Canadian Armed Forces

Apologies……

A few people have recently contacted me and asked what it would take for me to ever consider not applying for Medical Assistance in Dying.

This is a very odd question.

Not because of the idea of trading apologies for giving up my desire to die.

But because of who those apologies would have to come from—and the fact that any such apologies would be absolutely meaningless.

Back in 2012, when I started looking for lawyers to help me deal with the matter that occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao when I was a kid, one of the things I was repeatedly told was that using a lawsuit to seek an apology would be pointless. Any apology offered by anyone working for the CAF, the DND, or the federal Government of Canada would be meaningless. The government does not understand the concept of apologizing. It is a faceless, soulless organization that does not grasp the idea—or the weight—of a heartfelt apology.

A modern-day Chief of the Defence Staff could offer an apology, but it would still be meaningless. They would simply be following orders from the Minister of National Defence.

And besides, the Canadian Armed Forces have made its position very clear, it will not under any circumstance admit that things went off the rails in 1980.

Between 1978 and 1980, at least 25 children were sexually assaulted on Canadian Forces Base Namao by Captain Father Angus McRae, a member of the Regular Force. Captain McRae had already been investigated in 1974 for molesting children while posted to the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. While there may not have been children enrolled at RMC itself, the college is directly adjacent to Canadian Forces Base Kingston. McRae was also suspected of having sexual involvement with a teenage boy at Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island immediately prior to his posting to CFB Namao in August 1978.

McRae was almost certainly moved to CFB Namao for two reasons. First, the military prison for Western Command was located at Canadian Forces Base Griesbach, and CFB Namao and CFB Griesbach together constituted CFB Edmonton. Second—and more significantly—the military police shack at Namao was positioned such that the Catholic chapel, and especially the rectory attached to it, were directly visible from the MP detachment.

The fact that McRae was investigated in 1974 for committing what were described at the time as “acts of homosexuality” at CFB Kingston and was not removed from the military demonstrates a clear failure by his commanding officer to act appropriately.

The fact that McRae was known to have engaged with a teenage boy at CFS Holberg and was again not expelled from the military shows another failure—this time by his commanding officer at Holberg.

Then there is the fact that McRae was able to molest more than 25 children on CFB Namao while operating in direct view of the military police detachment. During his defence, counsel from the Judge Advocate General’s office attempted to portray Warrant Officer Frederick R. Cunningham as having a personal grudge against McRae—one allegedly carried over to the CFSIU when Cunningham transferred there from base military police duties. Was this grudge real or imagined? And if it was real, was it born of anger at McRae for having deceived everyone? How many military police officers from CFB Namao owe apologies to the children who were abused because they failed to pay attention to what McRae was doing?

Colonel Daniel Munro, the Base Commander of CFB Namao, not only had the authority to determine the scope and breadth of the investigation into his subordinate, Captain McRae, but also the responsibility to decide which charges would proceed to tribunal and which would be dismissed.

Then there is Captain Totzke. Yes, he was likely “just following orders” when he acted as a roadblock that prevented me from receiving psychiatric care and therapy for the mental injuries I sustained at CFB Namao as a result of the sexual abuse that occurred from the fall of 1978 through the spring of 1980. But he had choices. He could have refused those orders. He could have gone against them. He could even have left the military in protest. Instead, he chose to be a good soldier.

Then there is my father. Once he learned what had happened, he could have left the Canadian Forces and entered civilian life to protect his children from military leadership. Instead, he too chose to be a good soldier—to keep quiet, not raise a fuss, and follow orders. He is dead now. There will be no apology from him.

Then there is the CFNIS in 2011. They were in possession of the 1980 CFSIU paperwork, yet they chose not to use its contents to advance the 2011 investigation. They clearly chose their military careers—and the protection of the infallible image of the Canadian Armed Forces—over the truth. They could offer apologies, but those apologies would also be meaningless.

A military officer addresses the media at a press conference, flanked by fellow officers in camouflage uniforms and military berets, discussing controversial orders related to a perpetrator.

The Provost Marshal could offer apologies for withholding the 1980 CFSIU paperwork from the MPCC in 2012, and for controlling the material released in order to steer the outcome of the MPCC review. But can anyone seriously place faith in an apology that means nothing? If the Canadian Armed Forces had any genuine interest in truth or honesty, the Provost Marshal would have ensured that all of the 2011 CFNIS materials were provided to the MPCC—not just carefully selected snippets designed to manufacture a narrative.

In 2014, I laid out exactly what had happened in Federal Court. Counsel for the Military Police Complaints Commission was fully aware of the MPCC’s limitations and the fact that the Provost Marshal could easily dictate the outcome of an MPCC investigation by controlling what information was disclosed—secure in the knowledge that the MPCC cannot subpoena documents or administer oaths. She knew exactly what the Provost Marshal and the CFNIS had done. Yet she chose her career within the Department of Justice over actual justice, and fought my application for judicial review not on the merits of my evidence, but on the basis that I was introducing evidence the Provost Marshal had deliberately withheld from the MPCC. She could have done the right thing. Instead, she chose the easy paycheque.

There are many apologies owed.

But none of them would mean anything.

Apologies have meaning when someone is apologizing for harm done without intention or malice and the apology isn’t seen as being forced.

When decisions are made deliberately—to hide, obstruct, and take the easy way out—apologies mean absolutely nothing at all.

