I was contacted by the Alberta Medical Examiner’s office on Tuesday. They were returning a phone call that I had placed on Monday.
Scott died sometime close to the beginning of August. The official date of death is August 12th, 2024 as that was when the police found his body in his condo.
It’s coming up on 5 months since his death and the medical examiner still hasn’t been able to determine the cause of death.
I would hazard a guess that he was far too decomposed by the time the police were requested to conduct a wellness check.
It will be interesting to see what the results are.
Is there any chance that I will pass up on Medical Assistance in Dying?
No.
But Bobbie, aren’t you on hormones?
Yes, yes I am.
And aren’t you on anti-depressants?
Yes, yes I am.
Well then, you should be feeling much better, you should be happy.
No. No I’m not, and it’s nothing to do with being happy.
My brain is burnt out.
I can’t escape the ghosts of so many years ago.
40 years of untreated mental illness has taken its toll.
40 years of living with the fallout of Captain Totzke.
A dysfunctional childhood spent hopping from one Canadian Forces base to another being raised by a rage fuelled alcoholic and his cruel alcoholic mother.
I’m going through with the hormones because this is something that I always wanted to do. This was something that I would not have been able to undertake when I was younger. But the hormones won’t fix a damaged brain nor will the hormones erase 40 years of horrific memories.
I get the feeling that society believes that I owe it to society to fix myself and to live so that I continue to be a benefit to society.
I owe nothing to society.
Society in fact owed it to me to allow me to enjoy a normal childhood and a normal adulthood. Society instead said that it valued the image and prestige of the Canadian Armed Forces over my well-being. And as such society really has lost its “right” to tell me that I have live because I owe it to society.
Well, why don’t you commit suicide?
I’ve known for a very long time that if I were to commit suicide that the babysitter and my father would win and their version of reality would become my truth.
Since learning the whole entire truth about the events that occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao and how the modern day Canadian Armed Forces are so very hellbent on keeping the secrets of child sexual abuse on Canadian Forces hidden from the public consciousness, committing suicide would be giving the Canadian Forces an easy way out. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the Canadian Forces would pull out all of the stops to tar and feather my name.
So, you’re not really going to take your own life, you’re just doing this for theatrics, right?
Nope. Just waiting to see if the Department of Justice or the Canadian Armed Forces are willing to do the right thing or if they’re going to do everything in their power to keep this matter hidden and buried from the public eye.
The hospital where I work is in the process of moving. The new facility is supposed to be opened by 2027. The acute portion of the hospital is expected to transfer from the old site to the new site in a couple of weeks. The old hospital will stay in operation for a little while longer as it will have to support the various research programs on site until the new research building is constructed. I’ve already made it very clear that I have no interest in going to the new site, that I’m more than content to stay at the old site and run it until I either decide to pull the plug or the site shuts down.
Management for the most part doesn’t know why I have no interest in going to the new site, but there are a few managers that do. Some co-workers know of my plans, but most don’t.
My plan for when I decide the time is right to die is to simply announce that I’ve received an excellent job offer in the maritimes and that I want to take it as I want to return to Nova Scotia to retire there.
I grew up in an environment in which mental health issues were not acknowledged.
In fact, the environment that I grew up in, mental health issues were to be kept hidden due to the stigma that Canadian Armed Forces placed upon mental illness.
And for the last time, NO, the attitudes of the military didn’t stop at the front door of the PMQ. The attitudes of the Canadian Armed Forces permeated through everyone that lived on a military base. There was no escaping the military in the PMQs on base.
My father used booze to treat his mental health issues.
And back in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s my father wasn’t the only one self medicating.
I know that my father also had a thing for prescription pain killers.
But no matter how much his drinking and his pain killers fucked with his brain and almost got him booted out of the military, there was no fucking way on earth that Richard would ever have gone to see a psychologist or a psychiatrist.
Richard would have rather taken a bullet to the temple than talk to a head shrinker.
As mentioned elsewhere, my brain was completely fucked up in the aftermath of Canadian Forces Base Namao. On Namao, it wasn’t just the sexual abuse at the hands of the babysitter for 2 years, nor was it the frequent visits to the chapel that ended with the “sickly sweet grape juice”. It was also the fall out from my mentally and physically abusive father, and his very own mother that he had brought into the PMQ on base to raise my brother and I.
She was an Indian Residential School survivor. She was very angry, very domineering, and very cruel at times. She was also as much of an alcoholic, if not more than my father. It was the excessive drinking of her and her husband in the PMQ on CFB Namao that led to my brother frequently being placed into the care of the babysitter.
When my family was punted off CFB Namao and relocated to CFB Griesbach in the aftermath of the CFB Namao child sex abuse scandal I was quickly brought to the attention of the military social worker, Captain Terry Totzke.
I only knew Terry as Terry until August of 2011 when I learnt that Terry was a Captain in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Terry was not a pleasant man.
Terry was always angry with me.
Angry for what I had done on CFB Namao when I repeatedly had sex with the babysitter.
Terry was upset that I had allowed the babysitter to molest my younger brother and that I didn’t do anything to stop it.
I was sent to see specialists, during which Terry would often remark that I was “acting out for attention”. My father would often repeat this.
Terry always wanted to know what I intended to do to change my ways.
Once Terry and my father picked me up from Major General Griesbach School, which was the school on base for children of military families. We drove over to Terry’s office which was located over by base HQ on CFB Griesbach. As we drove past the brig, Terry mentioned to me that if I continued to be attracted to boys that I would end up in prison just like the priest.
