So, I flew up to Edmonton from Vancouver this morning.
Very quick flight.
Never have flown on an Airbus before, but now I did get to hear the infamous Airbus Barking Dog noise. And as I was over the wings it was quite loud. It’s nothing to be worried about, it’s just a hydraulic pump trying to equalize the pressure between two different hydraulic circuits.
I was waiting for the 747 bus to take me from YEG to one of the LRT stations.
While I was waiting a fellow passenger came up to me and introduced herself.
She said that she had loaded my blog onto her phone and read the blog on the flight.
Skye had discovered my blog when she googled my name that I have on my carry-on luggage.
It’s odd, outside of a few people related to the CFB Namao matter, and outside of a very select few people in Vancouver, no one has ever come up to me to talk about my blog.
She offered to drop me off on her Uber ride into Edmonton and she kept apologizing the whole time reassuring me that she wasn’t a stalker.
So, we talked on the way up to Edmonton. I’m sure the Uber driver thinks that I’m insane.
Skye had just come back from Australia. She’s actually a conductor for one of the railways, can’t remember if she works for CP or CN. She took some time off work to help her sisters run the family lumber mill after her father died a few years ago.
We’ll probably meet up for coffee or lunch in the next day or two.
I didn’t get much sleep last night, too many things ruminating in my skull to let me have a decent sleep last night.
Shout out to my stepmother Sue for not wanting to help out with this, Richard would have been so proud of her.
I’m almost 100% certain that Scott didn’t have a will. The police didn’t indicate that they found anything of the such.
So the first thing I have to do tomorrow is go pick up his ashes and his personal belongings from the crematorium. The I guess I’ll have to go to his apartment and see what’s up there and see if there’s any paperwork indicating what his finances were like. If he had a financed or leased car I’ll probably have to make arrangements for the dealer to come pick it up. I’ll see if there’s any documents and paperwork or photos of interest that I want and then the rest of his belongings will be going to wherever.
And then I’ll fly back to Vancouver.
In the meantime I’ve ridden around the city on the little Lime Scooters. Those things are a blast. They’re a lot more sketchy and jittery than my Segway scooter, but in a way that lends an interesting quirkiness to them.
I don’t know what I’ll do with Scott’s ashes. I could put them inside of a Jack-in-the-box and send the Jack-in-the-box to the Chief of Defence Staff.
alt text: Executive assistant to the CDS turns the crank while the CDS awaits.
I could go up to Edmonton Garrison and sprinkle his ashes at our old PMQ and other places around the base.
alt text: Bobbie sprinkles Scott’s ashes on a Defence Establishment while unimpressed CFNIS investigator stands around.
I think that the reality of the situation is starting to set in for people that are involved with my matter.
The Department of Justice has access to the following documents:
All the CFSIU investigation paper work from 1980, this includes documents that have never been released to the public.
All of the 1980 correspondence between Colonel Daniel Edward Munro, his superiors and his subordinates.
All of the CFNIS GO 2011-5754 paperwork from 2011 and 2015 to 2018 including all paper work that was never released to the Military Police Complaints Commission in 2012.
All of the correspondence between myself, the Provost Marshal, the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Minister of National Defence.
In a court matter, the complainant and the defendant need to submit to the court the documents that they intend to use to argue their case. The DOJ doesn’t have to supply copies of the records that they used, but by reading the documents indicated above, the DOJ can formulate a plausible defence and they wouldn’t have to submit copies of what they have accessed to the court.
And the thing is that my lawyers would never have any idea of what the DOJ has accessed as we have absolutely no idea of what documents the Department of National Defence supplied to the Department of Justice.
Another issue that stymies my case and puts the sexually abused children from CFB Namao at a severe disadvantage is the spectre of the Official Secrets Act / The Security of Information Act.
There are those who will say that I am blowing things out of proportion with the Official Secrets Act / the Security of Information Act.
The Security of Information Act replaced the Official Secrets Act.The Official Secrets Act specifically applies to ALL persons who were ever subjected to the Code of Service Discipline.
Section 4(1) states that anyone who was subject to the code of service discipline at the time they became aware of information while on a defence establishment is guilty of an offence if they ever tell anyone outside of persons they are authorized to pass that information on to.
“Having in his possession or control any secret official word” -comma- “password” -comma- “sketch” -comma- “password” -comma- “sketch” -comma- “plan” -comma- “model” -comma- “article” -comma- “note” – comma- “document” -or- “information that relates to or is used in a prohibited place”. The adjective “secret” applies only to “official word”. The commas do not apply the adjective secret to every subsequent clause.