And besides, it would not be fair for me to accept apologies on behalf of the other 25 children who were abused by Captain McRae and by his altar boy, who later went on to have a lengthy career molesting children on other Canadian Forces bases—now would it?

Batting 0 for 2

Recently I had filed two access to information requests with the Department of National Defence for copies of my psychiatric records that were kept by Captain Terry Totzke when I was under his care on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach from 1980 until 1983 as well as the records from when I attempted to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces back in 1989 and 1991.

In 2011, I obtained my social services paperwork from Alberta Child and Family services. That’s how I discovered my direct connection to Canadian Armed Forces social worker, Captain Terry Totzke.

It wasn’t until I obtained my social services paperwork in 2011 and I discovered that the man I knew as “Terry” from back on CFB Griesbach was Captain Terry Totzke.

I 2011 filed an Access to Information Request with the DND to obtain a copy of whatever records Captain Totzke had complied in regard to my diagnosis and treatment. There was quite a bit of back and forth before DND finally responded that unless I could tell them what department the records resided in and who in that department had custody of those records, the DND wouldn’t be able to process my request.

A few weeks ago I filed another Access to Information request with the DND to try to obtain my records. This time however all I received from DND was a response which said that without my enlistment date, my discharge date, and the unit I was attached during the period of time that I was requesting my records for the DND would not be able to assist me.

I politely responded to response that I had specifically noted in my request that I was a military dependent, that I was not in the service and therefore was not attached to a unit and I had no enlistment or discharge date.

I’ve heard nothing back since.

I might have to involve the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada.

The other request that I had filed was for the paperwork the DND and the CAF had created when I tried to enlist in 1989 and 1991.

When I tried to enlist in 1989, everything went fine. I did well on the battery of tests. My references were contacted. But then out of the blue the recruiting office called me and said that “something had turned up and that I was deemed ineligible for service”. When asked what this information was, the recruiting office wouldn’t say, just that my enlistment would violate CAF policy.

I knew that it wasn’t my grades in school as I was currently taking grades 9 and 10 together in the same year and I would be completed in the spring of 1990.

And it wasn’t unusual at the time for kids in grade 10 to fill in the paperwork and get all of the administrative stuff out of the way so that by the time they completed grade 10 they’d be ready to submit their final grades and then off to basic training they’d go.

The military at the time was keen to get the kids before they started eyeing up the trades or other well paying careers in the civilian world. The military loves brains that are malleable and mouldable.

I tried to enlist again in 1991 in Edmonton. At this point in time I had my grade 12 GED. This time I was told by the recruiting office staff that if I ever tried to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces again that I would be arrested and charged for trying to fraudulently join the CAF. When I asked for an explanation I was told in a very curt tone that I had been told at the recruiting centre in Toronto that my admission into the Canadian Armed Forces would be a violation of policy. What policy this was I’ve never found out.

I was just recently informed by the information analyst that the result of this request is that apparently the DND and the CAF destroy recruitment information 3-years after it was created.

It must be remembered that Captain Totzke was convinced that I was a homosexual because I had allowed the abuse on CFB Namao to go on for so long without telling anyone. Totzke even went so far as to instruct me father that I should not participate in sports as there would be the chance that if I saw other naked boys in the change room that I wouldn’t be able to control myself.

And then there’s the whole matter of the Captain Father Angus McRae child sexual abuse scandal on Canadian Forces Base Namao not being investigated as “child sexual abuse” but instead being investigated as Captain McRae having committed “Acts of Homosexuality” on the base with young boys.

When I tried to enlist in the CAF back in 1989 and 1991 the CAF would have been well aware that I was a military dependent and that my father was in the Canadian Armed Forces. As my father was in the CAF his service file would have contained records of any involvement I would have had with military personnel, such as Captain Terry Totzke.

And if Captain Totzke’s records contained any of his concerns about the “homosexuality” that I had apparently exhibited on CFB Namao, this would have placed me in direct violation of Canadian Forces Administrative Order CFAO-19-20 in which the CAF declared that homosexuality was a mental illness and anyone who was suspected of being a homosexual was deemed to be ineligible for service.

However, all of these records conveniently no longer exist.

Much like how the Canadian Armed Forces spent so much time and money in the late ’80s removing the rectories from the base chapels as they obviously knew that there was a massive problem with the catholic priests on base, had the DND and the CAF been “cleaning up” and eliminating paperwork that could cause them embarrassment and humiliation, and subject them to civil actions?

Is this also why in the mid ’90s the DND and the CAF moved the management of the PMQs to an arms-length agency, and handed all of the schools on the various bases over to the local school boards to own and operate?

The clock is running down (YAY!)

Spent another day in bed power sleeping…… And tomorrow is looking much the same.

Sometimes the benefits of being an isolated loner are overlooked, such as being able to sleep uninterrupted for over 24 hours.

When I was a teen, when the depression was fresh and new, I used to be able to sleep for days on end.

Not having any reason to wake up helps a lot. And avoiding the pain and disappointment of the real world makes staying asleep in dreamland much preferable to the real world.

And shit’s getting real at work.

The new site is supposed to be in full operation by February 2027, so the new site is supposed to be handed over to my employer by June of 2026 which means that all sorts of new staff are showing up at my site.

It’s also officially noted that I will not be going to the new site. Which is a relief. I wasn’t too sure if mgmt. was truly understanding of my wishes. It looks like they are. I would have been extremely pissed off if mgmt. had tried to shoehorn me into the new site.