At the time I had no idea about who the “priest” was as everything on Canadian Forces Base Namao had been hushed up. It wouldn’t be until May 3rd, 2011 that I would learn about the twisted connection between the warning of the priest in the brig, the “sickly sweet grape juice”, and my babysitter.
Due to my interactions with Canadian Armed Forces personnel Captain Terry Totzke and Master Corporal Richard Wayne Gill and the way in which the two blamed me for what had happened to myself and to my brother on Canadian Forces Base Namao I am forever immune to counselling.
I remember Terry voicing his concerns about me ever being allowed to be around naked boys in places like swimming pool change rooms because I would be too tempted.
Terry would also remind me that he had the base military police watching me to make sure that I wasn’t kissing or touching other boys.
And it gets much worse.
After we lived on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach for about a year, I started seeing other people in addition to Terry. The thing was I would never go to see these people unless my father was there or Terry was there.
I never went to see these people at Terry’s office. And these people never came to see me at MGG School. We always had to go off-base to see these people. One of these places that we’d go to had a room with a large one-way mirror. Terry would always go into the room on the other side of the mirror.
On the way over to these meetings my father would always remind me that I had to keep my mouth shut and not say a thing otherwise these people would find out what I had done on CFB Namao and that these people would twist my words and that this would put me in a “world of shit”.
When I obtained my social services paperwork in the summer of 2011 I would learn that Pat, Wayne, Laura, Aviva, and many others were the “good people” and that my father and Captain Totzke were the “bad people”. The reality was a complete 180 from what Terry and my father were drilling into my head.
According to the paperwork, when I first went into Terry’s care, he had my family evaluated by a psychiatrist that specialized in dysfunctional families.
I was found to be suffering from major depression, severe anxiety, I was terrified of men and convinced that my father was going to kill me by drowning me in a toilet, I was afraid of being touched, I talked about death and dying, and I could not express any type of emotion.
My father was found to have issues controlling his anger, felt like he was the victim, blamed his problems on others, didn’t want to take responsibility for his family, expected others to solve his problems for him.
Not once during my time in Totzke’s care was I ever sent for counselling, or received medication for my severe anxiety or major depression. Terry was adamant that I was wetting the bed for attention and acting up for attention. Terry was even more concerned about the homosexuality that I had exhibited when I allowed the sex with the babysitter to go on for so long.
Around the summer of 1982 I started going to a “special school”. Again, every day before catching the literal “short yellow bus” to go to school, my father would remind me to keep my mouth shut and to talk as little as possible to Pat and Wayne otherwise they would twist my words and make me say things that I didn’t say. Terry would also show up at this special school on occasion.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, in the spring of 1983 my father received a sudden posting to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario. This came right after I had apparently been “expelled” from the “special school” as apparently I was still attracted to boys.
As we drove from CFB Griesbach in Edmonton towards CFB Downsview in Toronto, I asked my father why we had to move. He said that he was saving me from the drugs that my teachers wanted to give me to make me stop being attracted to boys.
When we got to CFB Downsview and got settled into our first PMQ on that base, Richard would rage out on me frequently for “fucking with his military career”. Richard was smart. He never hit on the face. It was always on the back of the head or some other part of my body that wouldn’t show the bruising.
In 2011 I would learn that Richard was not saving me from the drugs. Richard, and possibly Terry were saving their own asses. Alberta social services informed Captain Totzke of their intentions to remove me from the home and place me into foster care. It would be safe to say that my “treatment” at the hands of Terry was to ensure that I never talked to any type of civilian authority or official about what had happened on CFB Namao least someone get curious about the entire Captain Father Angus McRae fiasco.
If I got pulled out of Richards PMQ where both Captain Totzke and my father were busy gaslighting me about CFB Namao and instead I was placed into either foster care or residential care, there was the possibility that I could have calmed down and once comfortable that I would start talking to my civilian social workers about what had truly happened on CFB Namao.
On January 26th, 1983 Totzke was informed about the intentions of Alberta Social Services to remove me from the home for my protection.
On January 28th, 1983 Totzke tells my child care worker that my father has just received a posting order from the Canadian Forces.
After my family arrives at Canadian Forces Base Downsview, my child care worker in Alberta closes my file as I now reside in a different province and that my paperwork will be returned to Captain Terry Totzke.
And this is why I really want Medical Assistance in Dying.
Unlike what the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service tried to portray in 2011, the abuse on CFB Namao was very real and very horrific. It went on for almost 2 years. It involved a teenager with no empathy and very poor restraint. It involved alcohol and who the fuck knows what at the base chapel.
Captain Terry Totzke knew about the abuse
My father knew about the abuse.
Captain Totzke actively denied me access to timely and beneficial mental health treatment, no doubt by the “lawful commands” of his superiors.
I was caught in a lopsided war between my civilian social workers who had no fucking idea in the slightest as to what was wrong with me, and Captain Terry Totzke who obviously knew what was wrong with me as he knew about the sexual abuse and he had my diagnoses.
It was drilled into my young brain by Captain Terry Totzke, and my father, Master Corporal Richard Wayne Gill, that feelings are not to be talked about, that “head shrinkers” are bad and are not to be trusted.
I’ve lived each and every day since the spring of 1980 being blamed, ridiculed, and mocked for what happened on CFB Namao.
I’ve tried counselling. But all it is is useless talking.
Counselling won’t fix anything. When you think about it, counselling is a scam. There’s nothing that it can really fix, and if it doesn’t work they just claim a 100% success rate and say that you jut didn’t try hard enough.
Just spent the last three days sleeping in for the most part.