In other words the first sentence of Section 4(1) reads as “Having in his possession or control any secret official word” or “password” or “sketch” or “password” or “sketch” or “plan” or “model” or “article” or “note” or “document” or “information that relates to or is used in a prohibited place”.
The first sentence of Section 4(1) DOES NOT read as “Having in his possession or control any secret official word” ,” secret password” ,” secret sketch” ,” secret password” ,” secret sketch” ,” secret plan” ,” secret model” ,” secret article” ,” secret note” ,” secret document” or ” secret information that relates to or is used in a prohibited place”.
What is a “prohibited place”?
Basically, any Canadian Armed Forces base in Canada is a prohibited place. Any chapel located on a Canadian Forces Base is a prohibited place. Any military police detachment located on a Canadian Forces Base is a prohibited place. Any CFSIU or CFNIS detachment is a prohibited place. Any private married quarters located on a defence establishment is a prohibited place. Any military social worker’s office located on a defence establishment is a prohibited place. Any school located on a defence establishment prior to 1994, would also be considered a prohibited place.
What is “information”? Information is not specifically defined in the Act, so I will go with the dictionary definition of “information”.
Merriam-Webster defines “information” as “knowledge”, “intelligence”, “news”, “facts”, “data”.
So……… anyone who was an active member of the Canadian Armed Forces and who was subject to the Code of Service Discipline back in the period of time between 1978 and 1980 and knew about the exploits of Captain Father Angus McRae or the babysitter, or knew any of the details of the investigation, or knew why the brass didn’t call in the RCMP to deal with the babysitter, or knew who exactly it was that limited the charges against Captain McRae to only those charges related to the babysitter, is forever prohibited from discussing these facts or observances with anyone at anytime without the expressed permission of the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence, and the Department of Justice.
This explains why Fred R. Cunningham had no problem telling me what he knew about the events in 1980, but shut his mouth pretty damn quick when I told the Provost Marshal in December of 2011 what Fred had told me in Nov of 2011. This is the same Provost Marshal that told me in January of 2012 that they couldn’t figure out who Fred Cunningham was and that I couldn’t put faith in what he had to say even though it would turn out that Fred Cunningham was the Acting Section Commander of the CFSIU in 1980 and was personally charged by Base Security Officer Captain David Pilling with investigating Captain McRae for “acts of homosexuality with young boys on the base”.
Fred even refused t0 be interviewed by the CFNIS in 2016 stating that he would only talk to the CFNIS if there were no records or recordings. The only thing that Fred did state as a matter of fact was that the “Provost Marshal threw the CFSIU to the dogs” in 1980. Reading the court martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork, it appears that the Chain of Command was upset with the CFSIU for digging up more victims than was required.
If you’ve ever wondered why there aren’t more victims of military child sexual abuse from the military communities coming forward. It was all treated as a secret back then, and it’s all treated as a secret in the modern day with the people who could be our champions forever silenced by the Official Secrets Act and its very overly broad application to members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Was at the doctor this morning for my monthly check-up.
My blood work is progressing along nicely.
He doesn’t think that the collapse that I had last month had anything to do with me being on anti-depressants or taking estrogen for my hormone therapy.
I’ve had a long running history of syncope. BP was 112 over 73. Not bad.
And my liver seems okay with the estrogen.
My testosterone results were online at the time of my appointment and they were around 1.1. I’d like to get those down as low as possible, but we’ll have to wait and see whether I can do this chemically or if I can do this surgically.
So, I’ve graduated up to three patches twice a week. That’s 150 microgram of estradiol per day. Whooo-Hoooo!
My most recent blood test revealed that I am at 479 pmol/l which is the same as a woman in her early 20s
I’m aiming to go for an estradiol level of 800 pmol/l which is about 210 pg/ml. This is equivalent to a woman in her late 20s.
Puberty to maturity in less than 6 months.
And then there’s going to be the eventual tapering off.
My body is old. Usually human bodies only undergo one sexual development and maturity per lifetime. Putting my body through a second sexual development and maturity is gonna be tough on it.
Is it worth it?
I think so.
I get a taste of what could have been.
I realize that there was absolutely no way that I could have transitioned early in life, especially not as a kid living on Canadian Armed Forces bases.