But Bobbie, didn’t you consult on the new site?

Sure did.

Doesn’t matter though, lots of people consulted during the months of planning meeting.

Big whoop.

Nope, my plans so far are to stay at the old site, which will somewhat be in operation until 2029-2030.

I’ll know for sure what my long term plans will be in March of 2027.

At this point I still don’t foresee wrapping up the Captain Father Angus McRae matter anytime soon. So I’m pretty well accepting that I will die before any resolution to this matter.

It sucks that I won’t get any type of acknowledgment for what I endured on Canadian Forces Base Namao or what I endured at the hands of Military Social Worker Captain Terry Totzke, but sometimes these fights aren’t worth it.

If I am approved for M.A.i.D. in 2027, then I will probably undergo the procedure in 2028.

If I’m not approved, then I’ll have to look into alternative methods.

In the meantime I still have enough shit to keep myself entertained at the old site.

Just smile and be happy

The worst offenders in the world for the “just smile and be happy” attitude are usually those that ought to know better such as psychiatrists and psychologists.

A picturesque fantasy landscape featuring four colorful unicorns by a sparkling stream, surrounded by vibrant flowers, with waterfalls in the background, a rainbow arching overhead, and a castle in the distance.

The problem that I have with psychiatrists and psychologists is that they occupy a position of authority that is rarely questioned and often poorly justified

In Most other fields of medicine, the cause of the problem can be easily determined, the matter can be dealt with, and the results of the treatment can be analyzed and quantified.

You feel depressed?

Have you tried not feeling depressed?

If you’re still feeling depressed then it’s your fault.

Here, have some meds.

How do they work?

We don’t know, but they seem to have something of a desirable effect, no?

What, you don’t like being numb or spaced out?

That’s okay, your depression isn’t bringing us down, so we feel better about ourselves.

A tense meeting in a clinical setting featuring three medical professionals in white coats, observing a man in a dark hoodie seated at a table. The professionals include a stern-looking older man, a focused woman taking notes, and a younger man with glasses. Glasses of water and paperwork are present on the table. — We’re the docs.
We will tell you how to feel.

And that’s what psychiatric treatments are all about. How to make the patient behave in such a way as to mask their issues so as to make society feel comfortable around them.

And holy hell, if you don’t match their preconceived ideas of what someone suffering from major depression should be presenting as, you get laughed out.

I got laughed right out of the emergency mental health program at Vancouver General Hospital. I went in for an “emergency” consultation one day after my family doctor recommended that I go there as they might be able to help.

Got interviewed.

You could see that once I brought up the issues that I was having with depression, how long that I had the depression, and what triggered the depression the doc was already writing me off as some sort of nutcase that was wasting his time.

Head shrinkers work in a realm of medication that is analogous to priests and the soul. Head shrinkers can claim to cure patients of mental illness while at the same time not actually being able to cure patients.

People ask why depression isn’t taken as seriously as other mental illnesses.
And the honest answer is uncomfortable, because it has nothing to do with severity.

Depression is ignored because it’s common.
Because it’s mostly invisible.
Because it’s hard to prove.
Because it unfolds slowly instead of spectacularly.
And because it’s deeply inconvenient to the way psychiatry is structured.

Those traits make it administratively boring and professionally threatening at the same time — even while it destroys lives.

Psychiatry, like most institutions, responds best to disruption. If someone has schizophrenia or acute bipolar disorder, the room knows it. Conversations stop. Social rules break. Emergency systems kick in. There’s a clear before and after. Something undeniable has happened, and the system is built to respond to that.

Depression doesn’t do that.

Depression shows up as exhaustion. Flatness. Withdrawal. People still show up to work. They still answer questions. They still know exactly what’s happening — sometimes more clearly than the people treating them. They function just enough to be ignored.

Clinically, depression doesn’t demand the floor. And institutions respond to disruption far more reliably than they respond to erosion.

There’s also something psychiatry almost never says out loud:
Depression threatens professional authority.

A depressed person is often not delusional. They’re coherent. Consistent. Sometimes uncomfortably accurate. They can name power imbalances, injustice, loss, futility — and they don’t get better just because someone with a title tells them to.

With schizophrenia, a clinician can say, “Your perception is disordered.”
With depression, the question becomes, “What if their perception is accurate — and the system is the problem?”

That’s destabilizing for a profession built on expertise, correction, and the assumption that insight flows one way.

Then there’s the systems reality. Depression is cheap. Chronic depression is unprofitable. Treatment-resistant depression is a bureaucratic dead end. There’s no biomarker. No scan. No test result that ends the conversation.

So the system falls back on what it can process: short questionnaires, medication trials, surface-level therapy, maintenance instead of resolution. Depression gets reframed as background noise — something to manage, not something to confront.

Modern psychiatry is optimized for stabilization, risk management, symptom reduction, and throughput. Depression often asks for things that don’t fit that model at all: meaning. Reckoning. Grief without a deadline. Acknowledgment of irreversible loss.

That kind of suffering doesn’t scale. It doesn’t fit productivity metrics. So it gets softened, minimized, or relabeled as “mild,” “situational,” “manageable,” or “just part of life” — none of which reflect the lived reality of severe depression.

Cultural bias leaks in too. Depression overlaps with states society already moralizes: sadness, fatigue, withdrawal, hopelessness. Even in clinical spaces, those reflexes creep back in — try harder, be grateful, stay positive, others have it worse.

