they have been conditioned to believe that mistreatment is normal and unavoidable.
My father was an extremely neglectful man who wanted little to do with either of his children, and that dynamic existed independently of the abuse. When he forced our mother out of military housing, it was not an act driven by concern for our wellbeing. It was a practical decision shaped by responsibility and obligation. After she was gone, he brought his own mother into the household to raise my brother and me.
My grandmother lived with us on CFB Summerside from the spring of 1977 until the summer of 1978, when she returned to Edmonton. When my father was posted to CFB Namao in the summer of 1978, she and her husband moved into the PMQ with us. This was the same grandmother who had survived the Indian Residential School system in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, and who struggled psychological issues as well as severe alcoholism that she refused to acknowledge or treat.
According to my father’s own statements to Alberta Social Services, she was described as “cruel” toward his children due to her alcoholism. The irony in that characterization is difficult to ignore, as he himself exhibited similar patterns of heavy drinking, anger, and emotional volatility. The household environment, therefore, was not one of stability or protection, but one shaped by neglect, unresolved trauma, and persistent emotional hostility.
Within that context, the original abuse did not exist as an isolated event. It existed within a broader system of neglect, blame, and institutional misunderstanding. The long-term psychological impact was not simply the result of what was done to me as a child, but of how consistently I was told, directly and indirectly, that the consequences of that abuse were my fault and my responsibility to manage.
That cumulative environment, more than any single incident, is what shaped the chronic depression I continue to experience.
This depression, along with its partner, severe anxiety, have conspired to make my life unenjoyable and generally unpleasant.
And no, there isn’t a fix for this. Sure, I could learn how to internalize this. Or I could take therapy and learn how to mask it better and how to hide it. I could even take more drugs and ride pharmacological numbness for the next 20 to 30 years.
But, I’m honestly tired.
I don’t want to be here.
Well, now I officially move into the longest year in my life.
By this time next year all of the acute care will have been relocated to the new site. But M.A.i.D. for Mental Illness won’t be available until March 17th, 2027.
What I fear is that the government of Canada might cave yet again to the Anti-M.A.i.D. crusaders. And that would be absolutely devastating.
People have asked me what I intend to do if the government delays M.A.i.D. for mental illness again like in 2023 and 2024?
I have absolutely no idea.
I’m so fucking tired and numb from dealing with the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence over the last 15 years.
Fuck me. I just realized that it’s just days away from the 15th anniversary of me sending an email to the Edmonton Police Service asking how I would make a complaint against my babysitter from all those years ago.
And with the DOJ, DND, and the CAF being very clear in their intentions to drag this matter out for as long as possible I don’t think that I would have the strength to initiate a charter challenge against the government of Canada.
And I should very clear. The DOJ, the DND, and the CAF don’t have a particular agenda against me in particular. It’s just that my issue brings a whole lot of issues to the forefront. Issues that the DOJ, the DND, and the CAF wish would simply disappear.
The 3-year-time-bar.
The summary-investigation-flaw.
The DOJ, the DND, and the CAF have a lot of reasons to keep this matter going for as long as possible.
Why is M.A.i.D. so critical for me? Why do I desire M.A.i.D. so much considering that it will mean the end of my life?
I’ve been dealing with major depression and severe anxiety since I was a kid.
Life has been anything but enjoyable.
And what makes it far worse is that even though I had been diagnosed with major depression and severe anxiety and I was having such mental health issues that I was supposed to have been institutionalized when I was young, both my father and Captain Totzke did what they could to block my access to treatment for my issues for whatever reasons.
After having dealt with even more trauma brought on by the bumbling and incompetence of the CFNIS in 2011, and 2015 to 2018, I’m even more fucking tired that I ever have been.
I also just realized that tomorrow would have been my brother’s 52nd birthday. But he started on Ketamine infusion treatments at the UofA back in the winter of 2024. This apparently evolved into a full blown ketamine addiction.
I’ll never understand who thought that giving someone a highly addictive drug as a “cure” for depression was a bright idea, but who the hell am I to argue?
Do I miss my brother?
No.
That’s the dysfunctional household that we grew up in, and that’s the way our father raised us.
Do I miss my father?
The only thing that I miss more than my father is an infected haemorrhoid.
