Canadian Forces National Investigation Service – Page 3

The Three Year Time Bar

Another hideous flaw in the pre-1998 National Defence Act

In 1998, another flaw was removed from the National Defence Act.

This flaw in a way was even more hideous than the Summary Investigation that I talked about in a previous blog entry.

The problem with the 3-year-time-bar is that it prohibited the laying of charges more than 3 years after the date of the alleged Service Offence.

You’ll remember from the previous post that the National Defence Act enumerates Criminal Code offences as Service Offences. As such crimes such as Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery were service offences that could be tried by Service Tribunal. This is why Captain McRae was tried in a military court martial for committing “Acts of Homosexuality” such as “Gross Indecency”, “Indecent Assault”, “Buggery” with boys under the age of 15 on Canada Forces Base Namao.

The interesting thing about this 3-year-time-bar is that it applies to ALL service offences prior to 1998.

Also, even if a member of the Canadian Armed Forces is currently retired and no longer subject to the Code of Service Discipline, if the member was subject to the Code of Service discipline when they sexually abused a child on a military base they would still enjoy all of the rights that the National Defence Act bestowed upon the service member at the time of the offence.

What this means is that even if the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service were to find the man from the sauna who Peter provided me to for the purposes of oral sex this man could never be charged if he was a member of the Canadian Forces regular force in 1980.

If this man by some small miracle is a civilian with no connection to the Canadian Armed Forces and was never subject to the Code of Service Discipline, then he could be charged under the criminal code.

Don’t believe me?

In 2017, in a telephone call with Sergeant Damon Tenaschuk of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service Pacific Region, I asked Mr. Tenaschuk if he could try to talk to Colonel Dan Munro. I thought that this would be a simple matter seeing as how Sgt. Tenaschuk was on CFB Esquimalt just outside of Victoria, BC and Daniel Edward Munro lived in a suburb of Victoria, BC.

Instead, I received the following email from Sgt. Tenaschuk:

So there you have it.

The three year time bar is real, and it affects all Service Offence and all Criminal Code matters that occurred prior to 1998.

All I had asked for was for Sgt. Tenaschuk to talk to Daniel Edward Munro to see if Daniel had improperly bent the rules when he preferred the charges that Captain McRae faced in court martial and dismissed the other charges.

For Tenaschuk’s legal officer to say right of the bat that the 3-year-time-bar would prevent the laying of charges makes me wonder how many Canadian Forces personnel got away with Service Offences / Criminal Code offences prior to 1998.

Anyone who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline prior to 1998, and who sexually abused a child on a defence establishment, will NEVER face their accuser in court. Their victim will NEVER receive justice.

And this suits the Minister of National Defence and the Chief of Defence staff just fine. As it stands right now, you don’t hear anything about children being sexually abused on military bases by military personnel from the pre-1998 days. And as it turns out this isn’t because no child was ever sexually abused on base. It’s because if these kids didn’t report their crimes within the period of three years they would never be able to report their crimes..

In 2010, charges were brought against retired Brigadier General Roger Bazin. He was accused of sexually abusing a child on Canadian Forces Base Borden in the early 1970s. The matter made it so far as court, and then suddenly everything was dropped. No explanation was ever made to the media as to why the charges were dropped. You’d think that if the Crown has just smeared someone’s name through the media that they’d be obligated to explain to the public why the charges were dropped at the last minute.

No lawyer in the media claiming “my client has been vindicated”. Nothing. Radio Silence.

In my matter, Captain Father Angus McRae was alive until May 20th, 2011.

The investigation into my complaint started on March 5th, 2011.

The CFNIS knew about the connection between my babysitter, Peter, and Captain Angus McRae right from the get-go.

This means that the JAG, the Provost Marshal, and the CFNIS were aware at the start of the investigation that even if they were able to arrest Peter, that they’d never be able to charge Captain Father Angus McRae. This must have posed quite the dilemma for the Canadian Forces.

They had the CFSIU paperwork from 1980. They knew what Peter had been doing.

But they also knew that they would never be able to charge Angus McRae.

This would be quite the scandal, no?