Psychiatry didn’t fully uproot those attitudes. It absorbed them.

So depression becomes this strange middle category: serious enough to medicate, but not serious enough to really face.

And then there’s the darkest reason — the one that actually matters.

Depression forces clinicians and systems to confront something they desperately avoid: some suffering isn’t fixable. Not every life can be restored. Not every wound closes. Not everyone gets their future back.

Taking that seriously would require humility. Limits. Grief on the clinician’s side of the table.

So instead, depression is managed. Normalized. Quietly deprioritized. Not because it’s small — but because fully acknowledging it would force the system to change how it understands itself.

That’s the truth.

Depression isn’t brushed off because it’s minor.
It’s brushed off because it doesn’t validate authority, doesn’t resolve cleanly, doesn’t perform illness dramatically, and often tells the truth too clearly.

Another issue with depression is people who live with depression while estranged from their families are fighting a different battle than those who come from supportive homes — and it’s one that often goes unseen.

When family is absent or unsafe, there’s no built-in safety net. No one to notice gradual decline. No one to step in during crises. No one to help navigate appointments, paperwork, finances, or recovery itself. What others experience as “support” — a couch to sleep on, a ride, a meal, someone to advocate for them — simply doesn’t exist.

Depression in isolation also removes emotional legitimacy. People from functional families are often believed sooner, taken more seriously, and given more patience. Those who are estranged are more likely to be questioned, minimized, or quietly blamed — as if the absence of family support says something about their character rather than their history.

There’s also the exhaustion of self-containment. When you’re alone, every setback has to be handled internally. There’s no place to fall apart safely. No shared memory of who you were before things went wrong. Healing becomes not just about managing symptoms, but about surviving without witnesses.

These aren’t minor disadvantages. They’re structural barriers. And pretending everyone starts from the same place only deepens the gap between those who suffer with backup — and those who have to carry everything themselves.

As I’ve said before, it wasn’t that nobody knew that I was struggling with depression in the aftermather of the Captain Father Angus McRae sex scandal on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

What follows is not speculation, but based on contemporaneous records and correspondence from that period.

My father knew, Captain Terry Totzke knew. Fuck, the entire chain of command right up to base commander Colonel Dan Munro knew.

And from the evidence presented in my paperwork from back then, the goal of the Canadian Armed Forces was to minimize the risk of exposing the scandal that occured on CFB Namao to the general public.

And I feel safe in implicating the Canadian Armed Forces as a whole as Captain Totzke wasn’t following the orders of my father Master Corporal Gill, it was the other way around. And Captain Totzke, being bound by the NDA to obey the lawful commands of his superiors would have been following commands from higher up.

So, sacrifices had to be made.

And my mental health was one of those sacrifices.

Why?

why can’t society just accept the fact that some people just don’t want to live?

Society seems to believe that everyone should enjoy life, and that if they don’t enjoy life then the person wishing to die is the problem and they had better smarten up.

It’s almost as if society is so hellbent on doing everything it can to hide the defects in everyday life. It’s almost as if society knows that life is fucked, but if they have to suffer then everyone else is going to have to suffer.

My desire to die via Medical Assistance in Dying is not something that I’ve just developed since M.A.i.D. was first legalized in Canada in 2016. My desires to die have existed since the day the babysitter first slipped his hands down my pants when I was 7. And the desire was only amplified with every depraved act he did to me or forced me to do to him over the next 1-1/2 years.

Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, the memories of what happened in the rectory after the “sickly sweet grape juice” are very, very vague. I do remember on time having rectal bleeding after one visit. And I do remember getting a beating from my grandmother after another visit when the babysitter had brought me back home a little too intoxicated and my grandmother first accused me of getting into her booze, and then when she checked her booze and saw that it was all there, she accused me of getting into my father’s booze. Even though my father was away on training exercises, she said that it appeared that his booze hadn’t been touched. So she dragged me around the PMQ patch while interrogating all of the teenage kids to see if one of them gave me the booze.

The actions of Captain Totzke and my father in the aftermath of the CFB Namao child sexual abuse scandal really intensified my desires. And the desires have never gone away.

As I’ve said in other posts, I’ve never followed through with my desires simply due to the fact that I am terrified of fucking up the act and ending up as a brain damaged vegetable in a hospital having to endure 20 years of a feeding tube and nursing students wiping my ass.

That’s not a reason to live.

I’ve seen too many people trapped inside broken bodies, nope, not for me.

It’s not my job to undo the damage that the babysitter, Captain McRae, Captain Totzke, or my father bestowed upon me via sexual abuse, mental abuse, psychological neglect, or neglect in general.

It’s not my responsibility to take drugs for the rest of my life so that I become a compliant zombie.

It’s not my responsibility to go for therapy where I can learn how to hide my issues and mask my inner turmoil so that the rest of you can feel comfortable.

It’s not my job to pretend what happened didn’t happen and that it was my fault for getting “stuck in a rut”.

To compare what I went through with someone who lost their goldfish when they were 12, or who didn’t get the bicycle they wanted when they were 10 is absolutely insane.

Bobbie, all you do is talk about M.A.i.D., don’t you have anything else to talk about?

Simple answer, nope.

Why not?

The household that I grew up in wasn’t conducive to having interests in things.

But Bobbie, lots of people grow up in neglectful households.

True, but it wasn’t just the neglect.