I know that it’s so very hard for you the reader to understand just how fucking hard it is to keep staying alive.
About the only thing that keeps me going is the minuscule possibility that I might be able to clear my name before I die.
My childhood was a disaster, not just because of a child predator named Angus McRae who was a member of the regular forces as a Captain, and not just because of the teens that he groomed to molest children and trained those teens to bring young children over to the base chapel.
No, my life was ruined by mostly men in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence who decided that my mental health and the mental health of the other children molested on various Canadian Armed Forces Bases was worth far less than the prestige, honour, and reputation of the military.
Master Corporal Richard Wayne Gill
Warrant Officer Fredrick R. Cunningham
Captain David Pilling
Captain Terry Totzke
Colonel Daniel Edward Munro
Minister of National Defence Gilles Lamontagne
And many other useful idiots “just following commands”
The Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence know how to manipulate public opinion. DND and the CAF have an extensive “Public Relations” department that knows how to manipulate useful idiots into projecting the image of the Canadian Armed Forces as being infallible and beyond reproach.
And no, this isn’t just a distant event. In the modern day the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence have sections that engage in social media. The MPCC noted in their 2020 report that the DND and the CAF are well aware of my blog postings and my social media presence.
And yes, the Department of Justice is actually following along with my blog.
In May of 2011 the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that my case was likely to go no where due to a complete lack of evidence. This was two months before the CFNIS would talk to other victims or try to track down the perpetrator.
Of course we’d learn in 2020 that the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service had in its possession since the beginning of the investigation in March of 2011 the 1980 Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit paperwork and the July 1980 courts martial transcripts, both of which heavily implicated the babysitter as it was his abuse of young children on the base that brought him to the attention of the base military police.
When the CFNIS submitted their brief to the Alberta Crown in October of 1980 they forgot to tell the crown about the dysfunctional household I was living in, the fact that the babysitter was investigated for molesting children in 1980, and that the babysitter was receiving psychological counselling for his attraction to young children. The CFNIS also forgot to mention to the Alberta Crown that I had tried to report the babysitter twice before to the military police but that the military police took no action.
More alarming is that the CFNIS submitted to the Alberta Crown an absolute fabrication. And no doubt that the Department of Justice has latched on to this fabrication. The fabrication? On May 3rd, 2011 I was contacted by Mcpl Christian Cyr of the CFNIS. Cyr tried and tried and tried to get me to believe that the babysitter was only 12 or 13 years old in the spring of 1980. The babysitter was born on June 20th, 1965.
More damning than that was the fact that Cyr literally dropped a bombshell on me. He asked me point blank if I remembered anything about the base chaplain having been charged with molesting children during the time that I was accusing the babysitter of abusing me and he implied that maybe I was confusing things insinuating that maybe I was making this story up for easy money.
When I regained my composure I told Cyr about the 5 visits to the chapel in which the babysitter escorted me over. I told him I remembered the activities we’d do in the living quarters, and that the visits always ended with me being given a “sickly sweet grape juice”.
I would learn later that the CFNIS would imply to other victims that I was a “societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the Canadian Armed Forces” and that I couldn’t hold jobs and that I frequently bounced around in my employment.
When I made my application to Federal Court in 2013 and I was given a copy of the certified tribunal records I was gob smacked to discover that “Cyr” had made an entry into the Security and Military Police Information System database (SAMPIS) that indicated that I remembered various visits in which the babysitter escorted me over to the base chapel “but that nothing sexual ever occurred”. “Cyr” removed any mention of an intoxicating substance as the CFSIU investigation paperwork and the courts martial transcripts would indicate that McRae was known to be giving the children alcohol. I use “Cyr” in this instance in quotes because at the time in 2011 the SAMPIS database had one massively horrific flaw. Superiors could make any edits to any entry that existed in SAMPIS. Sure, SAMPIS would log who made the changes, but SAMPIS would not retain the previous version of the edited item, nor would SAMPIS log the changes made.
In the modern day the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service and the Department of Justice will strive to portray me as an out of control lunatic just looking for quick bucks. The rational for this opinion will be the findings of the 2012 and 2018 MPCC reviews of the 2011 and 2015 investigations. The Department of Justice will go out of its way to downplay the fact that the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal determines what evidence will and will not be presented to the Military Police Complaints Commission and that the MPCC cannot subpoena documents from the CFNIS nor the MPCC.
The Canadian Armed Forces, with the assistance of the Department of Justice are very adept at keeping the truth hidden from the outside world.
I still like to think that in 2019 the Military Police Complaints Commission realized just how fucking badly the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal lied to MPCC . I think this is why the MPCC went out of their way to verify that the CFNIS knew the truth about the babysitter and the extent of Captain McRae’s abuse of children on the base.
Harjit Sajjan was more than happy to fight me to deny me access to the 1980 records. Sajjan only relented once the MPCC confirmed that the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal both knew about the truth from 1980 and actively hid the truth from me and from the Alberta Crown prosecutor.
And no, this shit hasn’t changed to this day. The Canadian Forces Provost Marshal is still actively denying and hiding documents from the Military Police Complaints Commission.
And the really aggravating matter is the fact that the Department of Justice actually wants to rely on the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork, the 2011 CFNIS investigation, and the 2015 CFNIS investigation to determine who was a victim and who wasn’t.
In 1980 it was Colonel Daniel Edward Munro, the base commander of Canadian Forces Base Namao that would determine to not call the RCMP in to deal with the babysitter and would not allow charges to proceed that involved children under the age of 14 so that the military could retain jurisdiction for this matter.
