My class action is 100% at the mercy of the DOJ and the Government of Canada.
In October of 2013 the DOJ knew the truth about 2011 CFNIS investigation and the truth about the exploits of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae and his teenage accomplice, my babysitter.
Did they care?
Nope.
They were not concerned in the least with the fact that the CFNIS willingly and intentionally withheld information from the Military Police Complaints Commission in 2012.
The DOJ was more concerned with the fact that I had introduced “new evidence” into my hearing that was not put before the MPCC.
The problem with this is I had no idea what the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal had withheld from the MPCC until I filed for judicial review.
In the end, the Department of Justice didn’t care that the CFNIS had intentionally run a dog ‘n’ pony show investigation designed to convince the Alberta Crown to not recommend charges.
The Department of Justice was all about minimizing the risk to the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence. That’s it.
The babysitter sued the Minister of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces for the sexual abuse that he endured at the hands of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae.
This was a cut and dry case as out of over 25 children that the military police were aware of in 1980 as having been molested by Captain Father Angus McRae, it was only the babysitter’s charges that were permitted to proceed to Courts Martial. All other charges against Captain McRae had been dropped.
The babysitter and his lawyer started their Action in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in March of 2001.
The Department of Justice dragged the babysitter’s matter out until November of 2008.
My matter hasn’t even really started yet.
My matter is still in the early stages of getting the class established.
And if the DOJ dragged the babysitter’s matter out for 7 years, I can see mine going on for at least 10 to 15 years.
And at the end the award will be chump change and a condescending pat on the head from the DOJ and the DND.
No one will admit fault, no one will acknowledge what I’ve suffered through for the last 45 years.
I can safely say that I will be around until at least September of 2027.
If the government of Canada follows through with expanding Medical Assistance in Dying to include reasons such as Mental Illness in March of 2027, I intend to apply as soon as I can.
What if the government of Canada caves to the far right and doesn’t expand Medical Assistance in Dying to include mental illness?
That’s just something that I’ll have to deal with in 2027, but I do have alternatives plans in mind.
I truly and honestly cannot keep going on with this.
When Medical Assistance in Dying for mental health reasons becomes available on March 17th, 2027 I intend to be one of the first applicants.
Of course there’s still the chance that the disabled rights groups in this country will hijacked by the far right conservatives and manipulated to take to the streets in a thinly veiled astroturf campaign to stop the government from forcing the disabled to undergo M.A.i.D. in order to save costs.
The irony about the far right using the disabled is that the far right have never cared about this disabled, the marginalized, or the impoverished.
I’m tired.
Considering what I’ve gone through in this life, if I want to die in order to put an end to the daily misery and the overwhelming pointlessness, that should be a choice that I’m allowed to make.
And being as smart as I am is a double edged sword.
Sure, it’s kept me from a life of drugs on the street, but it’s also masked my suffering. People don’t see my daily suffering. They just see what I can do and they choose to ignore what I’ve gone through or what I am going through.
Justice?
“It was a different time back then”
“There were different mindsets”
“People’s attitudes were different”
Even in the modern day government entities such as the Department of Justice are trying to deal with me using the prevailing attitudes of the day from back then.
“The Canadian Forces are not responsible for the illegal activities of their service members”
“Military dependents such as spouses and children live in the military housing on military bases solely at their own risk”
From what I’ve seen of the Department of Justice both in my interactions with the DOJ in Federal Court in 2013 and my current day interactions with the DOJ, truth and justice are the least of their concerns. Their goal is to dodge and deflect and keep the government of Canada from owning up to the messes the National Defence Act created on military bases across Canada.
The DOJ knows from the records that I submitted in 2013 painted the 2011 CFNIS investigation into my complaints against the babysitter as a very flawed investigation, but the DOJ fought me tooth and nail.
Even after the Military Police Complaints Commission confirmed in 2019 that the CFNIS had in its possession the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork and the 1980 Courts Martial transcripts that confirmed that the military police, the CFSIU, Captain McRae commanding officer, and the Courts Martial panel all knew that it was the actions of the babysitter molesting younger children living on base that eventually brought Captain McRae to the attention of the CFSIU, the DOJ still wants to lean heavily upon the 2011 CFNIS investigation.