It was the intergenerational trauma.

My grandmother’s bout in Indian residential school obviously fried her noodle. And she passed her anger, her hatred, and her alcoholism down to my father.

My father picked up his mother’s trauma, and he exhibited her anger, her hatred, and her alcoholism. But he also picked up something more. He was so bound and determined to prove to everyone that he wasn’t 1/2 Indian that he had to pretend that he was something that he wasn’t. He had to be someone so flawless and faultless that he couldn’t possibly be 1/2 Cree. This turned him into an absolute asshole.

My father brought his mother into the PMQ on CFB Summerside to raise my brother and I after he had our mother booted out of the PMQ. When she moved back to Edmonton in the spring of 1978 to be with her husband my father got a compassionate posting to CFB Namao in 1978 so that he could get grandma and her husband to come live with us on base while he went off on every training exercise he could sign up for.

He did this even though just a few years later he would tell Alberta Social Services that he blamed his mother’s cruelty towards his children as well as her alcoholism for the problems exhibited by his children.

And then he brought his girlfriend in to live with us in the summer of 1980.

Sue was okay at the start. As my brother said to Alberta Social Services in 1981, “when Sue first moved in she promised not to hit us, but she hits us all the time now”. There were two things that Sue promised to do when she moved in. She was going to stop our father’s drinking, and she was going to stop our father from hitting us.

There was a brief period of time when Sue and Grandma lived with us simultaneously in the PMQ on CFB Griesbach. Grandma was still pissed off at my father for booting our mother out of the house. Whenever my father would bring up how much of a “bitch” my mother was for running away my grandmother would always fire back that one day us kids would learn the truth.

Sue blamed my grandmother’s drinking for my father’s drinking. And Sue was 100% certain that grandma was trying to sabotage the relationship between our father and Sue.

And I guess that my father never told Sue about his kids being sexually abused for 1-1/2 years on CFB Namao. When the school for military dependents got Captain Totzke involved, you can sure bet that neither Totzke or my father told Sue about what had happened on CFB Namao. And let’s face it. In 1980 Sue would have been around 20 years old. My father was 34 years old.

From the limited history that I have been able to piece together my father met Sue via his paternal stepsisters that lived in Oshawa and went to the same high school as Sue.

I can see my father telling Sue that I was the reason our family was involved with the military social worker, and that it was my fault that our family was involved with Alberta Social Services.

So yeah, it wasn’t just that the house in which I lived was dysfunctional. It was that I had to endure the anger of adults who were misdirecting blame in my directions.

Captain Totzke blamed my apparent homosexuality for me having sex with the babysitter for over a 1-1/2.

My father blamed me for being a pervert and for allowing the babysitter to molest my younger brother.

Grandma? I think grandma was just pissed off at everyone.

And Sue? Sue was pissed off because the perfect little family that my father had promised her was obviously never going to be realized.

Neglect would have been one thing.

But what I had was (Neglect + verbal abuse + sexual abuse + physical abuse + mental abuse + psychological neglect + abandonment).

That’s my life.

.That’s all I’ve ever known.

There was never any encouragement for hobbies or interests.

Which is why I have no hobbies or interests.

Surely there must be something that you like, something that sparks an interest in.

Nope.

You’re just not trying hard enough.

Nope.

You’re being melodramatic.

Nope.

What about sports?

Nope.

Photography?

Why, so everyone can tell me how much my pictures suck. It’s always so funny how taking pictures isn’t just about taking pictures. Nope, you’re supposed to criticize and chastise people for the wrong film speed and shutter speed and aperture setting. Oh, and gotta ridicule people for choosing the wrong lens for the task even though the person likes the effect created by the “wrong” lens.

Fashion?

Fuck no.

Music.

Nope.

Films?

Nope.

Theatre?

Nope.

Concerts?

Nope.

Travel?

The fuck for? I can be as depressed at home without having to spend a metric shit ton of money to go some place else and be depressed.

Electronics?

Fuck, I hate electronics. I have my self taught skills, but I get ass raped at work for not “teaching” others how to be as smart as I am. I have no degrees in electronics or building automation, but fuck do I ever get ragged on for not giving everyone else the skills it’s taken me a lifetime to accumulate.

Computers? Again, fuck no. Computers are a tool that I use. They are not a toy, or a source of pride, or enjoyment for me. It drives me fucking bonkers that people who should run circles around me with their degrees or diplomas can’t even do the basics. I used to ask new applicants if they had computer skills with Word, or Excel, or Open Office, or if they’ve ever used a PDF editing program like Adobe Acrobat or Nitro PDF to put together a PDF from single pages, or to create a fillable PDF file. Yep, sure, of course! Without exception it turns out that they can’t but their computer module they took as part of their diploma program or certificate program taught them how to create a blank Excel sheet and to give it a cute name.

Why don’t you get involved in community activities.

Massive fuck no! Society has done a very good job of telling me to fuck off and to leave them alone, so I’m happy to leave society the fuck alone.

“What’s your mission?”

Daily writing prompt

What is your mission?

View all responses

I don’t know if I have a mission or not.

My battle with the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces is not a “mission”. It’s just that what happened in from 1978 until 1980, both abuse wise and military justice wise greatly fucked with my life. My “mission” in this regard is simply to clear my name, and then die.