Remember, under the pre-1998 NDA Summary Investigation Flaw, it was the commanding officer of the accused that determined which charges their subordinate would face and which charges would be dropped. The provincial crown prosecutor would only become involved AFTER the commanding officer approved the charges and then allowed them to flow into the civilian justice system.
Both the 2011 and 2015 investigations had the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork and the 1980 courts martial transcripts in their possession. The 2011 CFNIS investigation ignored my social service records, and various information that I sent to the CFNIS related to the visits to the chapel.
So yeah, this is why I’m fucking tired.
And no, there is no recovering from this.
My father is long dead, he’ll never apologize for the living hell that he subjected my brother and I to in the silence of the military housing on base.
My brother will never get to hear anyone from the Canadian Armed Forces apologize, and my brother will never see that I wasn’t lying about what the babysitter did and that I didn’t “let” or “allow” the babysitter to do what he did.
Daniel Edward Munro will never explain why he did what he did.
The DOJ will go to bat for the babysitter in their portrayal of him as an innocent little angel.
The DOJ will never apologize for learning the entire truth about Captain McRae and his teenage accomplice in 2014 but instead using the absurd and byzantine laws crafted by the Government of Canada that allow agencies like the Canadian Forces to hide and bury the truth.
And no one from the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service will ever have to apologize for lying to me, lying to others about me, lying to the RCMP about me, and making false accusations against me.
Here’s one of my problems. And this problem irks me to no end.
I’m too stupid to be smart, and I’m too smart to be stupid.
In case you think differently, where you end up in life is wholly determined by where you start off in life. Anybody who tells you any different isn’t living in reality.
Anyone who grew up in a dysfunctional family and I mean a really dysfunctional family should be lucky to find basic stable employment.
If you didn’t grow up on military bases in Canada where dysfunctional families were shielded from civilian social services by the military’s wall of secrecy you have nothing to say on this matter.
How dysfunctional was my family? My alcoholic rage prone father brought his own alcoholic rage prone mother into the military housing on base to raise my brother and I as his physical abuse, mental abuse, and drinking was too much for our mother to handle.
My father tried to blame my mental health issues on his own mother. He told Alberta Social Services that my difficulties came from his “authoritarian mother, who was an alcoholic, and who was extremely cruel to his children”.
My issues at the time were not caused by my grandmother, nor my piss tank alcoholic father.
No, my severe depression and my major anxiety were caused by the two years of sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
The “counselling” that I received from Canadian Armed Forces social worker Captain Terry Totzke absolutely amplified and made my issues much worse, considering that my father, due to the chain of command, was expected to not question Captain Totzke’s treatment methods, such as blaming the sexual abuse I endured on CFB Namao as a result of some sort of “homosexuality” that I had exhibited.
And also Totzke’s refusal to let me receive treatment for major depression and severe anxiety really didn’t help the situation much either.
As I mentioned elsewhere, my father was heavily into electronics and computers. So much so that he always had work benches in the basements of the different PMQs that we lived in. He also always had subscriptions to Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics, and occasionally Elektor Electronics. Plus he always had his CAF / DND educational literature laying around, as well as his DeVry course manuals laying around.
Seeing as how my father had very little interest in me as a kid, I thought that if I picked up an interest in electronics and computers, maybe Richard and I would get along as we’d have something in common.
Richard wasn’t the type of person to try to instil creativity or curiosity in a child.
In fact, Richard was so insecure that he was never going to let his stupid fucking kids eclipse him. The stupider Scott and I remained the smarter he would look in comparison.
Picking up electronics and computers was indeed beneficial, but not in the way that anyone thinks.
When people learn that I dropped out of school after grade 8, people always assume that it was because I was a troublemaker or a problem child. The truth is, between my father and my brother, things were becoming too violent and too unhinged in our house on Canadian Forces Base Downsview.
By 1987 my brother was starting to run with a gang of thugs. He had already been to group homes a few times after he’d been arrested for B&Es and car theft. He was only 13 years old, but he was already taller than my father. Richard wouldn’t dare hit Scott. And because Richard could no longer beat Scott he turned his attention to me for failing to raise my brother properly and for not looking out for my brother. Everything that Scott did was because I let the fucking babysitter touch him.
And no, my father never got over the fact that I had apparently “fucked with his military career” by being the cause of the posting from CFB Griesbach in Edmonton, AB to CFB Downsview in North York, ON.
Even though in reality I know that Richard never would have paid for trade school, or college, or university, I know that when I moved out of the house at 16 I pretty well wrote off ever obtaining a trade or a diploma.
Yes, I did get my grade 12 GED, but that doesn’t matter for much.
And yes, I’m a 4th class power engineer. But that doesn’t mean a lot on its own.
See, when it comes to most any job that I’ve ever had, I’m actually nothing special.
Weird.
Misfit.
Fag.
That’s how most of my employers would have referred to me.
I even had one manger refer to me as “Freddie Mercury” as he “knew” that I was gay. Kept making me promise him that I’d use protection when having sex with other men so that I wouldn’t get AIDs and die.
Many years later I would have one manager at work who refused to have anything to do with me, and when I mentioned this to the manger’s supervisor I was told that the other manager felt very uncomfortable around me because I was “too flamboyant”.
Yeah, when you come from a dysfunctional family and you’ve got no family safety net to fall back on, you just have to put up with this shit and keep going. Standing your ground and making a scene is for people that have backup plans.
I’m a loner. I like to be left alone. I don’t interact well with others. I have to fake smiles.
I’m perpetually late for work in the mornings because I really don’t want to get out of bed. I’m usually very disappointed in the morning when I wake up as that means that I didn’t pass away in my sleep.