Am I going to stick it out with the DOJ until a settlement is reached?
I can’t see that happening.
Will a settlement bring closure?
Definitely not.
There is no dollar figure that will undo the suffering that I have endured over the last 45 years. The suffering has festered and metastasized. And you can sure as hell bet that as part of any settlement the DND and the DOJ will require very strict NDAs to be signed and the settlement, if reached, will portray the DND as having been very shocked and concerned about this one time anomaly in the military justice system.
And people want me to move on and just get over it?
Imagine being sexually abused so badly that within 2 years of the abuse ending you’re supposed to be locked up in a psychiatric hospital for emotionally disturbed children.
Imagine your father and your military social worker conspiring to move you from one jurisdiction in Canada to another jurisdiction in Canada to avoid your apprehension by social services. An apprehension that is being driven by the concerns of social services of your father’s anger issues and your safety within your father’s house.
Major Depression.
Severe Anxiety.
Haphephobia.
Sure, my father’s anger and my father’s temper and my father’s physical abuse helped me to learn how to mask this shit, but it’s alive and well.
Politicians?
Dr. Hedy Fry, the MP for Vancouver Centre absolutely refuses to become involved in my matter stating that “there are no military bases in the riding of Vancouver Centre”.
Avi Lewis, the candidate for the NDP in Vancouver Centre has no opinion on child sexual abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces or Medical Assistance in Dying. Or at least I don’t know if he does as I’ve never heard from him after filling out a memo form at his constituency office on Hornby St. near my dentist.
Health Care professionals
Even my current nurse practitioner is beginning to cause me to have some concern. When I first started seeing him around 2021 he assured me that he would be willing to help me apply for M.A.i.D. in 2023 and 2024.
In recent conversation though I feel that his questions seemed to be geared toward me having been “cured” with the escitalopram and the hormone therapy.
The escitalopram just takes the edge off the depression and the anxiety. I still wake up various times every night grinding my teeth. The depression is still there as I can sleep for days on end with absolutely no desire to get out of bed.
Hobbies?
Nothing appeals to me.
In 2015 I made contact with my babysitter <P.S.> and his father <J.S.>. It was actually <J.S.> that I spoke to first.
<J.S.> loved his son. <J.S.> needed his son.
The fact that <P.S.> sexually abused children on CFB Namao, CFB Petawawa, CFB Winnipeg, and CFB Namao again didn’t phase <J.S.> nor did the fact that <P.S.> continued to molest children well after the DND and the CAF kicked <P.S.> out of the military housing in 1985. None of this mattered to <J.S.>. He blamed the military for what had happened to his son. His son would have been fine if the military had looked after him.
My father? Yeah, Richard died in January of 2017 never acknowledging that he was wrong for having blamed me for “fucking with is military career”. Richard never apologized for having blamed me for “allowing the babysitter to molest Scott”. And Richard never did apologize for not protecting me from the desires of the Canadian Armed Forces and the malpractice of Captain Terry Totzke.
Media?
Except for a very few stories, no one gives a shit.
I had always thought that a story like mine, a story where I lay out how the documented flaws in the pre-1998 National Defence Act have such a horrific impact on modern day CFNIS investigations into past events on Canadian Forces Bases in Canada.
The media often ask “but Bobbie, if this was happening, where are all of the other victims? Surely you’re not the only one who got abused on the bases”. This is usually accompanied by massive eye rolling on the reporter’s behalf.
I myself would never have gone on a deep dive like I did except for when master corporal Christian Cyr opened his trap on May 3rd, 2011 and told me about Captain Father Angus McRae’s involvement in this matter.
I don’t know why Cyr did this. Master corporal Robert John Hancock was more discreet during our interview at VPD headquarters in March of 2011. He didn’t come out and blurt anything about McRae, he just kept asking over and over again “if there was anything else I wanted to talk about, anything the might be connected to this matter”.
I guess the problem with Cyr was that when he was handed the file he must have concluded that I was a money grubber just out to make a quick buck or two off the military so he decided that he wasn’t going to mince words and he was going to let me know point blank that he knew the truth about 1980 and that I was scamming the military.