And even in my adult life, there would have been very few chances I could have had to have transitioned previously.
In a way, no matter how much psychological trauma I had to endure being involved with the Canadian Armed Forces “justice” system from 2011 until 2020, I wouldn’t have ever been able to contemplate transitioning until I came to realize just how damaged and fucked up the Canadian Armed Forces are and how as an organization they’re willing to destroy the lives of those they deem to be inconsequential so long as the CAF can persevere its public image.
Once I realized just how ethically damaged and psychologically challenged members of the Canadian Armed Forces such as Colonel Daniel Edward Munro, Captain Terry Totzke, and Master Corporal Richard Wayne Gill were I began to realize that all of the hose shit that Captain Totzke and Mcpl Gill had shovelled into my head from age 9 to age 16 was nothing more that the military’s standard bullshit that was deployed to keep secrets.
As I said previously, when my brother called me in 2019 to let me know that Richard had died in 2017, I felt an honest sense of relief knowing that the silly fucker was dead and gone.
And that was when I started putting some serious thought into transitioning.
The fun thing about being the chief engineer at work is that bad designs by professional engineers for projects that were put in well before my time in the Captain’s chair are somehow my fault.
Friday was a 17 hour day and Saturday was a 6 hour day dealing with the A/C for a freezer room that hadn’t been designed correctly from the start, had absolutely no redundancy, and had been packed with more biological -80 freezers than it was designed to accommodate.
Had to bring in 70 kW of emergency cooling to deal with the room. This emergency cooling was comprised of four 17.5 kW water cooled A/C units.
Water hoses all over the place distributing city water to the A/C units to cool the compressors in the A/C units with the warm water going down the drain.
Had to get electrical in to install four 208 volt 3 phase plugs for the A/C units.
These units got the room under control and are cycling on and off which means that they have ample cooling capacity. More than the four 12.5 kW split A/C units that are in the room.
When sizing mechanical refrigeration for an area, if the unit is running 100% of the time and it can barely maintain its set point, the unit is grossly undersized. If the unit only comes on for 5 minutes and shuts off again, the unit is grossly oversized. For a simple reciprocating compressor with no capacity control a 20 minute run cycle with 10 to 15 minutes off between runs is about right.
So, tomorrow I gotta propose a solution for this.
Most of the system I’ll design.
I’ll propose using either four water cooled 17.5 kW units or four water cooled 35 kW units. Four 35 kW units would give the best option for redundancy. If I can get them to spring for four 35kW units, then I can have N+1 redundancy with the ability to do Lead / Lag alternating with extra capacity for out-of-the-ordinary extreme days.
I’d have to get the appropriate fluid coolers for this setup. Again, nothing too fancy, just some adiabatic coolers. I could also get some air coils put into the air handler for the Emergency Department or the 2 East unit so that the heat from the freezer room could be used to pre-heat the fresh air in the cool weather thus reducing our steam bills for these two air handlers. When pre-heat isn’t required for the Emergency Department or the 2 East unit the adiabatic cooler would just reject the heat to the atmosphere.
Pipes would have to be installed up the side of the building, but they’re tearing the place down in about 6 years, so………. And I’ve always been a function over form type of guy. And it’s not like they’d look horrible. Probably be a pair of 76mm pipes.
So, we’ll see what I’m up for tomorrow when I get in to work.
Okay, so the babysitter matter seems to be winding its way through the lawyers, which is nice.
But one matter that won’t ever get taken care of is the ’95 mugging.
As I mentioned previously in other postings, I had been to a late show at the Capitol 6 on Granville St. I went to see Congo at the Capitol 6.
Going to the late shows was something that I got into the habit of when I first moved to Vancouver. This was due to the fact that most of the jobs I had were evening jobs.
Most of the theatres on Granville were running late shows. The theatre on the south west corner of Granville and Smyth was forever showing Bob Guccione’s “Caligula”, the Caprice was showing films like Clockwork Orange, 2001 A Space Odyssey, and old black and white films.
Once the City of Vancouver turned Granville Street into Booze Can Alley in the early 2000’s all of the theatres were converted into booze cans / night clubs. The Capitol 6 was shut down in the early 2000’s to make way for condos. The Granville 7 ceased operations in the late 2000. Outside of the Vogue theatre, which itself was at risk of being gutted and converted into a bar, there are no movie theatres left on Granville St.