My mission at work? My mission at work is to do my work in trade for a paycheque. That’s it. I’m just a fourth class power engineer in charge of a 5th class heating hot water plant and 5 MW of chiller capacity. By HR decree I am not qualified to work on the building automation systems, but I still do, otherwise nothing would get done. But I am not allowed to take credit for any of this as I am not qualified.

Other than that I don’t have anything that would pass for a mission.

This comes as absolutely no surprise.

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time you should be familiar with my view that the military justice system is broken.

There’s nothing to fix.

The military police are hopelessly compromised.

I am not going to speak to the innocence or guilt of the member that was subject to these charges. I am just questioning how the CFNIS thought that they were ever going to get a conviction in civilian courts.

It’s not the individual members. It’s a structural thing.

Because the military police are comprised of soldiers that are subject to the code of service discipline and that must obey the lawful commands of their superiors there is no reliable way to guarantee independence from the chain of command.

Because all members of the Canadian Armed Forces are required by law to obey the lawful commands of their superiors, how can they refuse a command to not follow a lead, or to not write specific information in a document, to not investigate certain leads, to not expand the scope of an investigation.

Are members of the Canadian Armed Forces permitted to or required to consult a legal officer in the Office of the Judge Advocate General to see if a command is lawful or unlawful?

What happens if the command comes from high up the chain of command? It’s not like a commanding officer has to explain to their subordinates where in the overall chain of command a command originated from.

I am still trying to ascertain how the CFNIS ever thought that they would be able to successfully bring charges against a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces for a Code of Service Discipline offence that occurred in 1989.

As this alleged sexual assault involved two members of the Canadian Armed Forces on a defence establishment, this matter was automatically in the jurisdiction of the military justice system. That’s how the National Defence Act was written back in 1989 and that’s how the National Defence Act is still written to this day.

The problem for this matter, and how I can’t understand that it actually made it as far as court is the “summary investigation flaw” and the “3-year-time-bar”.

In December of 1998, with the passing of Bill C-25 “An Act to make Amendments to the National Defence Act” the 3-year time bar, and the requirement for a subsequent investigation by the commanding officer were removed from the National Defence Act.

When Bill C-25 was passed, there was no legislation passed to retroactively undo the effects of the 3-year time bar, and the requirement for a summary investigation after the laying of charges.

Yes, I fully understand that in 1989, sexual assault were not a service offence that the military could conduct a service tribunal for. Sexual assaults had to go to the civilian courts.

However, that’s not how it actually worked.

The commanding officer would have to APPROVE the charges before they could go anywhere.

Murder, Manslaughter, and Sexual Assault were not exempted from review by the commanding officer of the accused.

Summary Investigation Flaw Download

Let’s read the important section together. But before we do, remember that Bill C-25 removed this section from the National Defence Act, it did not remove this requirement retroactively from the National Defence Act.

d. Commencement of Proceedings (Clause 42: New Sections 160 to 162.2)

Sections 160 to 162 of the Act would be replaced by new sections 160 to 162.2. The key changes from the existing system in this area would be the proposed elimination of the requirement for an investigation after the laying of a charge (see section 161 of the Act) and the proposed elimination of the commanding officer’s power to summarily dismiss charges under the Code of Service Discipline (see section 162 of the Act).(35)

Currently, a commanding officer has the authority to dismiss, at the outset, any charge under the Code of Service Discipline. This includes not only all offences of a military nature, but also all civilian offences incorporated by reference into the Code of Service Discipline (see sections 130 and 70 of the Act), regardless of whether or not the commanding officer would have the authority to try the accused on the charge. (36) Pursuant to section 66(1) of the Act, the effect of a decision by a commanding officer to dismiss a charge is that no other authority –military or civil – can thereafter proceed against the accused on the charge or any substantially similar offence arising out of the same facts.(37)

This is a pretty damning statement “regardless of whether or not the commanding officer would have the authority to try the accused on the charge“. Do you know what charges commanding officers could not conduct a summary trial for?

Murder

Manslaughter

Rape( 1950 – 1985),

Sexual Assault (1985 – 1998)

If a member of the Canadian Armed Forces were arrested, investigated, and charged today for a historical offence that occurred in 1989, why would they give up the protections afforded to them by the National Defence Act in 1989?

What the above section states in plain English is that after a member of the Canadian Armed Forces is charged with a service offence, even a service offence comprised solely of criminal code offences, the commanding officer of the accused was required to conduct a summary investigation. The commanding officer could cause the charges to proceed to either a military tribunal or a civilian tribunal -or- the commanding officer could dismiss the charges. And once dismiss, that was it, those charges could never be brought again.

Commanding officers were not required to check with a legal officer (lawyer) until November of 1997 when commanding officers were required to get the okay from a legal officer prior to dismissing charges that had been brought against their subordinate.

Who in their right fucking mind would give up that protection?

The courts in Canada have been very clear that a person arrested for a historical crime has to be charged with offences that existed at the time the offence was alleged to have occurred. The person is also to be dealt with as the justice system existed at the time. The general exception to this is that corporal punishment and death are no longer allowed as punishments.

As I’ve said before, these commanding officers were not lawyers, they had no legal training, and no legal background. Yet they were acting as Crown Prosecutors.

Did these commanding officers ever act inappropriately?

You betcha.

The Somalia Inquiry was called because of the massive coverup in the death of Shidane Arone and the fact that it was only two junior members of the Canadian Forces that were ultimately held responsible for Arone’s death. The Somalia Inquiry found that chain of command interference made it impossible to ever discover the truth about who knew what and when they knew it.