I don’t have the slightest interest in sportsball, movies, movie actors, or bands. Yes, I like music, and yes I like watching movies now and again, but I’m not a “fan”.
The one thing that has always seen me through like an ace up my sleeve is my familiarity with electronics and computers, and my reading and comprehension abilities.
But the one thing that my skills have never been able to do is make me feel fulfilled or proud. They’re just shit that I can do.
So, what do my skills let me do? Wait, I can’t call them “skills” because I don’t have a diploma or a TQ or a Red Seal. I guess that I can call them hobbies.
This.
Below is a write up from my second round of testing.
(b) Breaker PDC- E3 delayed vital
Voltage data request from holding registers 41000 to 41007
Using modbus slave software to listen to the output of the IP to RS-485 gateway I get this:
RX 05 03 2E EF 00 03 3C 92 –
This means that the system requested that device 05 (delayed vital breaker) send the contents of the holding register (03) 12015 (hex 2e ef) and three subsequent registers, 12015, 12016, 120170. The 3c 92 are the checksum value for the transmission.
My software masqueraded as device (05), with the contents of the holding registers (03), acknowledged that the request was valid (06) and sent the value of decimal 50 (00 32) to the system. The 0a 6b is the checksum for this transmission.
RX 05 03 2E EF 00 03 3C 92 –
TX 05 03 06 00 32 00 32 00 – 32 0A 6B
When my software transmits the value of 50 to the system, the system displays that it read the value of registers 12015 (hex 2e ef), 12016 (hex 2e f0), 12017 (hex 2e f1) as decimal 50 (hex 00 32).
RX 05 03 2E EF 00 03 3C 92 –
TX 05 03 06 00 7B 00 7B 00 – 7B C7 85
When I change the value of registers 12015 (hex 2e ef), 12016 (hex 2e f0), 12017 (hex 2e f1) to the decimal value of 123 (hex 00 7b) the display on the system changes to 123.
Now, please understand that I am not trying to claim to be some sort of genius or expert. I just read the manual for the system, I read a quick write-up on MODbus, I ordered in an off-the-shelf USB-to-MODbus converter, and I bought the software.
Believe me, I’m not trying to claim to be a “hacker” or a technician, or anything like that. I’m also not trying to pretend that I wrote the program, or designed the interface, or “cracked” the system.
I just followed the instructions. When things weren’t clear, or when I needed further information I went searching for it.
I often feel the need to make this clear and to make it understood that I am not trying to claim credit for anything. This is just the stupid shit that I do.
Now, before you ask why I don’t go get a diploma, or a certificate, or a TQ, realize that my depression, my anxiety, my ultra low self esteem, and my intense lack of self confidence have never been dealt with.
Pills, therapy, head shrinkers, magic crystals, tarot cards, and positive thoughts don’t do sweet fuck-all against untreated mental health issues.
And mental health issues can’t be dealt with so long as the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces want to go out of their way to pretend that absolutely nothing occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao from 1978 to 1980 and that I’m just a “societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the Canadian Armed Forces”.
I really don’t understand why there is so much fear and disinformation surrounding Medical Assistance in Dying for mental illness.
Shawn Watley recently wrote an article for the MacDonald Laurier Institute which was really nothing more than a Henny Penny Chicken Little “the sky is falling” screed against Medical Assistance in Dying.
You know what, fine, if Dr. Watley thinks that he can fix everyone and save everyone, then he should stop wasting time and get his magical cure-all elixir approved by Health Canada and on to pharmacy store shelves across Canada.
It’s one thing for people like Dr. Watley to tut-tut persons wishing to obtain M.A.i.D. for mental illness, but it’s something completely different for those with longstanding mental health issues that wish to pursue M.A.i.D. to have to endure prolonged suffering just for the sake of vanity causes for doctors like Dr. Watley.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Dr. Watley is of the “you simply haven’t tried hard enough to fix your own mental illness” crowd. People like this seem to form the majority in mental health care practitioners. According to these type of doctors, unless you’ve literally popped every type of pharmaceutical, and have tried every type of therapy, you just haven’t tried hard enough.
I can only wonder what wonderful advice Dr. Watley could offer to someone that had their brain fucked with by a military social worker when they were a child living on a Canadian Forces base.
If a person can’t enjoy life, can’t find pleasure in life, keeps fighting with the demons of child sexual abuse, child emotional abuse, child physical abuse, has fought major depression and severe anxiety all of their life, why should this person have to keep existing of they no longer wish to exist.
Why should people like myself have to continue suffering just to keep Dr. Watley and his ilk of like minded physicians happy with the idea that they “saved us” from the evils of death.
My brother died of a drug overdose back in early August of this year. A drug overdose that was no doubt brought on by the years of mental suffering due to growing up in our father’s extremely dysfunctional home and the sexual abuse that we endured for two years on Canadian Forces Base Namao from 1978 until 1980.
I am envious of my brother. He no longer feels pain. He no longer has the memories. No financial worries. Nothing. It’s all gone and it’s all over for him. The babysitter can no longer bother him, Captain Father Angus McRae can no longer bother him, our father, Warrant Officer Richard Wayne Gill can no longer bother him.
The world has gone on existing without him.
Me?
I’m just sticking around long enough to clear my name, which hopefully won’t be too much longer. Hopefully my class-action against the Canadian Armed Forces is wrapped up around 2027, and hopefully Medical Assistance in Dying is legalized for mental illness by 2027, as I would love nothing more than to never be bothered by my memories of the physical and mental abuse at the hands of my father, the mental abuse at the hands of Canadian Forces military social worker Captain Terry Totzke, the sexual abuse at the hands of the babysitter and the base chaplain, Captain Father Angus McRae, both from Canadian Forces Base Namao, or the years of diagnosed but untreated major depression and severe anxiety.