What he probably didn’t anticipate is that due to the use of alcohol, I have no memories of what occurred at the base chapel after I was given the “sickly sweet grape juice”, and he probably didn’t anticipate the internet providing me with access to the lawsuit between my babysitter and the DOJ from back in 2001 when my former babysitter sued the Minister of National Defence for his abuse at the hands of Captain McRae.
If master corporal Christian Cyr had just kept his fucking mouth shut I never would have gone digging into the whole captain father Angus McRae matter on CFB Namao, which never would have led to me obtaining my social service records from across Canada, and so on.
If master corporal Christian Cyr had just kept his knowledge of CFSIU DS-120-10-80 and CM 62 to himself, then when the CFNIS told me in November of 2011 that “they just couldn’t find any evidence to indicate that the babysitter was capable of what I accused him of”, I would have left if there.
And I think that in the majority of CFNIS investigation the investigators with the CFNIS are able to keep their cards close and to keep their poker faces on, unlike Cyr. So most victims of military child sexual abuse never get an inkling that the investigation into the complaints was nothing more than a “dog ‘n’ pony show”.
Has the media shown any concern at all that persons who were sexually abused on military bases prior to 1998 are unable to have charges laid against their abusers due to a statute of limitations in the pre-1998 National Defence Act that does not exist for persons who were sexually abused as children by members of the general public?
Nope.
The media couldn’t care less.
I’ve been trying to get the media interested in this story since 2012. 2021 was when I had enough of the facts together to present a story that should have started alarm bells ringing.
Nope.
Absolutely no interest.
Even in 2014, when Macleans was running their series of stories on sexual abuse in the military, not a single bit of interest. Actually, that’s not true, there was some interest, but that interest got dropped due to pressure from Macleans upper mgmt. I was supposed to stop in and have a meeting with Anne Marie Owens, but on the day of the meeting I showed up to Macleans and was told that she suddenly no longer worked at Macleans and that Macleans was now going in a completely different direction and that these stories were no longer an interest to Macleans.
And it’s not just Macleans, pretty well all of the media, including our so called “independent” media.
If you were to listen to the media in this country you’d swear that children never got sexually abused on base, that if they did, the military justice system would make everything right again.
Somehow the military justice system that couldn’t properly investigate rape against female service members was suddenly capable of investigating child sexual abuse?
Somehow the military justice system that failed miserably in Bosnia and Somalia due to chain of command interference was now somehow immune to chain of command influence when children were sexually abused on base?
The same military justice system that was under orders to ignore child sexual abuse committed by Afghan military forces in Afghanistan is suddenly free to investigate historical child sexual abuse on bases in Canada?
You would think that the media would show an interest.
nope.
nada.
zilch.
The usual excuses given by the media are some variation of “we’ve never heard of this before”, “where are all of the victims”, or ” the media spokesperson for DND and the CAF said that children were never sexually abused on base”.
But yeah, back to the original question posed by today’s prompt.
“Where do you see yourself in ten years?”
Dead for eight years and no longer bothered by this warped and twisted existence.
I had been going through searches on Newspapers.com when I came across a picture of my father from 1969.
The fact that Richard would have been a member of a ship’s company when that crew was expected to speak French at all times is fucking mind blowing to say the least.
He was a prairie boy growing up in Fort McMurray, AB before enlisting in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1963 at a stone frigate in Edmonton, AB. I can’t see him as ever having learnt French at home. When grandma came to live with us I can’t ever remember her speaking a single word of French, and I don’t think that she would have learnt French in the two years that she attended Indian Residential School.
When I was a kid, Richard had absolutely no time for French. Even though the schools on base were giving military dependents French classes, Richard would get upset if I tried speaking French in the PMQ.
The photo answers a bunch of questions. The HMCS Ottawa DDH 229 was fitted with a landing pad and a hangar for the Sea King helicopter. And the HMCS Ottawa was amongst the ships that had sailed to the United Kingdom and were involved with the HMCS Kootenay incident on October 23rd, 1969.
