Tag: CTV

Worth less than a donkey.

And an imaginary one at that.

It’s a very good day in Canada if you’re a donkey.

Rona, a Canadian hardware and home improvement chain, ran a commercial based upon the English language slang term “half-assed” which generally means to do something poorly or ineptly.

The commercial is cute in the sense that it shows the front half of a donkey, other wise known as an ass, wandering around as people disparage jobs that are done “half-assed”.

Well, someone at a donkey sanctuary got their nose out-of-joint and had to let the public know that the term “half-ass” and “half-assed” are offensive to donkeys.

Canada’s top notch media sprang into action!

CTV actually ran a fucking news story on this.

And no, this wasn’t an April fool’s day prank, or an Onion Article.

Workers complaining about “half-assed” work.
Half-ass leaving the job site.
Half-ass wandering from job site to job site.
Half-ass pulling an Iron Eyes Cody tear……

It’s shit like this that makes me realize just how completely fucked the media is in this country.

I’ve tried to get CTV NEWS and CTV’s W5 interested in the issue of how the Canadian Armed Forces handled child sexual abuse on the bases pre-1998, not the slightest bit of interest.

I’ve been trying to get the media to pay attention to the fact that the modern day Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence hide behind flaws in the pre-1998 National Defence Act that make sure that crimes of a criminal code in nature stay buried in the past.

Both the DND and the CAF could ask parliament to pass legislation that would subject persons who were subjected to the code of service discipline prior to 1998 to prosecution in the modern justice system, but both the DND and the CAF just don’t seem to want to risk this.

LS-311E(1998) was authored by Government of Canada lawyer David Goetz in 1998 to explain in plain English that certain flaws in the National Defence Act had to be removed in order to prevent fiascos in the military justice system from ever occurring again like which had occurred in Bosnia and Somalia.

Two of the most grievous flaws were the 3-year-time-bar flaw, and the summary investigation flaw.

The 3-year-time-bar flaw meant that service offences could only be investigated if the investigation would lead to a summary trial, a courts martial, or a civilian trial within 3-years of the date of the alleged offence.

One thing that people completely misunderstand, and believe me there are lawyers that misunderstand this, but service offences include not only all offences of a military nature, but all criminal code offences as well.

What criminal code offences would be affected by this 3-year-time-bar?

Don’t believe me that the Canadian Armed Forces had the ability to try these crimes?

Here are the Criminal Code of Canada offences that Captain McRae was subjected to a Courts Martial in a military tribunal for.

These are all criminal code offence that are being handled as service offences.

In the civilian world there is no statute of limitations on these criminal code offences. In the military world, any child who was sexually abused on a defence establishment by a person subject to the code of service discipline only had three years from the date of the offence to bring charges.

And no, these charges can’t simply be moved into the civilian justice system. If they were committed by a person subject to the code of service discipline while that person was on a defence establishment, the Canadian Forces retained the jurisdiction for the investigation and prosecution.

The even more insidious flaw was the summary investigation flaw.

Prior to 1998 the charges involving the sexual assault of children was not handed to the provincial crown prosecutors for review. Prior to 1998, it was the commanding officer of the accused that would be required to determine the fate of their subordinate.

The disturbing aspect of this is that these commanding officers had no legal training and no legal or law enforcement background. And they were found by the Somalia inquiry to often taken improper matters into consideration when reviewing the charges that had been brought against their subordinates.

It’s right there in plain English. The commanding officer could simply dismiss any charge that had been brought against their subordinate.

When I grew up on the bases, for the most part it was the Revised Statutes of Canada, chapter C-34 Criminal Code of Canada, that was in effect.

This meant that commanding officers had the full authority to dismiss criminal code offences such as Sections 146, 148, 149, 150, 153, 155, 156, and 157. These are all sections that applied to children under the age of 16.

And yes, the Canadian Armed Forces were precluded from conducting service tribunals for Murder, Manslaughter, and Rape, rape was not a crime that could be committed against girls under the age of 16.

Rape was section 143. Sexual intercourse with girls under 16 was handled by sections 146(1) and 146 (2).

The custom in the justice system is to prosecute the offence as it would have been prosecuted at the date of the offence. The accused would have the right to enjoy the same protections that they would have enjoyed at the time of the alleged offence.

This means that as the 3-year-time-bar was never retroactively removed from the National Defence Act, it still applies to all Service Offences that occurred prior to 1998.

Don’t believe me?

This was the response from the Office of the Judge Advocate General in 2018 when I asked the CFNIS if they could talk to Daniel Edward Munro about who made the decision in 1998 to reduce the number of charges that had been brought against Captain McRae.

The Crown Prosecutor is in regard to the babysitter.
The legal advisor was in regard to Daniel Edward Munro, the commanding officer of Captain Father Angus McRae.

The three-year-time-bar posed an interesting dilemma for the CFNIS in 2011.

Angus McRae was still alive in March of 2011 when the Edmonton Police Service transferred my complaint to the CFNIS. Angus McRae didn’t die until May 20th, 2011. The CFNIS had the 1980 CFSIU paperwork, and the 1980 Courts Martial transcripts. So the CFNIS knew of the direct and irrefutable link between Captain Angus McRae and his accomplice, P.S., whom had been my babysitter in 1978 to 1980.

And while the CFNIS could charge the babysitter with sexual offences against a child under the age of 12 as the babysitter was over 14 when the majority of the crime occurred, the CFNIS could never charge Angus McRae for his sexual offences against children as the 3-year-time-bar prohibited it.

