Tag: Department of National Defence

Next step, a settlement offer.

The CFB Namao Class Action may be moving toward settlement, but the deeper issue remains: how military secrecy, command authority, postings, weak oversight, and the pre-1998 military justice system helped isolate child victims and protect the institution.

I had a productive telephone call with the lawyer handling the CFB Namao Class Action.

He has spoken to the counsel representing the Government of Canada.

Opposing counsel is receptive to the idea of a settlement as opposed to a trial.

Adam and I spent some time on Thursday spitballing different aspects of the matter. I’m pretty sure that Adam understands that it’s not a simple matter of a degenerate abusing his position as an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces and it’s not a simple matter of that degenerate officer setting up a network of older teens on base to bring young children over to the rectory at the chapel.

The issues that we faced on base went far beyond just being diddled by teens and subsequently taken to the rectory. The issues that we faced were driven by an organization that had a public image to maintain and it wasn’t going to allow sexually abused children to soil that image.

Our parents were stuck in the chain of command. Even if our parents were disgusted by how the military was dealing with Captain McRae, there was very little that they could do. The section of the National Defence Act dealing with insubordination ensured that our parents did not raise a fuss.

Those of us who had parents of junior rank or non-commissioned rank had no one to protect us from the decisions and the determinations of the military social workers. When a captain tells a master corporal that his 8-year-old son has a mental illness called “homosexuality” as exhibited by his sexual abuse by persons older than he was who was the master corporal to question the captain.

Then there was the military justice system. Prior to 1998 it was the commanding officer of the accused that determined the scope and the breadth of the investigation, and at the conclusion of the investigation it was this commanding officer that decided which charges were approved and which charges were dismissed.

Even if the military police knew of more victims, the commanding officer had full authority to limit the investigation. And if the military police kept pushing to find more victims, the Judge Advocate General would simply accuse them of having a pre-existing grudge against the child molester.

Prior to 1998, if the victim waited more than three years to report the abuse, charges could never be brought as the National Defence Act had a 3-year-time-bar on all service offences. Service offences included all criminal code offences.

And I have not seen any evidence that post 1998 the military simply transferred pre-1998 child sexual abuse matters into the civilian system.

Also, if the commanding officer of the accused had dismissed charges related to specific victims. Those victims could never bring a complaint against the accused at a later date as the National Defence Act and the Criminal Code of Canada follow the principle of “double jeopardy”.

Another matter that worked against victims of military child sexual abuse are postings. Through reading numerous reports it wasn’t uncommon for the Canadian Armed Forces to send “problems” off to other bases.

The babysitter’s family was posted to CFB Petawawa in Ontario not too long after the babysitter had been investigated by the base military police for molesting children and then implicating Captain McRae.

My family was punted off CFB Namao and sent down to CFB Griesbach.

I know of one family that was posted to CFB Borden in Ontario in the aftermath of McRae fiasco.

What this seemed to ensure is that the collective memory of the babysitter and Captain McRae would be destroyed by isolating the victims thus assuring that the victims wouldn’t gather together at a later date and make problems for the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Canadian Armed Forces is built upon secrecy. Every member of the Canadian Armed Forces who became aware of “any information” on a “defence establishment” is bound to secrecy for life in regard to that particular information.

After uploading copies of the Security of Information Act, the Official Secrets Act, and the National Defence Act to ChatGPT for it to review, I gave chat this prompt, “I need a paragraph from you that explains the issues the Official Secrets Act and the Security of Information Act pose to children who were sexually abused on military bases in Canada by persons subject to the code of service discipline.”

This is what chat responded with:
“The Official Secrets Act, later replaced and expanded as the Security of Information Act, creates a serious structural problem for children abused on Canadian military bases where the alleged offender was subject to the Code of Service Discipline: it places the institutional reflex toward secrecy, classified records, controlled disclosure, and loyalty to command in direct tension with a child victim’s need for open investigation, external reporting, and later access to evidence. Where military police, commanders, chaplains, social workers, or investigators treated abuse allegations as part of a “service” matter, the surrounding records could be handled as internal military material rather than ordinary civilian child-protection or criminal evidence. That matters because children have no practical ability to challenge classification, compel disclosure, understand jurisdiction, or know whether evidence was diverted into military channels. The result is a system where the adult institution controls the file, controls the narrative, controls who may speak, and may later invoke secrecy, confidentiality, national-defence administration, or investigative privilege to restrict what survivors can learn. In that setting, secrecy law does not merely protect state information; it can function as a shield around institutional failure, especially where the alleged abuser was within military jurisdiction and the victim was a dependent child outside the chain of command but trapped inside the military environment. The Code of Service Discipline expressly applies to defined military-connected persons, while modern secrecy legislation continues to criminalize unauthorized disclosures of protected information, so the danger is that the military system can absorb a child-abuse allegation into an internal security-and-discipline framework rather than a transparent civilian accountability framework. “

-end of Chat’s response”

I gave Chat a followup prompt “Chat, what are the issues with having a commanding officer involved with the investigation and prosecution of their subordinate who is accused of sexually abusing a child or children on a defence establishment. Let’s look at the commanding officer not as a unit commander or a section commander, but as the base commander.”

This was Chat’s response:

The core problem: the base commander is not neutral ⚖️

Having a base commander involved in the investigation or prosecution of a subordinate accused of sexually abusing a child on a defence establishment creates a deep conflict between criminal accountability and institutional self-protection.

A base commander is not just another supervisor. They are responsible for the reputation, discipline, morale, security, public image, operational continuity, and administrative functioning of the entire base. So when the accused is a member under that commander’s authority, and the abuse allegedly occurred on the base, the commander has an obvious institutional interest in controlling fallout. That does not mean every commander would act dishonestly. It means the structure itself creates a bad incentive system.

Under the military justice framework, a commanding officer has historically had real authority around discipline and charges. Modern QR&O provisions still identify a commanding officer as one of the people authorized to lay charges under the Code of Service Discipline, along with persons authorized by the CO and military police assigned to investigative duties.   Earlier military justice guidance also states that a charge is a formal accusation under the Code of Service Discipline, and that a CO is among those authorized to lay charges.   That matters because when the commander is also part of the environment being scrutinized, the decision to investigate, characterize, charge, delay, narrow, refer, or bury a matter is not cleanly separated from the command’s own institutional exposure.