As Bill Parker had said to me in August of 1985 on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario, “I wish you had known your father before the Kootenay, he was a much different man then, I think you would have liked him”.
This photo was taken on July 22nd, 1969. That’s almost 3 months before the events of October 23rd, 1969 when the HMCS Kootney suffered a massive explosion due to overheated oil vapour in one of its reduction gearboxes. 9 men died that day, and according to Bill Parker in 1985, and my mother in 2013, three of those men were close friends of my father that he had served with in the Royal Canadian Navy before unification in 1968.
This photo was taken two years and two months before I was born. The man in the photo is not the man I grew up with. The man in the photo looks calm and inquisitive. The man that I grew up with was a piss tank alcoholic with rage issues and a hair temper trigger who had copious amounts of contempt for just about everyone else around him.
Looking at this photo I can only wonder what Richard would have been like had the HMCS Kootenay event not occurred. Or even if it had still occurred, I can only wonder what home life would have been like had the Canadian Armed Forces treated mental health as a priority instead of simply turning a blind eye to mental health issues and expecting the guys to deal with it on their own and self medicate through abusive behaviour, alcoholism, or hard drugs.
I know from my personal involvement with military social worker Captain Terry Totzke that the mental health and wellbeing of military members was the least of the military’s concern.
Does seeing this photo make me change my opinion of my father.
No.
He was still a broken inconsiderate self centred man who should never have been allowed to father children.
But what this photo does show is that Bill Parker and my mother weren’t lying when they said that Richard was a completely different person before the HMCS Kootenay disaster.
I dropped out of school at the start of grade 9. That’s junior high school. I never made it as far as high school.
Had to get out of the PMQ.
1987 was the start of the grade 9 school year for me.
September of 1987 was also two years removed from the summer of 1985.
The summer of 1985 was the last summer that my brother and I spent with our grandmother.
The summer of 1985 was also the summer that my father went on a rampage in the PMQ on CFB Downsview. He did some very significant damage to the PMQ. It took three military police officers to subdue him.
When my brother and I arrived back in Toronto from Edmonton my father was required to notify the base military police of our arrival so that they could come speak with us. When they did come to speak with us they told us that during their investigation they grew very concerned when they couldn’t find us so they started talking to the neighbours and that’s when they started hearing about Richard’s yelling and screaming and his physical abuse. The military police said that if my father ever lost his temper again that we were to flee the house before calling the base switchboard to ask for the military police.
In September of 1985, my father bought me a birthday cake. This blew my fucking socks off as he had never acknowledged a single birthday of mine since 1976, the year before my mother left. Even though he promised to never forget my birthday again, he never acknowledged my birthday again thereafter.
And his temper started to get out of control again by the spring of 1986. He just knew how to hide his outbursts better as he was under supervision of the military.
By the summer of 1987 my brother had graduated to credit card theft, B&Es, and car theft. He had also grown significantly larger than me and he was even physically larger than Richard. Richard could no longer control Scott. And Scott was now running with a group of thugs. Kids who had been in and out of the juvie system.
As Richard had given up on trying to control Scott, he instead turned to lashing out at me for allowing Scott t have been molested by the babysitter on CFB Namao and this is why Scott was acting as violent as he was.
So yeah, by the time September of 1987 rolled around, I had to get the fuck out of the house.
What would really piss me the fuck off is that in the summer of 2011, when I obtained my social service records from across Canada, I would learn that my family was actually under the supervision of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto from the time we arrived in CFB Downsview in the spring of 1983.
This pissed me off because when I moved out I had to take my employment from part time to full time so that I could afford to rent a place to live.
Had I known about my family having been under the supervision of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, I could have applied to CAST for emergency accommodation. I could have even arranged for the courts to make it mandatory for my father to pick up my bills until age 18. Either of these would have allowed me to finish off school while living in a safe environment.
I honestly can’t think of any family member having done anything positive for me.
And that’s not hyperbole.
My father was a piss tank alcoholic with anger issues.
My grandmother was just as much of a piss tank as my father was. And not only did she have a ton of anger issues, but she was also severely emotionally disturbed.
Can’t say much about my mother other than she didn’t really put up too much of a fight to save my brother and I from being raised by Richard and his alcoholic mother.