When the CFNIS started the investigation in March of 2011, they couldn’t have possibly known that Captain McRae would have been about to die. They would have had to structure the investigation with the knowledge that Angus McRae was alive.

Anyways, here’s what Legislative Summary LS-311E had to say about the 3-year-time-bar-flaw.

These are the PDF pages of the images above.

Pages from Printable LS-311E Download

This is LS-311E (1998) in its entirety.

Printable LS-311E Download

Daniel, what did you do?

What did you do that the Judge Advocate General won’t allow an officer of the Canadian Forces Special Investigation Unit to talk to you about the events that occurred on your base from May of 1980 until July of 1980?

Can you actually sleep with this on your conscience?

Or do you rest well at night know that the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence will cover your ass, not because you’re a great guy, but because if they uncover something unsavoury from Canadian Forces Base Namao that this will snowball into unsavoury events on many of the other Canadian Forces Bases where men such as yourself were able to hide things that had occurred on the bases that you were commanding.

How many kids did commanding officer bury on the bases?

Only time will tell.

This just keeps getting more and more interesting.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-armed-forces-sexual-assault-survivors-cases-closed-during-crisis-1.6274844

Interesting isn’t it.

This is exactly what the CFNIS and the MPCC told me in 2013.

P.S. didn’t want to speak to the investigators, so that was it – there was nothing the CFNIS could do.

And as my brother would say, you can’t force someone to talk to the police. If you talk to the police you only incriminate yourself. If the police had enough evidence they’d go to the Crown and get an arrest warrant.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-armed-forces-sexual-assault-survivors-cases-closed-during-crisis-1.6274844

One interesting thing that I did learn though is that if police have evidence to show that someone has committed similar offences in the same relative period of time the police can provide that evidence to the Crown in order to persuade the Crown to allow charges to be laid.

The Military Police Complaints Commission stated in the 2020 findings that the CFNIS had in their possession the CFSIU investigation paperwork from May and June of 1980 as well as the July 18th, 1980 CM62 court martial transcripts.

What did the CFSIU investigation and the CM62 court martial transcripts indicate?

They indicated the following:

P.S. had taken a group of young boys into the Horseshoe Forest, P.S. had the boys to drop their pants. P.S. then removed his erect penis from his pants, spit on his penis, and penetrated a 10 year old boy.
There were complaints from parents on the base about P.S.’s sexual behaviour with younger children. This is what initiated the investigation of Captain McRae.
P.S. was already receiving psychological treatment for his attraction to young children.
P.S. was arrested and convicted in 1982 for molesting a young boy in a town just north of Canadian Forces Base Petawawa where his father had been stationed. P.S. would have been either 16 or 17 depending if this occurred prior to June 20th or after June 20th.
P.S. was arrested and convicted in 1984 for molesting an eight year old boy in Manitoba in relation to an unnamed Canadian Forces Base there.
In the spring of 1985 P.S. was arrested and charged with molesting a 9 year old boy on Canadian Forces Base Edmonton, as a result of this P.S. was kicked off the base by the Canadian Armed Forces.
P.S.’s father rented P.S. in the west side of Edmonton. P.S. lured a 13 year old newspaper boy into his apartment and molested him on a few occasions.
In August of 1985 P.S. was convicted of molesting both the 9 year old and the 13 year old.

Why didn’t the CFNIS pass this information on to the Crown?

The fact of the matter is the chain of command above the CFNIS did not want charges brought against P.S. as this would only open up a festering wound that the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence have kept a bandaid on for the last 40 years.

If the CFNIS had provided the Crown with enough evidence to indicate that P.S. was in fact KNOWN to have been molesting children and if the Crown had approved charges against P.S. this would have exposed the Canadian Armed Forces to the fallout that would have resulted from the Canadian public learning the truth about what had transpired on CFB Namao from 1978 to 1980 and that the Canadian Forces had sacrificed the lives of numerous children/adults in favour of keeping a hideous secret out of the public eye.

Instead, in my matter the CFNIS just threw their hands up and said that P.S. didn’t want to talk to them so there was little they could do.

That’s what you call “bullshit”.