In July of ’95 I was working for Elashi developments / Lois Lanes Bowling & Billiards out in East Richmond on Gilley Road. I got off work as I usually did at 22:00 and I caught the #410 to 22nd street station. And like I did every Friday previously, I took the train downtown instead of into New West.
I forgot what I wanted to see, but I ended up seeing a movie called “Congo”. This movie was panned and reviled by the critics at the time, but the film that I had wanted to see wasn’t going to be shown as the film hadn’t arrived on time.
Young kids these days will never know the frustration of showing up to a theatre and being unable to see a film because it didn’t arrive in time, it got sent to the wrong theatre , or it got so damaged that the theatre had to request a new print. Nowadays theatres get their movies either via digital satellite download, or by a hard drive package.
Before leaving the bowling centre, Rosa had given a fist full of Canadian Tire money as she knew I was planning on going to Canadian Tire the next day to pick up some parts for a car that I was trying to get running.
I’ve gone into detail on this matter before, so I’m not going to go into the details again. But to quickly recap, some guy and his girlfriend in the concession stand line mistook the Canadian Tire money in my pocket as high denomination bills.
Security tape from the theatre showed them leaving the concession line as soon as I did, and they followed me right into the theatre. The same tape also apparently showed them leaving the theatre and following me right out the front doors.
The movies would end around 01:30 to 02:00 and as is still the case these days, there is no Skytrain back east at these hours. The only way to get home to New West was to catch the #19 which would make its way from downtown to Stanley Park. And the only way to get a seat on the #19 would be to board the bus over at Pender and Burrard. And that’s where I was heading after the movie was over.
The blue asterisk is where the Capitol 6 used to be. The Yellow dot at Pender and Burrard was my intended destination. The black star is as far as I made it.
Looking south on Burrard to West Georgia.
This is where I got “clubbed”.
Didn’t hear much except for somebody running up behind me. As I had just passed the bus stop in the photo I assumed that it was just someone running either for the bus or was running down to Pender to get the #19.
The guy was about 6′ tall, East Indian male, beard, well built.
The female was white, about 5’6″, white heels, white mini-skirt.
He was armed with a red steering wheel club.
From what I can remember, he didn’t have this is the theatre.
The female was armed with a fair sized kitchen knife. I distinctly remember the three rivets in the handle.
I don’t think that most people walk around with a 10″ chef’s knife in their purse.
The only thing that I can think of is that they had a car parked nearby. And if they were this quick to arm themselves, this probably wasn’t the first time they had jumped someone.
He kept striking me with the club as I was on the ground and kicking me in the back and in the head. As he tried to search my pockets for the “money” he’d keep telling the female to stab me with the knife if I tried to fight back or tried to hit him.
All they managed to get was my wallet that didn’t contain much in money. The security guards from the Hyatt Regency raced over and chased them two suspects away.
Hyatt Regency hotel across the street where the two security guards came from.
I spent Saturday morning getting stitches in my scalp from the blows from the club.
The Vancouver Police Department officer, Constable Gil Puder, was a complete jerk. Even the nurse putting my stitches in was getting upset with him and told him that his questions were inappropriate and that he’d have to leave.
As he walked away he tossed the statement sheet on my stretcher and said that when I felt like telling him the truth I could fill the form in and get it back to him
When I was released Rosa came to pick me up and drove me back to my apartment.
My jacket had so much blood in it that when it dried out it was not flexible. I had to crunch it up to get it into the washing machine.
Looking North on Burrard to Pender.
I went back downtown on Monday. I was hoping to find my wallet as it had all of my identification in it. When I got to the place where I had been mugged, the maintenance crew from Park Place were outside using the pressure washer to clean my blood off the sidewalk. I guess it had dried on Saturday and Sunday and was proving difficult to clean off.
I traced my steps from the Saturday morning and I figured out that it had to be someone from around the movie theatre. It was just by chance that I decided to ask the theatre if they had a video tape of the Friday night.
The manager was nice, she asked me for a description of the people, and then she went to view the video tape. She came back about 20 minutes later and said that she saw the two people I had described and me. She said that they were in the concession lineup next to me, they seemed to get excited when I pulled something out of my pocket, and then the left the lineup and followed me right into the theatre. When the movie was over they followed me right out. When I went to the washroom, he followed me into the washroom, and then he followed me right out.
What did they get excited about?
The Canadian Tire money.