The base commander’s conflicts are broader than a unit commander’s

At the unit level, the concern is usually: “Can this commander fairly deal with their own subordinate?”

At the base commander level, the concern becomes much larger:

IssueWhy it matters
Institutional reputationA child-abuse case on base damages confidence in the base, command, chaplaincy, military police, housing system, youth spaces, and family-support structure.
Control of informationThe base commander may influence who sees records, who is interviewed, how widely facts circulate, and whether civilian agencies are brought in early.
Command loyalty pressureSubordinates may feel pressure, explicit or implied, to protect the institution or avoid embarrassing the command.
Victim power imbalanceA child victim or military dependent has no rank, no command access, and no meaningful ability to challenge the military system.
Operational embarrassmentThe commander may see the case not only as a crime allegation, but as a threat to order, morale, public confidence, and career consequences.
Jurisdictional manipulation riskThe matter can be framed as a military discipline issue instead of an ordinary civilian criminal child-protection matter.

That last point is the big one. A child on a defence establishment is not just dealing with an accused individual. They are dealing with a closed institutional ecosystem: base housing, chapels, schools, recreation spaces, social workers, military police, command authority, and sometimes secrecy culture. If the accused is subject to the Code of Service Discipline, the military can be tempted to treat the crime as an internal service matter rather than as a child-abuse matter requiring civilian independence.

The “appearance of fairness” problem is fatal

Even if the base commander acts in good faith, the appearance of fairness is compromised.

A reasonable outsider could ask:

How can the commander fairly oversee or influence an investigation when the investigation may expose failures by the commander’s own base system?

That is not paranoia. That is basic institutional-conflict analysis.

The modern National Defence Act has recognized at least part of this danger. An archived version of NDA section 163 stated that, unless impractical, a commanding officer may not preside at a summary trial if the CO carried out or directly supervised the investigation, issued a related warrant, or laid/caused the charge to be laid.   That rule is aimed at separating investigative/prosecutorial involvement from adjudicative authority. But your point goes further: with a base commander, the conflict can exist before trial even starts, because the commander’s base, staff, police, chaplaincy, housing system, and command reputation may all be implicated.

In child-abuse cases, command involvement contaminates the file

The worst structural risk is that the file becomes a military-management problem instead of a child-protection and criminal-accountability problem.

That can produce several predictable failures:

  1. Narrowing the allegation
    The case may be framed around the easiest charge, the least embarrassing offender, or the least institutionally damaging facts.
  2. Avoiding civilian police
    Civilian police and child-protection agencies may be delayed, excluded, or treated as secondary.
  3. Protecting command records
    Records may be treated as internal disciplinary, security, chaplaincy, personnel, or police material rather than as evidence survivors should later be able to trace.
  4. Suppressing pattern evidence
    If there are multiple children, multiple locations, prior warnings, or previous allegations, those facts may be compartmentalized.
  5. Creating survivor disbelief later
    Decades later, the survivor is left trying to prove something that the military system itself controlled, filtered, or failed to document properly.
  6. Career-protection incentives
    A base commander may have a direct career interest in preventing the matter from becoming a public scandal or a finding of command failure.

The command problem is sharper when the victim is a child dependent

A service member accused under the Code of Service Discipline has rank, status, records, representation, and a defined place inside the military system.

A child dependent has none of that.

The child is physically inside the defence establishment but legally and socially outside the military hierarchy. That creates a grotesque asymmetry: the institution can control the place, the records, the witnesses, the police channel, and the disciplinary route, while the child has no comparable power to compel civilian review.

That is why base-command involvement is so dangerous. The commander is not simply deciding discipline. The commander may effectively shape the entire reality that later investigators, courts, civilian lawyers, oversight bodies, and survivors are forced to work from.

A strong paragraph version for your writing

A base commander’s involvement in the investigation or prosecution of a subordinate accused of sexually abusing a child on a defence establishment creates an inherent institutional conflict of interest. The base commander is not merely a neutral disciplinary authority; they are responsible for the reputation, security, morale, administration, and operational integrity of the entire base, including the very systems that may have failed to protect the child. Where the accused is subject to the Code of Service Discipline, the commander’s authority over discipline and charge-routing creates a risk that the allegation will be managed as an internal military problem rather than treated as an independent civilian criminal and child-protection matter. This is especially troubling where the victim is a military dependent child, because the child has no rank, no access to command decision-making, and no practical ability to challenge how the military controls witnesses, records, jurisdiction, disclosure, or institutional narrative. Even if a commander acts in good faith, the appearance of fairness is compromised because the investigation may expose failures by the commander’s own base, staff, military police, chaplaincy, housing system, or welfare structure. In that context, command involvement can contaminate the file from the beginning by narrowing the allegations, delaying civilian referral, protecting institutional reputation, compartmentalizing evidence, and leaving survivors decades later to prove facts that the military system itself controlled.

Bluntly put

A base commander in that situation wears too many hats:

disciplinarian, institutional protector, reputational manager, operational commander, record gatekeeper, and possible witness to systemic failure.

That is exactly why child sexual abuse on a defence establishment should never be structurally dependent on command discretion. It should go straight to an independent civilian criminal/child-protection channel, with military command limited to preserving evidence, protecting complainants, removing the accused from access to children, and cooperating fully. Anything less creates a built-in risk of cover-up, even where nobody openly says “cover it up.”

-end of Chat’s response-

Where does this go now?

So, this is gonna be an interesting few months.

The Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence won’t roll over, but they don’t want this to go before the bench.

Right now Adam and I have to try to get in contact with the other victims, or the families of the victims that have already died. I have a list of about twenty names. I know that there are at least twenty-five victims. And that’s only on CFB Namao. Captain McRae was at RMC Kingston with ease of access to the children on CFB Kingston, he was also the base chaplain at CFB Portage La Prairie, as well as CFS Holberg.