The Canadian Armed Forces tried to paint this whole matter as being due to a lack of discipline within the Canadian Airborne Regiment, but the rot was baked into all aspects of the Canadian Armed Forces due to the power of the chain of command.

So, how does this affect modern day prosecutions?

I can’t see how these charges are making it to court.

What person would give up legal protections that they enjoyed at the time of the offence?

What person would give up the ability to plead their matter to a commanding officer and to enjoy that commanding officer’s discretion to dismiss the charges?

And quite frankly there is one other horrible aspect of this that I haven’t really focused on too much, but it’s Section 66(1) of the pre-1998 National Defence Act.

Prior to 1998 any charge for a service offence that had been dismissed against a member of the Canadian Armed Forces by the commanding officer of the accused could never be tried again by either a military or civilian tribunal. Tribunal in this sense means a military courts martial or a civilian criminal trial.

What this means, is if Captain McRae’s commanding officer, Base Commander Colonel Dan Munro, was presented with charges that indicated that Captain McRae had molested more than just my babysitter and Col Munro had dismissed all other charges for whatever reason, those charges that were dismissed could never be brought against Captain McRae at a later date.

Remember, it was the babysitter’s father himself that confirmed in 2015 that the military police informed him in 1980 that they had the names of 25 children that had been molested by Captain McRae.

And remember that it was none other than a retired military police officer with direct connections to the investigation in 1980 that told me in 2011 that the “brass” had dismissed numerous charges that had been brought against Captain McRae.

And also remember that Angus McRae was alive in March of 2011 when I made my complaint to the CFNIS. McRae didn’t die until May 20th, 2011, which was well after the 2011 investigation was underway.

Unbeknownst to me when I made my complaint, the CFNIS had in their possession the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork that would have explained to the CFNIS in 2011 just how horrible of a mess this entire matter was in 1980 and that it was my babysitter being investigated for molesting children that led to Captain McRae’s abuse of children being exposed.

However, no matter what the CFSIU investigation paperwork had to say, Section 66(1) of the pre-1998 National Defence Act presented one helluva dilemma to the CFNIS in 2011.

No matter how much evidence the CFNIS uncovered in 2011 which indicated that McRae was the ultimate “ring leader” and that the babysitter was his “agent”, the CFNIS would never be able to lay charges against Captain McRae while at the same time the CFNIS would have been able to charge the babysitter for everything he had done. The babysitter, being a military dependant, would never have enjoyed the same legal protections that Captain McRae enjoyed. Not because his actions were less serious, but because the law treated him differently

And that’s why I can’t see any member of the Canadian Armed Forces being willing to go to court to face service offence charges for acts that occurred prior to 1998.

I have tried numerous times over the years to have the Ombud for the Canadian Forces look into this matter. I have never received any interest.

I have even contacted the Military Police Complaints Commission and Ihave asked them to look into the matter. Not interested in the slightest.

And then of course there’s the DND, the CAF, and the MoD. They’ve been asked to look into this matter to see if it has any effect on the reporting of child sexual abuse that occurred on base prior to 1998. None of these agencies seem to have any interest in this. It’s almost as if they live by the principle that if they don’t open their eyes, they don’t have to acknowledge any historical crimes.

M.A.i.D. vs. Cancer: The Truth in Numbers

When it comes to the hysteria over M.A.i.D. deaths, I wish that people would get the facts and use common sense as opposed to letting hysteria and internet bullshit guide their way.

Take this Tiktoker for example:

76,475 Canadians have died from M.A.i.D..

Whoo, that sounds scary!

But wait, was that last week, last month, last year, the last 10 years?

If you had guessed that this was since 2016, you’d be correct.

That works out to about 8,497 per year (76,475 / 9 = 8,497 per year)

This table shows the number of deaths each year due to cancer.

YEAR	DEATHS
2016	80,713
2017	81,699
2018	81,599
2019	82,208
2020	83,235
2021	84,600
2022	85,100
2023	84,629
2024	88,100 (PROJECTED)
2025	88,000 (PROJECTED)
TOTAL	839,883

Considering that up to this point in time the vast majority of M.A.i.D. deaths are due to terminal diseases such as cancer it turns out that M.A.i.D. only makes up less than 9.1% of all DEATHS due to cancer.

Those that feign indignation at the concept of M.A.i.D. would like to have you believe that 76,475 Canadians died for absolutely no reason at all. But these were people that were either at Stage III or Stage IV. Nobody at Stage 1 or Stage 2 is seeking M.A.i.D.

I wouldn’t wish Stage IV pancreatic cancer on my worst enemy. Actually I wouldn’t wish any Stage IV cancer on my worst enemy. Once you’ve reached this stage the cancer has spread beyond the original organ and has established itself into other systems. Survival isn’t “if”, it’s only a matter of when and how bad will the suffering be.

And then we have absolute horseshit like this:

And this:

If that’s the one thing that I’ve come to despise about the internet it’s how it allows the fucking insane to find one another. The Internet should come with a minimum I.Q. requirement..

Oh, and can’t forget this goodie:

The fact that these people walk amongst us should be of fucking concern to everyone.

If you’ve undergone M.A.i.D. due to being at Stage III or Stage IV, your organs are deemed unsuitable for donation. There will be no organ donation. Period.

Why?