Sue? When she moved in with us she promised that she would get grandma to move out and that she would get my father to stop hitting us. Not sure if it was her, but grandma finally moved out in the spring of 1981 after having lived with us since 1977. She not only didn’t stop Richard from hitting my brother and I, but she started hitting us too. And when Richard would go away on training exercises, she’d get really mean.
Uncle Doug? He’s probably the only member of the Gill clan that did anything for my brother and I, but sadly he wasn’t around very often.
One of my pet peeves is when people who don’t have a single emotional scar, let alone a single emotional scratch tell me that I just have to think happy thoughts and that everything will fine.
That all I have to do is apply myself and I can be anything that I want.
What these people will often not admit is that they practically had everything in life handed to them on a silver platter
And these people are usually the first to shit all over me.
They’re usually the ones who are still in close contact with their parents.
Even when mine were alive, one resented me for having “fucked with his military career”, and the other moved on to a new life and wrote me off.
Their parents almost always took an active interest in them when they were young and their parents ensured that they never fell behind in school.
My father would rage out at school teachers when they’d suggest that he participate in activities with my brother and I.
Their parents would have moved heaven and earth to get them treatment if they had endured any type of event that would have caused them psychological harm.
My father obeyed his orders from my military social worker and basically denied me any treatment for the events from CFB Namao.
Their parents provided them with housing and shelter and funds while they went to college, or university, or trade school.
My father was more than convinced that grade 9 was more education than anyone needed and that all I had to do was to get a job and work my way up.
They didn’t have to live on the streets and couch surf for the first few years of their working life.
I was working for a company in West Vancouver in 1993 that had to close down. The regional manager liked me and liked my work, so he arranged for the branch in Mississauga to hire me. The branch manager liked me, but my immediate supervisor Don didn’t. He was always ranting about “No one from the West Coast was going to tell him who the fuck he had to hire”. Plus, he knew I was queer. So out the door I went. EI did a little investigation and my claim was re-opened, but it was going to take about 4 to 6 weeks for my original claim from British Columbia to be redirected to Toronto. I knew better than to call my father. And it wasn’t out of shame. It’s just I knew that there would be absolutely no help.
My father was a piece of work.
When he received his final posting to Alberta in 1990 he invited me to move back with him. He said that “we could try to be a family again”. I think he had found out that I had just finished a 6 month contract job with a company called Canshare Cabling and I had about $30k in the bank. I paid for most of the expenses for the move, plus I also paid for a bunch of new furnishing for his computer area. As I was 18 at the time, I didn’t have an understanding that he could claim these expenses from the Canadian Forces and that he would be reimbursed.
My brother Scott didn’t move with us at the time as he was finishing his jail sentence at the Uxbridge Training School for Boys in Uxbridge, Ontario.
When my father bought his retirement house in Morniville two months after we arrived back in Edmonton, I moved with him into the house, but I only lasted about 2 weeks there before my stepmother got me booted.
My brother didn’t fare much better.
When he was released from jail he was sent to Alberta by the Ontario government. He lived in Morinville with my father and Sue for a couple of weeks before my father unceremoniously dumped Scott off at my apartment. Scott ate through all of my groceries in three days. Everything was gone. Fridge, freezer, cupboards. Everything.
I called up my father and asked him if he could help out with groceries and if he had any idea of how long Scott was going to stay with me before he went back to Morinville. Richard laughed. He said that he was done with paying for my brother and I, that he had paid enough for us when we were kids, and that maybe it was time for that “bitch mother” of mine to start paying some of the bills.
I was able to get hold of Marie, she came into town and picked Scott up and took him to the acreage she lived on with her husband Art. She bought me groceries.
Richard quickly took Scott back to Morinville when Marie reminded him that Scott was under 18 and if she took him in, she was expecting child support payments from our father.
Richard’s attitude was not unexpected and it didn’t shock me as all. He did tell an airforce buddy of his around 1986 that the only reason he kept my brother and I instead of dumping us with our mother is that if we lived under his roof he could control the costs, but if we went to live with her that he’d have to sign his paycheques over to “that bitch” and that sure as fuck wasn’t going to happen.