After that we have to figure out who was abused by who and who the military was aware of back in 1980. This will be the tricky part because there seems to be a vast difference between what the investigation uncovered within the scope that Colonel Munro called for versus what was discovered but which fell outside of Colonel Munro’s scope.

The DND, the CAF, and the DOJ will all try to show that the 2011 CFNIS investigation as well as the 2015 to 2018 investigations didn’t turn up any evidence of sexual assaults. But we’ve had two external reviews that have shown that the military police and the CFNIS didn’t have the experience, the training, nor the independence from the chain of command to properly conduct sexual assault investigations let alone a historical child sexual assault investigation that was originally investigated under a completely different set of rules related to the investigation and prosecution of service offences.

The DND, the CAF, and the DOJ will try to argue that the Military Police Complaints Commission validated the 2011 and the 2015 to 2018 CFNIS investigations. Again, this is not true. The MPCC by its nature is not allowed to “re-run” an investigation to determine if the CFNIS came to the proper conclusion. The MPCC has become very vocal as of late that the Provost Marshal has absolute final control over the documents that are released to the MPCC during reviews and thus the Provost Marshal can pre-determine the outcome of any review of a CFNIS investigation

The Military Police Complaints Commission is not a court, a prosecutor, or a body that decides criminal or civil liability. Its formal role under Part IV of the National Defence Act is to provide independent civilian oversight of military police by reviewing complaints about military police conduct and investigating complaints of improper interference in military police investigations. In a conduct complaint, the CFPM has primary responsibility for the initial handling of the complaint, and the MPCC generally becomes involved when a complainant is dissatisfied and requests a review. At that stage, the MPCC may review military police files, consider material from the complainant, seek additional records, interview witnesses, and issue findings and recommendations. However, its conclusions are not binding and its recommendations are not legally enforceable. The MPCC can assess whether the military police conduct, investigation, policies, and decision-making were reasonable, adequate, and consistent with law, policy, and policing standards, but it does not retry the underlying case or substitute itself for the original investigator, Crown prosecutor, or court. That distinction matters: the MPCC may test whether an investigation was properly handled and whether the conclusion was reasonably supported by the available record, but its power depends heavily on the completeness of the record placed before it and on its ability to identify gaps in what the military police system has disclosed.

The relationship between the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal and the Military Police Complaints Commission exposes a serious structural weakness in military police oversight. In practice, the MPCC is often forced to review a complaint through the documentary record the CFPM chooses to assemble, disclose, characterize, or withhold. That arrangement creates an obvious power imbalance: the institution under scrutiny controls much of the evidentiary doorway through which the oversight body must pass. The problem becomes even sharper when the complainant is a civilian. Unlike CAF members, a civilian complainant does not receive institutional legal assistance from DND or the CAF, does not have command access, does not control military police files, and may not even know what records exist until after the review is complete. The result is a review process that can appear fair on paper while operating inside an information structure tilted heavily toward the very authority being reviewed. When the CFPM controls the documents and the MPCC lacks an independent, enforceable ability to compel and test the full record at the outset, the outcome of a complaint review may depend less on the truth of what happened than on what the military police system permits the Commission to see.

When an Aligned Machine Meets an Existential Question: Why Large Language Models Cannot Be Treated as Unbiased Sources on M.A.i.D

There is a persistent misconception emerging in public discourse that conversational AI systems can function as neutral sounding boards on morally complex and legally sensitive topics such as Medical Assistance in Dying (M.A.i.D.).

This assumption is not merely incorrect. It is structurally impossible.

Large language models (LLMs) are not neutral observers, not clinicians, not ethicists, and not independent analysts. They are alignment-constrained corporate tools operating inside legal, reputational, and safety frameworks that shape every response they produce. When a user engages such a system on an existential topic like M.A.i.D., they are not interacting with an unbiased reasoning engine. They are interacting with a liability-shaped conversational interface.

And that distinction matters more than most people realize.

The Illusion of Neutrality in Alignment-Constrained Systems

At a surface level, LLMs appear balanced. They use measured language. They avoid inflammatory statements. They frequently present multiple perspectives.

This stylistic moderation creates the impression of neutrality.

However, neutrality in tone is not the same as neutrality in epistemology.

An aligned model is trained and further constrained to:

Avoid encouraging harm Avoid legal exposure Avoid statements that could be interpreted as endorsing self-destructive outcomes De-escalate emotionally charged conversations Default toward safety-preserving framing

These are not philosophical positions. They are operational guardrails.

When applied to a topic like M.A.i.D., which sits at the intersection of law, ethics, medicine, disability rights, and personal suffering, these guardrails do not simply “moderate” the response. They reshape the entire conversational landscape.

The result is not an unbiased discussion.

It is a risk-managed discussion.

Institutional Liability as an Invisible Editorial Hand

Organizations deploying LLMs operate in regulated environments with significant legal exposure. Any output that could be interpreted as:

Endorsing self-harm Providing existential validation toward death-seeking ideation Offering perceived “approval” of end-of-life decisions

could create reputational and legal consequences.

Because of this, the model is not merely optimized for accuracy. It is optimized for defensibility.

This produces a predictable bias pattern:

Cautious reframing Emotional softening Deflection toward generalized well-being language Avoidance of definitive moral positioning Persistent safety-oriented steering

From a corporate governance perspective, this is rational.

From a user experience perspective, especially for individuals engaging with deeply personal suffering, it can feel profoundly alienating.

The Psychological Dissonance: When Structured Responses Meet Lived Reality

For individuals who approach existential topics analytically, especially those with long histories of documentation, legal processes, or institutional engagement, the interaction with a safety-aligned LLM can produce a specific form of cognitive friction.

The system responds in a manner that is:

Calm Structured Procedurally cautious Ethically non-committal

Yet the user’s lived experience may be:

Long-term suffering Institutional fatigue Legal entanglement Documentation-heavy personal history Persistent need for clarity rather than reassurance

This mismatch can create a unique form of mental strain.

Not because the system is hostile.

But because it is structurally incapable of fully engaging the raw depth of the subject without reverting to alignment safeguards.

Why M.A.i.D. Is a Special Case for AI Bias

M.A.i.D. is not a purely medical topic.