The manger said that she would put the tapes aside and if the VPD officer wanted to come by and pick them up that they’d be waiting.
I called constable Puder.
Nope, he wasn’t buying it.
He had made up his mind that I was a gay male prostitute and that I tried picking this guy up in a gay bar and that until I admitted the truth he wasn’t going to waste his time.
Now, after having spent three years in the care of Terry Totzke for issues related to the apparent homosexuality that I had exhibited when I “allowed” myself to be molested, I wasn’t in the right mindset to deal with this.
I still don’t know what it was that made Puder think that I was gay, let alone a prostitute.
First, I didn’t drink, so I wouldn’t be anywhere near a bar.
And at that point in my life, you couldn’t have found me anywhere near Davie Street. I would have gone out of my way to stay away from any place like Davie street.
Second, I was still quite fucked up from having been dealt with by Terry Totzke, so I wasn’t even sexually interested in anything back then.
Was it the way that I dressed?
Was it some sort of lisp that I wasn’t aware that I had?
Was it my moustache that I had at the time?
Was it my haircut?
At the time I had been mugged it would have been 12 years since being dealt with by Terry Totzke for being a “homosexual”.
I survived working at Classic Billiards with my sexuality being questioned by the two co-owners who were police officers with the Metropolitan Toronto Police service.
I lost a job that I had moved to in Toronto for because my manager hadn’t been told that he was getting a fruit.
So, to have constable Puder literally blame me for getting myself mugged it was the CFB Namao matter all over again.
When cops tell you that there is no such thing as the “thin blue line”, they’re full of shit. The problem with cops is they’re trained in the “us vs. them” mentality. They’re trained, and it’s drilled into their skulls, that they are the only ones standing between law & order and the complete collapse of society.
And the VPD had all sorts of problems back in the ’90s. The dysfunction within the VPD is what led to Robert Pickton’s murder spree in the DTES.
When I went into the VPD on Main Street and tried to make a complaint against Puder and to ask for the case to be transferred to another constable I was literally shown the front doors of the Main St. station and told to get out and that if I came back again that I’d be charged with trespassing and harassment.
Puder died in the late ’90s.
I had someone I knew suggest that Puder’s brain tumour had fucked him up so badly that his brain was fried.
So whaddya think?
Was it Puder’s brain tumour that fucked up his common sense?
Or is “gaydar” a real thing and that gay/bi/trans people give off “signals”?
I mean, the babysitter and McRae, Totzke, Earl, Ed, Dirk, Don, Puder, Ron, Alex, and others can’t have just been randomly guessing that I was “gay”.
Even the kids at Pierre Laporte in North York often claimed that I was gay, a fag, a homo, that I walked like a girl, etc.
I do have the VPD incident report, and except for the notes from the morning that I was in the hospital, there’s nothing else to the investigation. I guess that Puder really did kill the investigation.
And so this one will go down as another unsolved crime.
Work is interesting, but it’s extremely stressful. And not in a good way.
People ask if I’m going to the new site when it opens.
FUCK NO.
Three people on the committee planning the new site made it very clear that I am personna non grata at the new site, so fuck it. My life has enough shit going on in it, I don’t need to go there and take a shit shower from these three.
I love it when my ideas and suggestions and ideas are “too outlandish”, and “too silly”, and “completely unjustified”. But yet they show up in the current build as someone else’s proposal.
I was so looking forward to having made my application for M.A.i.D. this past March, but the fucking milquetoast liberals got a bad case of the chicken shits at the last moment.
Basically I’m holding on to my current job as kinda a massive “fuck you!” to certain federal agencies in Canada that decided that my mental health was expendable.
I’m also holding on to my current job to spite all of the corporate bag lickers and pole smokers from my past jobs that said that I would never amount to anything because I was too damaged.
Once operations at the new site start to wind down in 2027 I should have a better idea as to whether or not I’ll be able to undergo M.A.i.D.
If the right wing tide of hate keeps sweeping across North America then M.A.i.D. will still be unavailable for persons such as myself.
If that’s the case then my intentions are to stay at the old site until it shuts down in 2030.
By that time I’ll be able to retire and walk away from it all.
When will the federal government ever learn that the Canadian Armed Forces are incapable of operating their own police service.
The Canadian Forces Provost Marshal has absolutely no business whatsoever investigating or prosecuting for any criminal code offence.
Since my first tango with the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal and the Military Police Complaints Commission in 2013 I’ve always said that there is massive fuckery afoot within the confines of the Provost Marshal’s office.