But, I have a feeling that people like Dr. Shawn Watley don’t really care about my mental health. I think that they’re more concerned with the appearance of caring than they are with realizing that not everything is curable and not everything can be treated and that a person must have full and complete autonomy to make choices for the own lives otherwise they are just being punished and forced to endure and existence of very little meaning but of constant mental anguish.
In late August of 1985 my brother and I flew back from Edmonton after having spent the entire summer staying with our grandmother in Edmonton.
Upon our return to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario our father had to alert the base military police to our arrival back home.
The military police came to talk to my brother and I about a rage-out that our father had in the PMQ that had contributed a significant amount of damage to the PMQ and required 3 military police officers to bring him under control.
Richard’s rage-outs were nothing new, but during this one he had completely lost control and smashed out all of the ground floor windows and damaged a lot of the furniture.
Richard used to self medicate by getting himself pickled drunk. But since Sue moved in with us in the summer of 1980, she tried to get Richard to sober up.
Richard also had a thing for prescription pain meds. Beyond that I can’t say if he was ever into hard drugs or not. But yes, he was an alcoholic.
And by not self medicating, Richard’s physical rage and temper would often peak at boiling over.
The military police implored my brother and I to NOT call 9-1-1 but to instead call the base military police as the Toronto cops couldn’t just come on to the base.
The two military police officers told us that we shouldn’t call for help unless we got out of the PMQ first, and that we should be prepared to jump from the second story of the PMQ if we had to get away from Richard.
Looking back I now realize that the base military police didn’t want us calling 9-1-1 as the civilian police were duty bound to report domestic violence to civilian social services where as the military police and the Canadian Armed Forcesliked to keep things in house an out from under the noses of those nosey civilians.
The MPs gave my brother and I business cards with the direct phone number for the MPs so that we didn’t have to go through base switchboard.
I was going to go show one of my friends the business card and tell him how the military police promised me that they would protect me from Richard and his anger outbursts as the MPs had heard things from the neighbours about the way Richard treated my brother and I.
Bill Parker intercepted me as I walked across the common lawn that the PMQs surrounded.
Bob! Bob, come here, I need to talk to you.
Bill promised me that if my father ever got angry again that I could come stay with his family, just like my mother and I had done on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater. I would find out about the CFB Sheawater “Battered wives club” in the 2010’s.
I showed Bill the business card and told Bill that if the fucker ever hit me again that I’d call the military police and they’d come take care of Richard. Bill told me that I had to take it easy on my father, that I simply didn’t understand what my father had been through and how the Canadian Forces had abandoned him.
Bill went on to explain something about my father having sailed to England with the Sea Kings in 1969 and that there had been an explosion in the engine room on one of the ships and that my father lost three of his drinking buddies from when he had been in the Navy.
“Bob, I wish you knew your father before that. He was a completely different man. He would have been nice.”
Bill implored me to never ask my father about this, that I was supposed to keep this a secret and just understand and accept my father’s anger and temper.
August of 1985 was long before the advent of Netscape Navigator and Google.
I was in Sea Cadets at the time, so I devised a way in which I’d ask my father about this “engine room explosion” without asking him directly about it.
I came home one night after cadets and told him that as part of studying naval history in the Canadian Navy that I was supposed to write a report on ship explosions that would have occurred in 1969.
The blood drained from his face, his cigarette hung from his lower lip, and his fists clenched up. All he said was that if I ever asked him a question like that again that I wouldn’t have to worry about ship explosions because of my broken neck.
It was the early 2000’s when I discovered the HMCS Kootenay incident that occurred in October of 1969 when the ships from CFB Halifax and the Sea Kings from CFB Shearwater were returning from exercises to the UK. It wasn’t an engine that exploded. It was oil vapour in a high-speed gear box that ignited due to an overheated main bearing. 11 members of the navy died. The explosion had been swift and hot. It was so hot that it melted all of the aluminum ladders that lead out of the engine room / gear box room.
My father had been on the Kootenay in his navy days before unification gave him the opportunity to get out of the Navy and into the Air Force. His name won’t show up on any of the ship’s registers as he was with the Sea Kings in the Air Force and not the Navy.
When I met my mother, Marie, in 2013 she confirmed Richard’s involvement with the Kootenay incident saying that Richard became a different man in the days and weeks after. His drinking had increased, his violence increased, he started to exhibit a hair trigger temper.
When Richard was posted to CFB Summerside his temper and his drinking became even worse, hence why she tried to take my bother and I back to Nova Scotia to stay with our uncle Al, but why she ended up being ejected from the PMQ by the base military police.
I met a gentleman by the name of Chris Legerre in the summer of 2014 when I went to Halifax to see the city that I had been born in 42 years previously. Chris had been on the HMCS Kootenay on the day of the gearbox explosion.
Yep, the Canadian Armed Forces literally and figuratively fucked everyone over that had been involved in the incident. A complete lack of compassion. No mental health treatment, nada, zip, zilch. Drug use became rampant amongst the survivors. Families of the deceased were booted out of the military housing with absolutely no compassion shown to the kids.
And you’d think that things would have changed in the last 55 years, but you’d be sadly fucking mistaken.
The Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence don’t give one sliver of a flying fuck about the mental health of the members of the Canadian Forces . And from my personal experience the Canadian Armed Forces care even less about the family members of mentally ill service members that have to experience the untreated mental illness of the serving member.