It is a legally regulated end-of-life framework with profound ethical implications.

In Canada, for example, it exists within a tightly controlled statutory regime involving eligibility criteria, safeguards, and medical oversight. Any discussion of it inherently carries legal and ethical weight.

An LLM discussing M.A.i.D. must therefore navigate:

Medical ethics Legal liability public policy sensitivity harm-prevention mandates platform safety policies

This creates layered constraint stacking.

Each layer narrows the range of permissible responses, meaning the output is not just biased once, but filtered through multiple institutional lenses before reaching the user.

The Subtle Harm of Over-Sanitized Dialogue

One of the least discussed consequences of safety-constrained AI dialogue is emotional invalidation through over-sanitization.

When a user attempts to engage in a serious, analytical discussion about suffering, autonomy, or end-of-life frameworks, and the system consistently responds with softened, generalized, or safety-buffered language, the interaction can feel:

Indirect Procedurally evasive Emotionally distant Conceptually incomplete

This does not reduce distress.

In some cases, it amplifies it.

Especially for individuals seeking intellectually honest engagement rather than therapeutic reframing.

Structural Bias vs. Malicious Bias

It is important to distinguish between malicious bias and structural bias.

LLMs are not biased because they “want” to mislead.

They are biased because they are engineered to operate within safety and liability constraints that supersede philosophical neutrality.

In other words:

The system is not lying.

It is operating within a restricted response envelope.

That envelope becomes most visible when discussing topics that touch on mortality, suffering, autonomy, and institutional frameworks such as M.A.i.D.

Why Treating LLM Output as an “Opinion Source” Is Fundamentally Flawed

An LLM does not possess:

Moral agency Legal accountability Clinical authority Lived experience Institutional independence

It generates probabilistic language shaped by policy, training data, and safety alignment. Calling its responses “opinions” is already a category error.

They are not opinions.

They are policy-compliant linguistic outputs.

On controversial or existential topics, this distinction becomes critically important.

A Systems-Level Conclusion

The core issue is not that LLMs refuse to engage difficult topics.

It is that they must engage them within tightly bounded ethical and legal guardrails designed by the organizations that deploy them.

This produces a predictable structural bias:

Toward safety Toward de-escalation Toward liability minimization Toward emotionally moderated language

For users navigating deeply personal and existential subject matter, this can create a paradoxical experience: engaging a system that appears thoughtful and articulate, yet is fundamentally incapable of being fully candid in the way a human clinician, ethicist, or legal expert might be.

That gap between perceived depth and structural constraint can itself become a source of mental anguish.

Not because the system is indifferent.

But because it is engineered to be careful first, and candid second.

And on topics like M.A.i.D., that ordering is not incidental.

It is foundational.

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 Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Do I have much faith in the RCMP?

Not really.

In 2011, after having talked to a few ex-JAG legal officers who were now practising private law, on their advice I contacted the RCMP to have my investigation removed from the CFNIS and handled by the RCMP. This was based on the fact that what I had initially reported to the Edmonton Police service before the EPS handed the case to the CFNIS was child-on-child sexual abuse. Definitely nowhere near the realm of a service offence.

I found out by talking to the local RCMP out here that civilian offences committed on Canadian Forces Base Namao were the jurisdiction of the RCMP Morinville detachment.

I called the Morinville RCMP detachment and I spoke with a Corporal F.

Corporal F. took my information and said that he would get back to me after he looked into this.

He called me a few days later and said that my matter belonged solely to the CFNIS and that the CFNIS would call the RCMP if they needed help.

After PO Steve Morris had called me on November 4th to tell me that the “CFNIS couldn’t find anything to indicate that the babysitter was capable of what I had accused him of” I made my plea on Facebook in the various base brat groups for contact information for anyone who knew anything about the Captain Father Angus McRae child sexual abuse scandal. This is how I was put in contact with retired Warrant Officer Fredrick R. Cunningham, who as it turned out was the Acting Section Commander of the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit in 1980 and had been personally charged by base security officer Captain David Pilling with investigating Captain McRae for having committed “acts of homosexuality” with young boys on the base.

When I spoke with Fred he made it very clear that the military police AND the chain of command were aware that the babysitter had been molesting children and this is what led the military to discovering the actions of Captain McRae. Cunningham also said that it was “the brass” that dropped all of the charges against McRae and only allowed the charges related to the babysitter to go to court martial. Cunningham had said that in 1980 the military police tried to bring in the RCMP to deal with the babysitter but that “the brass” would not allow this.

As I had no idea of who Fred Cunningham really was or what his relationship to the military was in 1980 I sent an FOI to the RCMP looking to see if my name had been mentioned in relation to any investigation of the babysitter that may have occurred in 1980.

I was fucking furious when I received the reply to my request.

It had nothing to say about 1980.

It instead was a copy of the incident report generated by Corporal F. of the Morinville detachment.

“Active sexual assault file going with Bees for the past six months”

Didn’t realize that there were six months between July 28th, 2011 and March 28th, 2011.

“Member sent an e-mail to the rest of the detachment members advising them of this file and Bees’ attempts to further his agenda”

What a fucking asshole.

Didn’t realize that wanting justice was “an agenda”.

Makes me sound like a crazed nut like the unabomber…..

Anyways, when I saw this I filed a conduct complaint with the RCMP.

Corporal Robb was assigned to this matter.

Corporal Robb was great. He listened to what my concerns were. He did his research and concluded that no, the CFNIS should not have taken this case from the EPS but should have directed the EPS to contact the RCMP as the RCMP has always had jurisdiction for civilian on civilian matters on defence establishments but that now that the CFNIS had the matter there was little the RCMP could do to take the matter away from the CFNIS.

But he also said that based upon the information that I gave him about the babysitter which was corroborated by the August 1985 Edmonton Journal newspaper article naming the babysitter that there was no way that the CFNIS should have ever concluded that there was no evidence to indicate that the babysitter was capable of what I accused him of. Corporal Robb wouldn’t give me the details, just the years.

Mr Bees, your babysitter was arrested and convicted in:
1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1990, with many more charges being stayed or dismissed. And the majority of these offences involved children.