The person that would receive your organs will be on anti-rejection medication for the rest of their life. These anti-rejection medications function by reducing your body’s immune system’s ability to fight infection. The last thing that anyone wants to do is to place the organs of a Stage III or Stage IV cancer patient into the body of an organ recipient. If one single cell of cancer makes it out of the donor’s body and into the recipient’s body in the transplanted organ that would be a death sentence for the recipient.

CANADA_DEATHS Download

The PDF above is the total number of deaths per year in Canada for the years of 2016 to 2023. This table tells us that there were 2,402,701 deaths between 2016 and 2023. This table also tells us that in the overall scheme of things, suicide is a statistical blip. What aren’t statistical blips are heart disease and cancer with cancer being the overall champion for killing Canadians.

Xmas 2025

BC Electric Show Room with xmas decorations and "Seasons Greetings" — B.C. Electric Show Room 1930’s
**SEASONS GREETINGS**

Yet another orgy of crass consumerism has come and gone.

Scott used to call this “socks ‘n’ underwear day”

When your father kept you, not out of love, but in order to “control the costs” xmas day isn’t really much to get work up about.

The thing about Richard is not so much the cheapness, it was the total emotional disconnect. He didn’t know me and he didn’t know Scott. As such he was completely at odds with what Scott and I would have been interested in.

Xmas holidays weren’t a time for family. Xmas holidays were a time to stay out of Richard’s grasp.

Sure, I acknowledge that his mother was cruel. He even said as much himself. However if he had cared he would have gone the extra mile to not have been anything like his mother. And honestly, if he really cared and he knew how fucked up his mother was why the fuck did he have her raise my brother and I?

My uncle Doug, who was my father’s younger brother, was the absolute polar opposite to Richard so far as personality goes. Doug would smuggle presents from our mother into the house by claiming they were from him.

And there really wasn’t anything in the way of xmas dinners as kids. Once we moved to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in ’83 we went out to Sue’s parent’s house for xmas in ’83 and I think ’84. But that was it.

As I mentioned before, we flew to Toronto for the xmas holidays of ’82. I met my paternal grandfather that xmas. Arthur Herman Gill was his name. It wasn’t until 2011 that I would learn that Richard was trying to butter up his father to take care of me. This would explain the testy relationship between Richard and his father. And this would explain why we never went to see Arthur again even when we moved to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in April of ’83 even though we frequently went out to Oshawa to see Sue’s parents or even just to go shopping at Knob Hill Farms.

Probably explains why I don’t get too worked up over xmas.

When I look around at Xmas, all I see is crass consumerism and faux outrage from those who wear their religion on their sleeve for others to see.

Prior to Coca-Cola creating the modern day Santa Claus as an advertising campaign and consumerism taking over the holiday the church actually frowned upon tying the birth of their lord with consumerism. That’s actually where “Happy Holidays” came from.

Even ChatGPT gets it.

Short answer: because that part completely wrecks the outrage narrative.

Longer, more honest answer 👇

Historically, Catholic Church has never been cool with turning the birth of Christ into a sales event. The Church’s problem with modern Christmas isn’t “people won’t let us say Merry Christmas,” it’s that Christmas got hollowed out and refilled with cash registers.

A few key points that almost never make it into the rage-bait loop:

1. Christmas was meant to be liturgical, not commercial

For most of Christian history, Christmas was:

a religious feast day
surrounded by Advent (fasting, restraint, preparation)
focused on Mass, charity, and humility

Open-air markets, flashing signage, and “BUY MORE JOY” campaigns would have been seen as… frankly vulgar.

2. The Church repeatedly warned against merchandising Christ

Well before modern culture wars, Catholic teaching criticized:

profiting off sacred symbols
using holy days for personal enrichment
turning worship into spectacle

There’s a reason the Bible story everyone knows is Jesus flipping tables in the temple — that wasn’t subtle.

Selling indulgences nearly tore the Church apart once already. They’re painfully aware of how bad optics around money can get.

3. “Put Christ back in Christmas” is a modern slogan — not a traditional one

That phrase didn’t come from medieval theology. It came from:

20th-century advertising culture
reactionary politics
identity signaling

Ironically, the people shouting it the loudest are usually doing so under:

inflatable Santas
corporate jingles
Amazon trucks
credit card debt

If you actually followed historic Catholic attitudes, you’d be closer to:

“Take the cash registers out of Christmas.”

4. Culture-war Christmas needs a villain — nuance won’t sell

Rage bait works because:

“They banned Merry Christmas” is simple
“Capitalism hollowed out a religious feast and the Church warned against it” is complicated

Cable news can’t sell ad slots on a lecture about late-stage consumerism cannibalizing sacred time.

5. Quiet irony: the Church lost this fight decades ago

The truth nobody likes admitting:

Christmas is now economically indispensable
Retail calendars matter more than liturgical ones
December 25th belongs to supply chains, not bishops

So instead of fighting commercialization head-on (which they’d lose), many churches retreat to symbolism and slogans.

Bottom line

If this argument were being made honestly, it wouldn’t be:

“You’re not allowed to say Merry Christmas.”

It would be:

“Why are we using the birth of a religious figure to sell SUVs, phones, and scented candles?”

But that question makes everyone uncomfortable — especially the people pretending to defend tradition while standing inside a mall.

If you want, I can also break down how Christmas went from a minor feast to a retail keystone, or why Saturnalia did the same thing in ancient Rome, just with better wine and fewer credit cards.