Just thought that I would make a post about the imaginary independence of the Canadian Forces Military Police and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service from the Chain of Command.
The base MPs and the CFNIS along with its predecessor, the CFSIU, have never been free of the chain of command. The investigators with these agencies are at all times soldiers first and police officers second. These soldiers, just as all other soldiers, are bound by the National Defence Act to obey the lawful commands of their superiors.
And yes, there is a difference between legal and lawful. Member of the Canadian Armed Forces generally don’t have the time and the ability to consult with a legal officer to determine if a lawful command is in fact a legal command.
And this poses a massive problem for persons such as myself who have actions against the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces for abuse and neglect that we endured at the hands of members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
In the spring of 1980 the military police commenced an investigation of my babysitter due to the numerous complaints of inappropriate sexual touching of other children living on the base. The investigation quickly exposed the fact that Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae was running a child sexual abuse ring on the base.
There were three boys involved with escorting children over to the living quarters attached to the chapel. One of these boys was my babysitter.
You would think that the military police would have wanted to string Captain McRae up with as many charges possible. But that’s not the way that the military justice system worked then.
In May of 1980, after the base military police investigated the babysitter for molesting children, base security officer Captain David Pilling instructed CFSIU Acting Section Commander Warrant Officer Fredrick R. Cunningham to investigate Captain Father Angus McRae for having committed acts of “homosexuality” with young boys on the base. The use of the term “acts of homosexuality” indicated that the Canadian Armed Forces already viewed McRae’s victims not as victims, but as homosexuals participating in homosexual activities.
Now, this is where things become very bad for the victims of Captain McRae that were under the age of 14.
The Canadian Armed Forces could only prosecute for the crimes of Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery so long as consent was a possibility. This fact was raised in the Court Martial Appeal Court finding of Regina vs. Corporal Donald Joseph Sullivan which was held in 1985.
Captain McRae’s commanding officer was Colonel Daniel Edward Munro, the base commander of Canadian Forces Base Namao. In 2017 as a result of me asking a CFNIS investigator if they could talk with retired Brigadier General Daniel Edward Munro to find out what transpired of CFB Namao in 1980 the office of the JAG replied that due to the 3-year-time-bar that existed in 1980, no charges could ever be brought against Munro so the CFNIS declined to talk to him.
In 1980 it would have been the commanding officer of the accused that would have decided what type of investigation McRae would be subjected to and how in-depth the investigation would be.
Colonel Daniel Edward Munro along with his chain of command would have known that the Captain McRae couldn’t be subjected to a courts martial for any crime committed against a child under the age of 14. Munro and his superiors would have known that to prosecute McRae for abusing any child under the age of 14 the Morinville RCMP would have had to be called in. And this would mean that McRae would be prosecuted in the civilian justice system where the military would not have been able to place a “veil of secrecy” around the whole affair.
This is why it was either Colonel Daniel Edward Munro or his superiors that wouldn’t allow the Base MPs to contact the Morinville RCMP to deal with the babysitter. They weren’t trying to protect the babysitter. They were trying to keep this whole mess from getting out into the public eye. Once the RCMP started investigating the babysitter, and once the babysitter mentioned the other boys and that they were bringing children as young as 4 over to the chapel the military would have lost control of the whole matter
Once the CFSIU completed its investigation of Captain McRae for sexually abusing children, the charges weren’t referred to the Alberta Crown Prosecutor for review. McRae was being charged with sections of the Criminal Code of Canada that were enumerated into the National Defence Act as Service Offences. Service offences were not in the purview of the provincial crowns. The charges were instead reviewed by the commanding officer of the accused. Which again in this case was Colonel Daniel Edward Munro, the base commander of Canadian Forces Base Namao.
An interesting thing about Colonel Daniel Edward Munro is that EVERY member of the regular force and the reserves located on Canadian Forces Base Namao was Munro’s subordinate. There is no requirement for an officer with the Chain of Command to follow the command structure when issuing commands to subordinate.
At work, if a manager from a department makes an unrealistic request of me or my subordinates, I can ask that manager to address my department manager. And I have the union to back me up on that. In the Canadian Forces you don’t have that ability.
In the Canadian Forces, if you don’t do as your superiors tell you to, you run the risk of being charged with insubordination. Basically you do as you’re told and you can only ignore the order you were given if someone else superior to you instructs you to ignore that order.
Members of the Canadian Forces subject to orders from and decisions by Colonel Munro included, but were not limited to:
- my father
- the father of the babysitter
- the serving parents of the other two boys suspected of bringing kids to McRae
- the serving parents of the other abused children
- the investigators within the CFSIU
- the investigators within the Base MPs
- military social workers like Captain Lynda Tyrell and Captain Terry Totzke.
Once the Chain of Command decided that the Captain Father Angus McRae matter was going to be dealt with through the military justice system, that was it. This is not to be questioned.
When I talked to Claude Adams of Global News in 2014 about the Captain McRae sex scandal from CFB Namao, Claude assured me that if he was in the Canadian Forces and if the military didn’t want to charge McRae with abusing his children that he’d just go marching down to the city police and lay charges himself.
That’s not how this works. If Claude did that, that would have been an immediate courts martial.
Yes, the ignorance by the Canadian public of how the military works is quite alarming.