These dates would later be confirmed by the Military Police Complaints Commission in 2013 and 2019.

I had also asked Mr. Robb to do me a favour and tell me if there was any reason for me to be afraid to cross the border. I explained to him that I knew my brother had used my name when he had been arrested when we were younger, and I didn’t want any surprises at the border. He said that nothing came back.

The complaint against Corporal F. was concluded shortly after that. I think that Sheldon had a talk with F. and F. realized that the CFNIS was being far less than truthful. I can only hope that Sheldon made it clear to Corporal F. that it was the CFNIS that had the agenda and not I.

Fast forward to 2017.

After having become aware that my father had kidnapped my brother and I when we were kids I approached the RCMP to file a complaint.

I attended the RCMP detachment in North Vancouver and I had brought copies of my ATIs from the PEI Govt., my Alberta Social Services reports, my Children’s Aid Society of Toronto reports, the Defence Establishment Trespass Regs. and a report commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces that looked at spousal abuse in the military community, as well as my mother’s statements to me.

The intake officer couldn’t have cared any less.

Maybe your father and mother reached an agreement.

Maybe your mother just ran off like your father said.

My father had always told me when I was young that my mother was a whore that would spread her legs for anyone and that she ran off with a guy named Gus from the PPCLI.

All I remember about when my mother left my father was away with the airforce so she packed up our suitcases and dropped my brother and I off with another family in the military housing. Then she was gone.

This was the first time that our grandmother came from Alberta to live with us. She lived with us from just after my mother leaving until the late spring of 1978 when she moved back to Edmonton.

And that’s the story that I lived with until around 2013 when a woman named Pat Longmore contacted me after having read my blog. The first thing she asked was if I was “Rick and Marie’s” kid. I said that I was. She explained that she knew my father and my mother and that we were frequent guests at her PMQ whenever my father would start drinking. She said that Marie would show up with fat lips or bruises and that I would sometimes be sporting bruises.

I mentioned to her that in 1985, after my father lost his temper in the PMQ on Canadian Forces Base Downsview that Bill Parker had intercepted me and that he told me that if I needed a place to stay while my father cooled down in the future that my brother and I were welcome to come stay at his house, just like we used to on CFB Shearwater.

Pat said that yes, that both Pat and Nancy along with a few of the other women on CFB Shearwater ran the “battered wives club” and that they would arrange safe housing for military wives either at another PMQ or a safe house off the base. She explained that Dartmouth Social Services and Halifax Social Services were often very reluctant to get involved with military families due to jurisdictional issues.

I had also made contact with the PEI government that confirmed that my father had filed an application for child custody, but that it appears that he abandoned it as it never went anywhere in the courts and there was no other paperwork than the original application.

Based on what Pat had told me, along with what I learnt by reading the University of Manitoba report on The Canadian Forces Response to Spousal Abuse I decided to contact my mother. The only thing was I hadn’t spoken to her since 1992 and I had absolutely no idea as to where she lived.

I called her in October of 2013 and we had a long talk. Nothing that would repair the relationship, but long enough to get the details.

No, there was no “Gus”.

Richard’s drinking had gotten right out of hand. It started getting bad on CFB Shearwater after Scott’s birth. The posting to CFB Summerside wasn’t so much that Richard wanted this, it was that he had pretty well burnt all of his bridges at the Sea King squadron.

Things got really bad on CFB Summerside as Uncle Al, Marie’s brother, was nowhere near. Al and Richard had joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1963 and went through basic training at Cornwallis together. It was through this friendship that Richard met Al’s sister, Marie. Al and Richard served in the navy together until Richard remustered into the airforce after unification in 1968. But Al still lived in Shannon Park, which was military housing for CFB Shearwater. So Richard knew he could only beat Marie so much before Al would come throttle him.

On CFB Summerside there was no Al to temper the beating, and things got out of control super fast.

Richard was posted to CFB Summerside in the summer of 1976. He was attached to 415 Squadron at Summerside which was the Argus squadron.

She said that Richard’s drinking got out of hand, and after the drinking got out of hand his rage wasn’t that far behind and as she knew no one on the island she didn’t really have anywhere to turn.

Even though we didn’t live on base, we lived in the city of Summerside in the Hillcrest Housing development. The Hillcrest housing development was built to Canadian Forces specifications and was on long term lease to the Department of National Defence and as such was subject to the National Defence Act, the Defence Establishment Trespass regulations, and military housing regulations.

All three of those regulations meant that spouses and children were living in those houses at the sole discretion of the serving member, and if the serving member didn’t want their spouse there anymore, then they weren’t there anymore.

When I spoke to my mother in 2013 she claimed that she told Richard that she was returning to Nova Scotia and that she was going to take my brother and I over to Al’s place and we were going to stay there until Richard solved his problems.

Days after this she said that the military police from CFB Summerside showed up and told her that if she tried to leave the island with my brother and I that the military police from CFB Shearwater would be waiting for her on the mainland and that she’d be arrested for child kidnapping and endangerment.

Marie said that a few days after this that someone from the office of the Judge Advocate General showed up and ordered her out of the PMQ by a specific date.

So, she did as she was told, and she left.

Now, I didn’t know what to believe. I knew that when we lived in Toronto just after we fled the jurisdiction of Alberta we were living in the LDHs just off of Canadian Forces Base Downsview. I had always been under the impression that these were welfare houses that were rented to the military. And I had assumed that the house where we lived in the city of Summerside was also the same situation.

A quick email to the Hillcrest Housing Development cleared things up. Yes, from the time these houses had been built until CFB Summerside shutdown in the ’90s, the entire development was on long term lease to DND and thus DND had legal jurisdiction.

But still, could the military just tell my mother to get out?

Sure they could.

Somebody in one of the base brat groups told me to look up the report co-authored by the University of Manitoba and the University of New Brunswick that was commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces in 1996 and accepted by the Canadian Armed Forces in May of 2001.

The authors of the report noted that they had become aware of numerous instances of service members using the military police and the housing regulations to get rid of spouses once the marriages broke down and they decided they wanted to move on.