So no, there was no fatherly love or motivation for a higher education.
But, let’s dial this back into common day.
I’m currently 53 going on 54.
The position that I’m in has no requirement for secondary qualifications.
But if it did have requirements for secondary qualification these secondary qualifications would be red seal Trade Qualifications.
Some of the red seal trades that can be attached to a power engineering certificate are Electrician, Millwright, Refrigeration Mechanic, Welder, Pipe Fitter, Steam Fitter, etc. These are all four year full-time apprentice programs. These all require a very heavy investment for tools and materials.
But, it must always be remembered that I didn’t become a power engineer because I wanted to, or because I thought that it was a career path with potential, I got into power engineering because it was the easiest way for me to keep a roof over my head and to keep my bills paid.
Going through life with diagnosed but intreated mental illnesses has always meant that I’ve just taken whatever work I can.
I don’t fit in anywhere.
I am a misfit.
I am accepted at work because I bring skills that are typically far outside the skill requirements for the positions that I occupy.
But I never have the opportunity to get official “qualifications” for these extra skills which means that I am always at loggerheads with others who do have the official qualifications.
And even if I were offered the opportunity to take these course the depression would surely destroy my every attempt.
But I can hear the choruses of the unblemished already.
Bobbie, think happy thoughts!
Bobbie, are you eating properly?
Bobbie, more sleep will cure depression!
Bobbie, you should find god!
Bobbie, you should volunteer!
Bobbie, I know what you’re going through, my cat died when I was 14 and I still miss Pepper, but I soldier on and so can you!
Well, it’s 722 days between now and March 17th, 2027.
March 17th, 2027 is of course when MAiD MD-SUMC is supposed to become legal in Canada.
MAiD MD-SUMC was supposed to have been legalized on March 17th, 2023, and then again on March 17th, 2024, so I’m not exactly holding my breath for this date.
The one things that these dates do give me is a bit of relief.
This relief is the same relief that you feel when you’ve worked a double overtime shift, or you’re on an extremely long flight, and you’re near the end and you get the little kick of energy that perks you up a little to get you through.
These dates also give me a bit of hope.
A bit of hope that if I hold on for just a little bit long that I can end my life with a humane procedure under the care of a licensed medical practitioner as opposed to risking failure through a self administered procedure.
Yes, I fully understand that by ending my life via M.A.i.D. I will be giving the Government of Canada, the Department of Justice, and the Department of National Defence everything that they could possibly hope for.
However, I think I can now die knowing that I at least tried to take on the Canadian Armed Forces and that while I wasn’t successful, I did at least make some people in the DOJ and the DND extremely uncomfortable.
However, I am fucking burnt out and my depression is not ever going to get any better.
I hate the fact that I am able to somewhat function with major depression.
Bobbie, you’re an asshole!
Bobbie, you’re not a team player!
Bobbie, you’re a jerk!
Bobbie, you think you’re better than everyone else!
Having high functioning depression is a fucking curse.
Not having the events from Canadian Forces Base Namao acknowledged in even the slightest really doesn’t help.
I really hope that M.A.i.D. MD-SUMC is approved this time around.
The hospital that I am currently at is slated to transfer the acute care operations to the new site in early 2027.
Even if M.A.i.D. MD-SUMC is approved in March of 2027, there will be an evaluation process that I will have to navigate as well as a cooling-off period that I will have to sit through.
The current site will still be in operation until about 2030 as it will have to support the research programs until the new research facility has been built adjacent to the new hospital.
I have no interest in going to the new site.
I consulted on the new site, and I was a member of the committee overseeing the design of the new site.
I wish I could say that this was a highlight of my life, but it wasn’t.
It was just more proof that my depression and my baggage from the past prove to be easy targets for those who sense these vulnerabilities.
My management team is well aware of my plans to not go to the new site.
So, I get to be the captain of a sinking ship.
And believe me, there are reasons why myself and this current site fit together like hand in glove. If M.A.i.D. MD-SUMC does some to pass in March of 2027 and if I am approved to undergo the procedure I will probably explain why the current site and I both share a lot of things in common and why I think we were made for each other.
Beeshive 