Why would the Canadian Armed Forces go through all of this just to keep the McRae matter out of the media? Wouldn’t this have shown the Canadian Public that the Canadian Armed Forces does not tolerate child sexual abuse under any circumstance?
No. That’s not the way the Canadian Forces operated, especially not during the Cold War. The Canadian Armed Forces, much like many other “western” militaries had waged a war against homosexuality as it was seen as a weakness that the Soviets could exploit via entrapment and blackmail to recruit spies.
During the period of the Captain McRae child abuse sex scandal the Government of Canada employed the “fruit machine” to weed out homosexuals. The Canadian Forces had CFAO 19-20.
So imagine the military’s reluctance to prosecute Canadian Armed Forces OFFICER Captain Father Angus McRae for sexually abusing over 25 children on Canadian Forces Base Namao in direct view of the Base MP detachment.
Imagine if the Canadian public had discovered via a public trial that McRae had inappropriate sexual relations with children on other Canadian Forces Base and Canadian Forces Stations that Captain McRae had been moved to by the Canadian Armed Forces.
Can you imagine Colonel Daniel Edward Munro’s fear of having his command ability called into question as it was his Base MPs that failed to detect Munro’s direct subordinate molesting the children of enlisted personnel on the base that Munro was ultimately responsible for the security of?
To top it off, Captain McRae had been investigated at the Royal Military College at Canadian Forces Base Kingston for “Acts of homosexuality” in 1974. It’s not like CFB Kingston and CFB Namao are separate entities. They’re both Canadian Forces Bases under the same command chain and policed by the same police force. So it’s not like anyone in the chain of command on CFB Namao could plead ignorance to Captain McRae’s previous investigation for “acts of homosexuality” in 1974?
Why wasn’t McRae tossed out of the military in 1974? Was it because the military police or the CFSIU couldn’t find enough evidence? No. It doesn’t matter what the Base MPs or the CFSIU found. McRae’s commanding officer would have had the ultimate authority to dismiss the charges that had been brought against Captain McRae.
Even in 2011, the CFNIS had the 1980 CFSIU paperwork and the 1980 courts martial transcripts in their hand, but there was no way that the Canadian Armed Forces were going to allow charges to be brought against the babysitter.
Why?
Angus McRae didn’t die until May 20th, 2011. 3-1/2 months after the start of the investigation. And this posed a massive problem for the CFNIS.
While the CFNIS would have been free to bring charges against the babysitter, the CFNIS would never have been able to charge Angus McRae for ANY service offence that he had committed while subjected to the Code of Service Discipline.
Two flaws that existed in the National Defence Act prior to December of 1998 ensure that child molesters who abused children on Canadian Armed Forces bases in Canada ensure that these abusers nor their victims will ever receive justice.
See, even though the flaws were removed, there was no legislation enacted that retroactively allowed the crown prosecutor to become involved with reviewing charges laid by the base military police or the CFSIU prior to the commanding officer of the accused conducting their Summary Investigation as required under the National Defence Act.
In 1980, after the laying of charges by the military police or the CFSIU, all charges were required to be reviewed by the commanding officer of the accused. This included not only charges of a purely military nature, but ALL criminal code charges enumerated into the National Defence Act. The commanding officer had the full authority to dismiss any and all charges, including criminal code offences.
When Bill C-25 passed in 1998 the 3-year-time-bar flaw and the summary investigation flaw were removed, but there was no language added that allowed the base military police or the CFSIU / CFNIS to bypass the language that existed prior to 1998 and to refer service offence charges to a provincial prosecutor. More alarmingly, there was no language added to either the National Defence Act or the Criminal Code of Canada that nullified the 3-year-time-bar prior to 1998.
Why is this important?
Well without a police investigation showing evidence that I was molested directly by Captain McRae it is being hinted that I have no legal claim against the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence. But don’t forget, the investigations being relied upon are investigations conducted by the police of the agency that I am claiming compensation from.
In it’s 10 year report to Parliament that was published in 2010, the Military Police Complaints Commission that allowing the military police and the CFNIS to investigate matters that may subject the DND and the CAF to civil actions is inappropriate as indicated by decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada.
These decisions are why police forces in Canada generally will not investigate matters that could be expected to lead to civil actions against the city they work for. This is why when there is a police shooting in Canada or an allegation of police brutality police from another jurisdiction are brought in to investigate. This is also why when civilian employees of a city are suspected of wrongdoing other police agencies are usually brought in to at least review and offer oversight of the investigation.
As the Military Police Complaints Commission pointed out in 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada has decided that when a peace officer is conducting a criminal investigation, that peace officer is to answer to no-one except to the law itself. This is an outright impossibility in the Canadian Armed Forces. Every member of the Canadian Armed Forces is at ALL times subjected to the Code of Service Discipline. There are no exceptions for the base military police, the CFNIS, nor the Provost Marshal.
In fact things are far worse for the base military police and the CFNIS as the National Defence Act allows the Vice Chief of Defence Staff to offer instructions and orders to any MP or CFNIS investigation. As indicated by the Military Police Complaints Commission the Vice Chief of Defence Staff is NOT a peace officer and has no law enforcement training.
Another oddity with the structure of the military police is that the head of the military police, the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, directly reports to the Vice Chief of Defence Staff.
Currently the Vice Chief of Defence Staff is a Lieutenant General. The Provost Marshal is a Brigadier General.
Beeshive 