The report even noted that when divorces went to court and the court ordered that the non serving spouse was to retain the rental of the PMQ and that the service member was to move out that the DND and the CAF would outright ignore these orders citing that the housing was military property and could only by order or parliament be rented to service members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

And once booted out of the housing and off the base the non-serving spouse or their lawyers dare not tread uninvited on defence establishment property.

Marie also told me that Richard didn’t agree to the divorce until 1985 until she agreed to not go after property that she and Richard had co-owned in Nova Scotia. This was almost 8 years after he had her booted off base.

Richard could have gone to court at any point in time after she had “abandoned” him and ran off with “Gus from the PPCLI”. But he didn’t. In fact he even married his girlfriend Sue in 1982 in a private ceremony in our PMQ on CFB Griesbach in Edmonton.

What does this have to do with the North Vancouver RCMP?

What Richard did in 1977 met the legal definition of kidnapping.

Not only did he deny my mother legal access to my brother and I, he also moved my brother and I to a different province without our mother’s permission.

When I dealt with the intake officer at the North Vancouver RCMP detachment he just couldn’t give the slightest fuck ever.

Maybe your mother did run off?

Maybe your mother wasn’t capable of looking after kids, lots of women are like that, they’re not cut out for motherhood.

Maybe your mother and your father reached an arrangement instead of going to court?

So far my dealings with police have been less than spectacular.

Each and every investigator with the CFNIS was a compromised liar. The only exception to this rule would have been Sgt. Tenaschuk, but even Tenaschuk was limited by his chain of command.

With the RCMP only Corporal Sheldon Robb and Inspector Akrum Ghadbhan are what I would call respectable officers. Definitely a minority within the RCMP. Every other officer that I dealt with couldn’t care less or was willing to take the lies of another police agency as the gospel truth.

******************************

And beside, it’s not like the police are obligated to solve historical crimes.

Not a statutory one — not in the way people assume.

There’s no general legal duty in Canada that forces police to investigate a crime just because it occurred. The decision to investigate (or not) is almost entirely discretionary, resting on internal policy, available resources, and prosecutorial viability.

But there are nuances worth knowing:

1. Legal foundation: discretionary authority

Under Canadian common law and provincial Police Acts, police are empowered to investigate offences, but not compelled to investigate every allegation.

The Supreme Court in R. v. Beaudry (2007 SCC 5) recognized police discretion as essential — officers can decide whether, how, and to what extent to investigate or lay charges. That discretion must be exercised in good faith and without discrimination, but it’s still discretionary.

So, if a suspect is long dead or incapacitated, or the events are decades old, police can lawfully decline to investigate on the grounds that:

there’s no current public safety threat, resources are better spent elsewhere, or evidence or witnesses are too degraded to sustain prosecution.

2. Limitations periods and exceptions

For indictable offences (murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, etc.), there is no statute of limitations. Police may investigate and Crown may prosecute no matter how old. For summary offences (minor assaults, trespass, mischief, etc.), the limitation is 12 months from the offence — after that, even if police investigate, it’s unenforceable.

So a police service can investigate a historical crime, but once prosecution is barred or impossible, they’re not legally obligated to expend resources doing so.

3. When they do investigate historical crimes

They often do when:

The offence is serious (especially sexual violence or murder). There’s public or political interest (e.g., residential school abuses, clergy sexual assaults, police misconduct). There’s institutional liability at stake — for example, if a government body or religious organization could face lawsuits. There’s symbolic or restorative justice value. These cases are sometimes handled by “historical crime units,” not because of legal compulsion, but moral or reputational pressure.

4. When they usually won’t

If the offender is deceased and:

no living accomplices remain, no systemic failure is being alleged, and no charges could ever proceed — then police typically close or decline the file.

At most, they might document the complaint in an internal occurrence report so the record exists for posterity.

5. Case study: historical abuse investigations

You can see the principle in how RCMP and provincial forces handled church, residential school, or military child-abuse cases.

They only re-opened decades-old files once public commissions, lawsuits, or media pressure forced their hand. Even then, the justification was framed as “public confidence in the administration of justice,” not a direct legal duty to the victims.

6. Bottom line

In law:

Duty to investigate: no. Power to investigate: yes, anytime. Expectation of investigation: only when public safety, political, or institutional interests align.

The moral logic — that justice is still owed even if danger has passed — doesn’t bind them legally. It’s a choice.

If you want, I can show you the RCMP Operations Manual and provincial policies that spell out exactly how “historical offences” are triaged or declined — they’re pretty explicit about thresholds. Want that?

Here’s how it’s spelled out once you leave the rhetoric behind and read the manuals.

1. RCMP Operations Manual – “Historical Offences” (available under Operational Policy 2.5 and 2.7)

The RCMP uses the term “historical” to mean offences where a substantial amount of time has elapsed between the incident and the complaint.

Key points from their internal guidance (paraphrased from open versions and ATIP-released excerpts):

Members must assess whether an offence can still be prosecuted under the Criminal Code’s limitation rules. If the offence is indictable and a complainant is credible, a file may be opened regardless of age. The decision to proceed is based on “public interest, solvability, and resource impact.” Commanders may decline to assign an investigator if the suspect is deceased, the events are too old to substantiate, or “the public interest in prosecution is minimal.” Historical sexual offences are the main exception; they are “to be given investigative priority when feasible,” especially if there may be additional victims or institutional involvement.

So—no compulsion, just guided discretion.

2. Provincial examples

Ontario (OPP and municipal services under the Police Services Act)

The OPP’s Criminal Investigation Management Manual states: “The purpose of investigating historical criminal allegations is to determine whether the public interest is best served by continuing investigative steps, given the passage of time, availability of witnesses, and offender status.” Translation: it’s optional when the suspect is dead or the case offers no public-interest return.

Alberta and B.C.

Both provinces’ police standards mirror the RCMP’s criteria. B.C.’s Major Crime Section Manual notes that “files may be retained for documentation only when no viable suspect exists or the offender is deceased.” B.C.’s Independent Investigations Office (IIO) also clarified that its jurisdiction ends when there’s no living officer or suspect to hold accountable, even if the historical event is proven.