See, in my day of living on the bases in Canada military dependents were of absolutely no concern to the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence. We were referred to as D.F.&E., Dependents, furniture, and effects. It took lobbying by the Ombudsman to get the Canadian Armed Forces to change this and to stop lumping dependents in as the personal belonging of the serving member.
But that really didn’t change things.
David Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen posted a link to a story by Morgan Lowrie of National News Watch that was about two member of the Canadian Armed Forces that committed suicide. They were brothers. Both had served in Afghanistan. The article talks about how the Canadian Armed Forces are going to give the mother of the two soldiers a silver star. The article however mentions nothing about the spouses of the deceased members, nor the children of the deceased members.
Children of service members that die in action or die as a result of committing suicide due to mental stress endured during service should automatically receive guaranteed scholarships to college or university or support through trade school.
Spouses should receive compensation up until the retirement age of the service member.
The Canadian Armed Forces asks a lot from its service members, and by extension it asks a lot from the families of the service members.
It should then have to look after the families of service members, and stop treating military dependents like an afterthought.
Because my father and Captain Totzke used to both blame me for what happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao and for allowing the babysitter to molest my younger brother, I was always hesitant to tell my counsellors about what had happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao.
Because of that I was always fearful that by not saying anything that the babysitter would go on to molest more kids.
In 2012 I found my fears to have been well founded.
What I didn’t take into account though was that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence would have moved a sexual predator from one base to another across Canada, giving this predator access to “fresh meat”.
But, that’s what they did.
In the aftermath of Canadian Forces Base Namao the Canadian Forces posted the babysitter’s family to Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in Ontario. Not only did this give the babysitter access to young children living on Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, but it also gave the babysitter access to children living in the towns around CFB Petawawa.
The babysitter was arrested, charged, and convicted in 1982 for molesting a young boy in a small town just north of CFB Petawawa.
Considering the number of children living on CFB Petawawa, I wouldn’t be surprised if the babysitter had molested children on the base, but with the base military police looking after the investigation of the sexual abuse of any child living on base, I’m not surprised that the Canadian Forces didn’t find any victims on the base. And I have no doubt in my mind that if former military dependents that were molested as children on CFB Petawawa by the babysitter did come forward like I had in 2011 with complaints against the babysitter that the CFSIU / CFNIS would have given them a dog ‘n’ pony show investigation like I got.
The babysitter then ended up in Manitoba on one of the CFBs there. It was either CFB Winnipeg or CFB Portage la Prairie. The babysitter was charged and convicted for molesting an 8-year-old in 1984. What’s not clear is if this child was a military dependent or was the child of a civilian family living off the base. If I was a gambling person I’d have to say that this was a civilian child living in a town or city near the base.
The babysitter and his family ended up back at Canadian Forces Base Namao in late 1984 / early 1985. The babysitter molested a 9 year old boy living on Canadian Forces Base Namao. This time however the Canadian Forces gave the babysitter’s father an ultimatum, either the babysitter move out of the military housing on base or the family would be ejected from the military housing.
By this time the babysitter would have been months shy of his 20th birthday.
The babysitter’s father rented the babysitter an apartment in the west end of Edmonton into which the babysitter lured a 13 year old newspaper carrier and molested the newspaper carrier.
The babysitter was convicted of both crimes in August of 1985 in a courtroom in Edmonton.
Most victims of child sexual assault never come forward. So how many other children living on Canadian Forces Bases that had sudden personality changes due to their interactions with the babysitter, we’ll never know.
How many of these children would have been spared sexual abuse at the hand of the babysitter had the Canadian Armed Forces simply called in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to deal with the babysitter in the spring of 1980 instead of deciding to not inform the RCMP in order to keep the public from finding out the true extents of the child sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao?
No one will ever know.
I know that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence have the resources to find the other victims, but they have absolutely no interest in doing so.
I remember reading in the MacLean’s expose titled “The CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy” how the Canadian Forces responded to this by simply posting the perpetrators off to different bases.
It’s even mentioned in the 1996 report that was commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces titled “Canadian Forces response to spousal abuse in military families” that postings were often used to make problems go away.
How many other victims of the poor decisions of the Canadian Armed Forces are there out there?
How many of these victims of the babysitter or other sexual predators on the bases had to deal with the rage of their fathers for having “fucked with their military careers”?
How many of the other victims of the babysitter have never had their crimes investigated because they couldn’t remember the babysitter’s name or what PMQ he lived in?
How many of these victims had to deal with the tendency of the Canadian Armed Forces to “blame and shame the victim”.
How many times did the Canadian Armed Forces consciously interfere with the attempts of civilian social services to protect the children of military families from the abuse of their unstable serving parent?
How many times did the Canadian Armed Forces post military families from one province to another to avoid the apprehension of military dependents.
Remember, in June of 2011 the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that charges were unlikely in my complaint due to a complete lack of evidence. This even though the CFNIS had in their possession the 1980 CFSIU paperwork and the 1980 court martial transcripts that both explained that the babysitter had been investigated by the base military police due to the complaints of numerous parents that the babysitter was molesting children.
Remember that on November 4th, 2011 I was contacted by the CFNIS and told that the CFNIS could find no indication that the babysitter was capable of committing the crimes that I had accused him of even though the CFNIS had the 1980 CFSIU paperwork, the 1980 court martial transcripts, and the babysitter’s CPIC records that recorded his charges and convictions from 1982, 1984, 1985(x2), and many more.
Just on my way to the island for a quick little weekend trip.