Beyond a doubt the CFNIS knew what P.S. had been up to. The CFNIS had all of the paperwork and they had his criminal record.

The CFNIS had two options.

(a) The CFNIS could have gone to the Crown with all of the evidence to show that P.S. wasn’t suspected of molesting children, P.S. was a confirmed child molester. The CFNIS could have then arrested him, brought him in to talk, and at least got the truth about what had happened back then even if it resulted in nothing more than symbolic charges.

-or-

(b) The CFNIS could have approached the case in a totally different manner. The CFNIS could have approached P.S. as a victim of Captain McRae whom was obviously molesting children as a direct result of Captain McRae’s grooming, instructions, and directions.

The problem with either option (a) or option (b) is that they exposed the office of the Minister of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces to multiple civil actions which would have none the less resulted in very negative media coverage.

This is why the CFNIS were not allowed to bring any type of charge or even to treat P.S. like a witness. The Chain of Command made the decision and their subordinates did as they were told. The past was going to stay in the past where it had been buried in 1980.

I can fully see the CFNIS still doing this. And remember, it’s not that the investigators are in on this duplicity. The order only has to be given to senior officers within the Provost Marshal or the CFNIS chain of command. Once the investigation has been shaped by the chain of command, the investigators never have a chance no matter how good their intentions are.

I think tis is one reason why various CFNIS investigators, “the good ones” made sure to share pertinent Information with me and made sure that I knew what documents to request via FOI and ATI requests.

And talking about moving cases out in to the civilian world, the CFNIS are in the process of handing their investigation of my complaint related to the man in the sauna.

This is in relation to the investigation looking at the man in the sauna that P.S. provided me to for the purpose of providing oral sex to the man.

I have a very good idea of who the man in the sauna was / is.

In the spring of 1980 a very specific major was sent from Ottawa to Canadian Forces Base Edmonton to assist Captain McRae with his affairs during the investigation and subsequent court martial.

This major was involved with the Canadian Forces Chaplaincy branch.

In the spring of 1980 I would have been 8 years old.

This would have been in the period of time between me having been caught being buggered by P.S. in the bedroom of his family’s PMQ and the house fire at his PMQ on June 23rd, 1980.

I had been swimming at the base pool. I was about to get changed when P.S. came over to me and coerced me to go to the sauna.

In the sauna was a man sitting in the far side. The man asked P.S. if I was really as good as P.S. said that I was. The man opened his towel and held his erect penis and motioned me to come over.

If I had to hazard a guess I would say that I had performed oral sex on P.S. at least two dozen times from the fall of 1978 until the spring of 1980. And this isn’t including the older boys that P.S would often hang out with.

So I put the man’s penis in my mouth and I played with his balls.

He stopped me just before he ejaculated.

I never saw this man again.

Now, if this man is who I think it is he would have known about P.S. and the affinity that P.S. had for children. He would have known that P.S. was the reason Captain McRae was in trouble. Was he trying to “blackmail” P.S. by getting P.S. to do something as horrible as pimping out an eight year old?

Or, seeing as how this man was a member of the Catholic church just as his subordinate Captain McRae was, did he have a thing for young children. If he knew the details of what P.S. and Captain McRae had been doing on the base, then he would have known that P.S. had been bringing children over to the rectory for Captain McRae and P.S. to molest. So maybe he knew that P.S. could supply him with fresh young meat.

And it’s not like the man I have accused is squeaky clean. This man has had his own troubles with the sexual molestation of children over the years.

Anyways, it remains to be seen how badly the CFNIS screwed up this investigation.

And you wonder why I am seriously considering medical assistance in dying in March of 2023 when it becomes legal for psychiatric issues. There’s only so much shit that one person can keep locked inside their skulls before it all becomes toxic. And no, seeking MAiD does not make me weak. Others who have been involved with the Captain Father Angus McRae have attempted suicide, have committed suicide, and have had mental health issues that have plagued them for their lives. And to have the Canadian Armed Forces do everything in their power to deny us our freedom from the torment associated with the events from CFB Namao is beyond the pale.