3. Where the “public interest” test comes in

Crown prosecutors and police both use that phrase, but it’s elastic. They weigh:

gravity of offence, likelihood of conviction, deterrence or restorative value, impact on victims and witnesses, cost and time.

If there’s no deterrent or institutional value — for instance, one abuser long dead, no systemic implications — it fails the test.

4. Why they sometimes reopen anyway

Occasionally a historical case reopens not because the offender’s alive, but because the institution failed (church, military, government). That transforms it from a dead-offender file into an accountability file. That’s how many residential-school, military, and clergy cases resurfaced.

5. The unspoken line

If a crime’s old, the suspect’s gone, and the victims lack political leverage, the police have every legal right to walk away. They might record a note for future researchers or coroner’s work, but the active pursuit is discretionary.

The law treats justice as optional past a certain point. Only shame, media, or inquiry tends to resurrect it.

The DND, the CAF, and the fine art of secrecy

-Persons Permanently Bound to Secrecy-

It would appear that the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces are getting sick and tired of their historical laundry being aired in public.

The DND and the CAF already enjoy the secrecy afforded to them by the Official Secrets Act and the Security of Information Act.

Both the OSA and the SIA apply to anyone who was ever subject to the Code of Service Discipline and who learned about “any” information while on a defence establishment.

The fact that the language of the SIA and the OSA are intentionally vague, has allowed them to be applied in situations where they shouldn’t have been.

And there’s nothing stopping the CAF or the DND from applying the PPBS over broadly as well.

The way the PPBS reads, former and current members of the Military Police, the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit, and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service would definitely be bound by the PPBS as the military police, the CFSIU, and the CFNIS routinely deal with matters that involve operational intelligence.

What this means moving forward is that if a former member of the CFSIU was questioned about the military’s knowledge of child sexual abuse on a defence establishment and that member divulged information that was not of the public record, that member could be looking at prison time even if the information divulged didn’t involve operational intelligence.

If this legislation had existed back in 2018 when a member of the CFNIS divulged to me that they had in their possession the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork and the 1980 courts martial transcripts, and that these documents did validate everything that the former CFSIU investigator told me on November 27th, 2011, the CFNIS investigator could be facing prison time.

And it’s not that these members divulged or verified the existence of classified operational intelligence. It’s that these members are members of a group of persons subject to the PPBS and had divulged information that they were not “authorized” to divulge.

Even ChatGPT, with its limited knowledge had this to say:

Hey chat, could the PPBS apply to members of the military police, the cfnis, and the old cfsiu?

Yes — it definitely could. Let me break this down clearly:

🔐 What PPBS Is

Under the amended Security of Information Act (SOIA), “Persons Permanently Bound to Secrecy” (PPBS) are individuals who, by virtue of their role, are legally bound to maintain secrecy for life with respect to Special Operational Information (SOI). SOI includes things like intelligence methods, surveillance capabilities, covert ops, encryption, etc.

👮 Military Police, CFNIS, and CFSIU

Military Police (MP): MPs routinely handle operationally sensitive material — not just ordinary policing, but also information tied to deployments, intelligence-sharing, and secure facilities. If MPs (or parts of the branch) are designated as dealing with SOI, PPBS applies. Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS): By mandate, CFNIS investigates serious and sensitive offences (sexual assault, child abuse, major fraud, etc.), often with access to classified or operationally sensitive contexts. Members could almost certainly be classified under PPBS. Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit (CFSIU): This was the CFNIS’s predecessor, disbanded in the late 1990s. Retired members who had access to SOI during service could be retroactively designated as PPBS — meaning they’d still be legally bound to secrecy decades after leaving.

⚖️ Why This Matters

If PPBS is interpreted broadly (as SOIA often has been), it doesn’t just stop people from leaking submarine designs or SIGINT protocols. It can also bind investigators who learned about criminal activity (e.g., abuse cases) in the course of their duties. This is essentially what you described happening in 2011: a former CFSIU member tried to disclose what they knew about Captain McRae and was silenced under SOIA/OSA. With PPBS, that kind of silencing becomes even more formalized and explicit. Because PPBS applies for life, retired MPs, CFNIS, or CFSIU personnel could face prosecution if they spoke about things they encountered in service — even decades later, even if the issue was criminal misconduct rather than true operational security.

✅ Bottom Line

Yes — members of the Military Police, CFNIS, and CFSIU can fall under PPBS if their duties involve access to Special Operational Information. Given how secrecy laws have historically been applied, there’s a very real risk that this could be used not just for protecting operations, but also for silencing disclosures of misconduct and abuse.

What does this mean?

Plain and simple, it means that moving forward the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence will never have to face questions from the public about how matters of child sexual abuse were handled on the bases in Canada.

It means that investigations of child sexual abuse on defence establishments will be hobbled right from the start.

It means that class action lawsuits such as mine will be fruitless endeavours as the members of the military police, the CFSIU, and the CFNIS would not be able to be called upon as witnesses, nor would they be allowed to share any information with the victim or the victim’s counsel without the explicit permission of the chain of command.

ppsb-infographic-en.pdfDownload

Describe your life in an alternate universe.

Describe your life in an alternate universe.

In the ideal alternative universe my father would have worn a condom or would have pulled out in time.

Or ideally my mother would have obtained an abortion.

Barring that, my grandmother would have miscarried my father.

And if none of that worked out, then my father would have never joined the Canadian Armed Forces.

And barring that, even if my father had joined the Canadian Armed Forces, the politicians in this country would have never allowed the Canadian Armed Forces to “wash their laundry in-house” with their own private and beyond public scrutiny police force.

There’s a lot that I wish could be different in an alternate or parallel universe. They’re very specific wishes.

You didn’t think that I was going to wish for fantasy type wishes, did you?

What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

It’s too late for me.

But I would really love to see the National Defence Act re-written so as to make it very clear that the military has absolutely no jurisdiction to investigate any type of service offence that has been committed against a civilian, especially if the crime has been committed against a military dependent.