How many children were sexually abused on the bases prior to 1998 and can’t lay charges due to the 3-year-time-bar or the summary investigation flaw?

Who knows?

How many times pre-1998 did the CFSIU conduct sham dog ‘n’ pony show investigations to make the victim feel like something was being done when nothing could ever be done?

Who knows?

How many times post-1998 did the CFNIS conduct sham dog ‘n’ pony show investigations to make the victim feel like something was being done when the pre-1998 flaws meant that nothing could ever be done?

Who knows?

How many times has the chain of command interfered with CFNIS investigations to shield the Canadian Armed Forces and the office of the Minister of National Defence from civil actions related to child sexual abuse in the defence community at the hands of the employees of the Canadian Armed Forces?

Again, who the fuck knows.

I know who doesn’t want to know.

The media doesn’t want to know.

But the media sure wants to know how the donkeys feel about silly advertisements on TV.

The burning and mind numbing silence.

One of the issues that really causes me a lot of grief and consternation is the complete and absolute lack of interest from the media and from groups that should be interested in how the Canadian Armed Forces dealt with child sexual abuse on the bases in Canada.

There have only been two reporters that have shown any level of interest in my matter and those two reporters are David Pugliese and Nora Loreto.

Even veterans groups that support members of the Canadian Armed Forces want nothing to do with my matter.

Now, you might be saying to yourself “but Bobbie, how common could child sexual abuse have been on the bases?”.

Well, what are the odds that I would have been involved with the following:

  • A captain of the regular forces who admitted to molesting numerous children during his years of service and who would go on to have more convictions for molesting children after he had been booted out of the military.
  • An altar boy who would go on to have numerous charges and convictions for sexual crimes committed against children.
  • A random stranger in the sauna of a military recreation centre who was keen to receive oral sex from an 8 year old.
  • A major of the regular forces who himself would be investigated years later for sexually abusing a young boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1974 and who would go on to pay a cash settlement with the family of a young 16 year old boy that he had improper sexual relations with.
  • A member of the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires who was a hebephile and no doubt had access to children on various military bases during his career in the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Military Police Complaints Commission confirmed that my babysitter, P.S., was charged and convicted in 1982 for molesting a young boy in a town just north of CFB Petawawa in Ontario. In 1984 P.S. was charged and convicted for molesting a boy in Manitoba. And then in 1985 he was charged and convicted for molesting a 9 year old boy on Canadian Forces Base Edmonton after his family had been posted back there. He was also convicted of molesting a 13 year old news paper boy in the city of Edmonton after the Canadian Forces booted him out of his family’s military housing unit on the base. How many other children did P.S. molest on Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, in Ontario as well as the unnamed base in Manitoba, as well as Canadian Forces Base Edmonton. How many children did P.S. molest in the surrounding communities and was able to escape justice because his father got transferred to different bases?

When I obtained the court martial records for captain McRae it contained a copy of his ecclesiastical trial conducted by the Catholic church. Captain McRae admitted to having molested numerous boys over the years. Captain McRae joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1973. He was investigated for having committed “acts of homosexuality” shortly there after while he was stationed at the Royal Military College. The RMC is in Kingston, Ontario and is on Canadian Forces Base Kingston. Captain McRae was then transferred to Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie in Manitoba. After CFB Portage La Prairie he was transferred to Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. After CFS Holberg he was transferred to Canadian Forces Base Namao. In May and June of 1980 the military police and the CFSIU would discover that he had molested over 25 children on the base.

This begs the question. How many children on the bases and in the communities around the bases did P.S. and Captain McRae molest?

Around the time of Lynne Harper’s murder in 1959, sergeant Alexander Kalichuk had been found driving around the back roads around Royal Canadian Air Force base Clinton. He was offering new panties to young girls. When the police caught up with him and asked him what he was doing he said he bought the box of girls panties as a birthday present for a friend’s daughter, but that the party had been cancelled and he didn’t want the panties to go to waste. How many kids did Kalichuk molest, rape, or murder before he more than likely raped and killed Lynne Harper? We’ll never know and the Canadian Armed Forces are fine with that. Don’t forget, the military offers the perfect hiding place for people like P.S., or Captain McRae, or Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk. New children delivered to the base every posting season. The kids you’ve molested get posted off the base eventually and go to another base. You get transferred to another base before you get caught. The kids you’re molesting, especially the boys, are dead terrified of being seen as weak, gay, or queer. And back in the “good ol’ days” there were no police databases that could be used by local police departments to track similar crimes that may have occurred in different geographical areas throughout Canada.

So yeah, it becomes so very tiring and so very maddening to see the Canadian media and veterans groups and military sexual assault survivor groups show absolutely no interest or no concern for the children that lived on Canadian Forces Bases.

It’s almost like the media and the veterans groups and the military sexual assault survivor groups are saying to me and the other like me that our lives are meaningless and that we are disposable.

If you want to know what it feels like to be human garbage, just ask, I can let you know.

For 42 years I’ve dealt with severe sexual trauma, the fallout of being dealt with by military social worker Captain Terry Totzke, being caught between Captain Totzke and my civilian social workers, despised by my own father for having “fucked with his military career” and for “allowing” the babysitter, P.S., to abuse my younger brother.

So yeah.

That’s why I’m tired.

And that’s why I’m numb.

And that’s one of the reasons that I really want to go to sleep.