And here’s hoping that the media will pay attention to military dependents who were sexually abused on defence establishments by persons who were subjected to the Code of Service Discipline. We are stuck in a world of grey between the civilian justice system and the military justice system, between the provinces and between Ottawa.

If you’re keeping tally, I’ve blown a major, more than likely been buggered by a captain while drunk on wine, pleasured my 14 year old babysitter on numerous occasions, blew an enlisted guy on CFB Griesbach. And this was all before I turned 11.

It’s no wonder I hate sex.

40%

And that’s just those who came forward.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8405606/canadian-forces-sexual-misconduct-class-action-claims-men/

Well, here’s something that might come as a surprise to some people, but it doesn’t come as a surprise to me.

There were about 19,000 claims submitted for compensation.

If 40% of claimants were men that’s 7,600 men. And trust me men, especially in a military environment, are NOT going to be all that willing to come forward out of fear that others will judge them as being weak or of being a homosexual.

https://aasas.ca/support-and-information/men-and-sexual-assault/

And if one sexual abuser in the Canadian Armed Forces had five or six victims that 7,600 sexually abused men could quickly become 45,600 men. And I don’t really want to think about the total number of men that were sexually abused by other men in the Canadian Armed Forces. According to some stats, over 90% of sexual assault victims never report their assaults.

I’ve known about this since 2014 when L’Actualite ran an exposé on sexual assault within the Canadian Armed Forces. Part of this exposé looked at male-on-male sexual assault within the Canadian Armed Forces. This exposé was stripped from the English version of this article that ran in Maclean’s magazine.

This story was only featured in the French newsmagazine L’Actualite in Quebec. This story did not survive the translation into English for the Maclean’s English version of the exact same story.

Basically, it was found that male-on-male sexual abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces had nothing to do with “homosexual” relationships. The article found that male-on-male sexual abuse was more about exerting dominance and punishing others for perceived bad behaviour.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8360601/canadian-veteran-military-sexual-assaults-misconduct/

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2021/04/24/i-was-going-to-get-raped-former-soldier-speaks-out-about-his-being-sexually-assaulted-in-canadas-military.html

Male-on-male sexual abuse was frequently used to shame other members into compliance or to humiliate members that had “caused trouble” or used to blackmail a member into silence least his coworkers, friends, and family discover that he had participated in anal intercourse.

And I have absolutely no doubt that many male children living on the bases were subjected to this “discipline” in the household.

If a member of the Canadian Armed Forces is willing to force anal intercourse on a fellow adult member or if a member of the Canadian Forces is willing to force another adult member to perform fellatio on him in order to teach the other member a lesson or to change the other member’s non-conforming behaviour, you can bet that this type of behaviour found its way back into the PMQs on base.

Here’s a story from the New York Times that deals with male-on-male sexual abuse in the US mIlitary. There are numerous similarities between the US Military and the Canadian Forces.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/10/us/men-military-sexual-assault.html

Almost every type of discipline these men were taught would find its way back into the homes on base.

Once you engage in the military life, it’s almost impossible to separate and segregate the military life, the military training, and the military discipline from the home life.

I have absolutely no doubt that there are many a male military dependent that have some rather fucked up hazy memories from way back then. After all, it’s not like these male members were engaging in routine homosexual activities. They would just use male-on-male as a disciplinary tool.

It might have happened once.

It might have happened twice.

But I would be more than willing to believe that if it happened once or twice, that this would have been buried in the dark recesses of one’s mind.

Especially if it happened on a military base.

Who are you going to tell?

Who is going to believe you?

Are you really going to risk having your serving parent booted from the military?

Are you really going to endure the wrath of your serving parent if they found out that you tried to rat them out to the military police?

Sure does raise some interesting questions, doesn’t it?

Maybe this is one of the reason why the Canadian Armed Forces refuse to investigate historical child sexual abuse.

Maybe this is one of the reasons that some former serving parents are always telling their kids to forget about the past and to let sleeping dogs lie. Even if the serving parent in question didn’t abuse their own kids, were they aware of other service members that abused their own kids? Hard to keep secrets during an investigation, isn’t it?
Might be best to just deny anything and everything, right?