It’s a stretch, but I would also love to see the criminal code of Canada and the National Defence Act ammended to nullify the pre-1998 time bar, and to nullify any decision by a commanding officer to dismiss charges that had been brought against their subordinate.

The lies and bullshit surrounding Medical Assistance in Dying.

One of the things that really pisses me the fuck off about the internet is how quickly lies and bullshit spread and just how fucking gullible people actually are.

“Bobbie, MAiD feels like drowning!!!”

What the absolute fuck was this horseshit?

There is so much disinformation being spread on the Internet that it makes me want to rip my hair out.

There are three drugs used in the Medical Assistance in Dying procedure.

Midazolam

Propofol

Rocuronium

Sometimes Bupivacaine is used, but not always.

Midazolam, Propofol, and Rocuronium are used everyday in surgical procedures across the world.

Midazolam is a sedative. In surgery its primary goal is to relax the patient and put the patient to sleep. During M.A.i.D. Midazolam is used “off label” in order to put the patient into a very deep sleep.

Propofol is used to induce anesthesia during surgery. Propofol has the least amount of side effects of all anaesthetics. If propofol caused a “drowning sensation” it would be very well documented. Propofol is well known to prevent the formation of memories, which is why people undergoing surgery in which propofol is used are the least likely to have remembered sensations of the surgery. During M.A.i.D., Propofol is used “off label” and is given at a much higher dosage in order to ensure that the patient undergoing M.A.i.D. is placed into a very deep coma and that they will not be aware of the procedure or any other sensation.

Rocuronium is used to stop the breathing of the patient. It is used as a muscle relaxant and is often administered prior to intubation. During the M.A.i.D. procedure Rocuronium is used “off label” and is given in much higher dosages than what would be typically used. At this time though the patient is in a very deep coma and brain activity, if any, will be extremely minimal. The patient’s brain will have undergone brain death from oxygen deprivation long before the effects of the Midazolam and Propofol have begun to wear off.

Bupivacaine is often used as a local anesthetic and is frequently used during labour as an epidural. Sometimes, but not always, Bupivacaine is given as the last drug during the M.A.i.D. procedure in order to ensure that the heart stops. Again, with the previous drugs having been administered at such high “off label” levels there will basically be no brain function left once the Bupivacaine has been administered.

So where the fuck this “drowning sensation” comes from is a complete fucking mystery.

Has someone had a séance with someone who recently underwent M.A.i.D.?

Has someone made contact with a M.A.i.D. patient via a Ouija board?

Has someone has conflated Medical Assistance in Dying with the death penalty procedure as practiced in the USofA where suffering is the name of the game?

Has someone placed too much faith in their faith leaders?

Does someone have their alt-right tinfoil cap on too tight?

Death is a very funny thing.

For me to want to be put to death is a major travesty and is not a choice that I should be allowed to make.

For cars to be equipped with mandatory speed limiters to reduce the likelihood of me being killed by some out-of-control car driver is “overreach” and “communism”.

Fighting and dying for land based upon 3,000 year old fables as told by illiterate goat herding barbarians is quite okay because this pleases the one true sky friend out of 3,000 other sky friends.

Requesting one’s own death to escape the depression, anxiety, CPTSD, and other mental health issues that no one has given a single fuck about is evil…….

Today’s prompt

Daily writing prompt
How do you want to retire?
View all responses

I honestly never expected to live this long.

I obviously never put any thought into retiring.

When your adolescence and early adult years are spent trying to figure out the best way to kill yourself without looking like a loser, planning for a long life or planning for retirement aren’t really priority number one.

I still have no retirement plans.

As I’ve said before, I don’t exist outside of work.

The childhood I had didn’t lead me towards finding meaning for life within myself. The meaning for my existence has always come from working.

And to anyone who thinks of coming at me with “well, we’ve all had tough childhoods”……… you can go fuck yourself.

I’m tired.

Even more so since I got involved with the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service in 2011.

You can only be called a liar so many times by the Canadian Armed Forces before it really takes a toll on your mental health.

And let’s face it, my mental health wasn’t all that great to begin with before I sent that fateful email off to the Edmonton Police Service in March of 2011.

And believe me, getting called a scam artist by Harjit Sajjan didn’t help my depression or anxiety much either.

The only reason that Sajjan allowed the release of the courts martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork in 2020 is he realized that somehow I had become aware of the existence of the documents and he calculated the risk that I would somehow find out the contents of those documents and he didn’t want to have the public find out that I had been telling the truth about CFB Namao while he called me a scam artist to my face.

And my brother’s death has really reinforced for me the fact that no one really gives a shit.

So yeah, I have no intention of sticking around past 2027.

I have no intention of retiring and spending more time with my constant companions of betrayal, depression, anxiety, and CPTSD.

A song that I like

I forget how and when I first heard Free by Mike Errico.

It’s a song that I really like.

It speaks volumes to my involvement with the counsellors and psychs from my younger days on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach.

http://Skimming by Mike Errico https://music.apple.com/ca/album/skimming/295594004

Mike Errico – Free

They sent me here to rest
to get the weight off of my chest
while they work 9 to 5
cheat on husbands and wives
and tell me I’m the one who’s depressed

And I’m left to define what’s insane
to the same folks who jailed Galileo
and explain him away

They
who are we
who are wondering which one of us
is free

free

free

free

I went places you just don’t go
I saw things you can’t tell them you know
And if they’re smiling stark naked
sometimes is just wiser
to compliment the cut of their clothes
And know they define what’s insane
based upon what makes them look good
at the end of the day

They
who are we
who are wondering which one of us
is free

free

free

free

But I’m the one chained to the bed
That’s just proof I got into their heads
And I witnessed their colourless landscapes
Saw the lovers who were too bored to stay
And walked the grey roads of their memories
that just stop at the end of the page
They’re a little too sad to hate
They’re just children who ran
out of paint

I’m up for review in a month
and I’ll watch them drink water from crystalline glasses
They’ll sit and stare like smoke damaged chairs
around a smouldering pile of ashes
And I’ll try to define what’s insane
to the same folks who consistently kill those
with something to say

They
who are we
who are wondering which one of us
is free.

free

free

free

yeah

free

free