I haven’t been to the island since back in the early aughts.
Just wanted to get out of the city for the weekend.
Decided to try out the new Hullo ferry service. Well, it’s not really new, it’s been operating since last year.
Normally getting to the island is a royal pain in the ass. Nothing wrong with BC Ferries, but those ferries are dedicated to car culture. And the ferry terminals are only really accessible via highways meant for cars. The whole experience from BC Ferries isn’t that great for someone who just wants to take a quick trip to the island.
One can take the bus to the ferry terminal, but still you can tell that the terminals and the ferries are geared towards drivers.
Hullo on the other hand operates from Downtown Vancouver to Downtown Nanaimo. And the fares aren’t that expensive either.
Just wanted to get out of the city for the weekend.
Spending way too much time at work. I’m currently filling two positions at work. My position as chief engineer, and the assistant chief engineer’s position as well. So much overtime. Probably way too much overtime.
So far my YTD is $112,000.00. And I have two months to go in this year.
I don’t mind working all this time. Work is all that I’ve done my entire life.
I started working way back in 1982. By 1987 I was on my own and working full-time. I think work is what has distracted me all these years. Kept me from realizing just how fucked up my childhood had been and just how much of a basket case I was.
Work has always been a double edged sword though.
I work at levels well above what my formal education and my mental health should allow me to work at. You’d think that this is great, but it causes a lot of conflict. See, as a 4th class power engineer I’m just supposed to rubber stamp what contractors want to do. I’m not supposed to have valid opinions about building automation. I’m sure as hell not supposed to be able to build BACnet networks and add them in and make them function.
But I do.
And it makes me realize just how badly I got fucked all those years ago.
Activist judges are never a good thing. Judges should always strive to impartial and to not let their personal opinions or personal beliefs and biases cloud their decisions. Themis is depicted wearing a blindfold and holding a scale. She is blindfolded so that she can only judge based upon the weight of the evidence placed upon her scales. Themis is not supposed to bow before any king, politician, or god. Rich and poor, religious and atheist are all supposed to be equal before her.
It’s always a scary thing when activist judges use their power to exert their personal views upon others.
I can’t find too much on Justice Simon R. Coval, other than he practiced commercial litigation before being appointed to the BC Supreme Court. You gotta ask yourself, how does a commercial litigator get to force someone to live if they don’t want to live.
And reading his reasoning for his judgement isn’t all that awe inspiring.
More of the “I know what’s good for you” father knows best B.S..
Gotta wonder if the outcome of this matter would have been any different had it been the husband that wanted to obtain M.A.i.D and the wife tried to stop the procedure vs. the wife wanting to obtain M.A.i.D. and the husband wanting to stop the procedure.
From the article “Coval said he recognized the injunction “is a severe intrusion into (the woman’s) personal and medical autonomy.”
“I can only imagine the pain she has been experiencing and I recognize that this injunction will likely make that worse,” he said. “
So, he was cognizant of the pain this woman is enduring, and he even acknowledged that this judgement was going to make things worse for this woman. But he obviously didn’t care when it came to imposing his opinion on another person.
Simon then takes of his commercial litigator’s hat and puts on his neuroscience expert’s hat and concludes “As I’ve said, the evidence suggests (her) situation appears to be a mental health condition or illness without a link to any physical condition and it may not only be remediable, but remediable relatively quickly,” he said.
Let me tell you a little secret about mental health treatment and mental health therapy Simon. All this shit does is teaches you how to mask your fucking issues so that no one has to hear your whinging and suffering.
That’s what the pills are for.
That’s what the therapy is for.
I’m the one who came from a dysfunctional military household.
I’m the one who endured the rage and anger of an alcoholic member of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I’m the one who was raised by his alcoholic grandmother that was suffering mental trauma from her time in Indian Residential School.
I’m the one who spent two years being sexually abused by his babysitter and escorted over to the base chapel to be given wine by a chaplain who would be charged with child sexual abuse.
I spent three years receiving “conversion therapy” from a military social worker that was hellbent on keeping a lid on the truth about CFB Namao.
I’m the one who had the military justice system slam the door in his face in 1977, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1990, 2011, 2018.
The Canadian Armed Forces helped my father avoid my apprehension by Alberta Social Services by transferring my father out of the jurisdiction of Alberta when Captain Totzke was informed about my impending apprehension.
I’m the one who spent his teenage years on Canadian Forces Base Downsview enduring the wrath of his father for having “fucked with his military career” and receiving physical abuse and mental abuse instead of receiving help with this diagnosed major depression and severe anxiety.
I’m the one who had to live with a father whose sole reason for keeping custody of the children he hated was so that he could control the costs.
I’m the one who had to live their life hating everything about themselves because that’s what was drilled into their fucking head.
And I am beyond fucking tired.
Pills don’t fucking work.
Therapy is all about telling your counsellor what they want to hear.
So I really don’t need an activist judge such as Simon R. Coval opining their personal beliefs.
I can promise you that if Coval had to walk 50 metres in my shoes he’d be a fucking babbling pile of tears begging for it to end.
I wasn’t wanted as a kid.
My parents got drunk and fucked.
That’s it.
That’s all.
My father always said that my mother tricked him into getting her pregnant so that she could trap him in the marriage.
My mother said that Richard was the one who wanted a kid, until he realized that he’d have to look after it.
I wasn’t wanted in the first place.
I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to be.
And I’m not going to let some activist judge like Justice Simon R. Coval, commercial litigator and neuroscientist deny me M.A.i.D. when M.A.i.D. finally becomes available.
Beeshive 