What type of batshit insane lunacy allows for the provost marshal to determine what, if any, information will be handed over to the military police complaints commission?
Nothing more than poorly written legislation that allows the provost marshal to do so at whim.
Now, I fully understand that there will be those amongst you that will say “But Bobbie, why didn’t you tell the MPCC about the missing information”.
That’s not how it works.
That’s not how any of this works.
When a person makes a complaint about a military police investigation, the first place it goes is to the exact agency that you’ve made a complaint against.
And actually, a person such as myself can’t complain about an investigation or the outcome of an investigation. The only persons who can complain about interferance in an investigation are the investigators. But the MPCC pointed out previously that relying on the investigators themselves to make interferance complaints on their own may be impossible as the investigator themself may be completely unaware of any interference if the interference occurs high enough up the chain of command.
All a person like me can complain about is the actions of specific investigators.
If the investigation went off the rails due to “lawful” commands from up the chain of command, the last thing that the provost marshal will do is publically announce that the Vice Chief of Defence Staff or someone higher up gave instructions to the CFNIS about the investigation.
Remember, under the National Defence Act the Provost Marshal is directly subordinate to the Vice Chief of Defence Staff, and that the VCDS has the full authority under the National Defence Act to issue instructions to ANY CFNIS investigation.
The provost marshal has absolutely no interest in covering themselves with shit. So the first thing they do is they take the information in your complaint and use that to sanitze the complaint investigation. They know that you’re more than likely going to make a follow up complaint to the Military Police Complaints Commission so they take all of the information they have at hand and then package it up in a pretty little package with a pretty little bow on top.
Even gift wrapped, it’s still just shit.
And as luck would have it, the Military Police Complaints Commission has to accept whatever documents the provost marshal choses to pass along to the MPCC. During a complaint review the MPCC cannot subpoena documents, it cannot subpoena witnesses, it cannot administer oaths.
As recently as 2015 the Military Police Complaints Commission said that it really didn’t know how the Canadian Forces Military Police Group operated as it had never been given access to the orders and procedures governing the military police. And this means that the MPCC might not even know what evidence to ask for.
Globe and Mail interview with then chairman Glenn StannardFrom the interview of Glenn Stannard by Gloria Galloway
It’s not very confidence inspiring when the agency overseeing a particular agency doesn’t know how that agency is supposed to work.
When I was interviewed by the MPCC in July of 2012 I seriously felt sick to my stomach after the interview. I went for a very, very long walk and it took ever fibre in my body to keep from jumping off the Granville Bridge.
The two MPCC interviewers from Ottawa basically gave me a lecture on why they weren’t going to find any fault with the CFNIS investigation. They came to Vancouver with their minds made up already. The sad thing is, they’re retired civilian police officers who viewed the CFNIS as just being a military version of the civilian police and therefore their “brothers in blue”.
When I filed for Judicial Review in February of 2013, the CFNIS was required to forward to me a certified copy of all of the documents that the Provost Marshal had given to the MPCC in 2012.
It was fucking disturbing just how many records were missing and how many “errors” there were in the SAMPIS.
What an absolute fucking joke this was.
Basically what the Provost Marshal submitted to the MPCC was that I was a cheap two-bit conman looking to milk the Canadian Armed Forces for some easy money.
The MPCC really should have known better. But as it turns out it’s not allowed to know better.
“But Bobbie, why didn’t you introduce all off these missing documents during your hearing for Judicial Review”.
That’s the problem, you can’t.
Under the rules for MPCC Judicial Review you CANNOT introduce to the court ANY document or evidence that was not before the MPCC while they were conducting their review.
And the Chief of Defence Staff knows this.
And the Vice Chief of Defence Staff knows this.
And the Provost Marshal knows this.
The CDS, the VCDS, and the CFPM know that they can sell any bullshit story to the MPCC as the MPCC doesn’t have the power or authority to question what they’re being told.
And if the MPCC doesn’t like what it’s being told and instead wants to have an inquiry? That requires the permission of the Minister of National Defence.
Inquiries have too much potential to damage the Canadian Forces Military Police and that’s why they’re held so very infrequently. Just look at how damaging the MPCC review of the CFNIS investigation of the death of corporal Stuart Langridge was. The ass-whooping the CFNIS received from Michel Drapeau could never have happened anywhere outside of an MPCC inquiry.
“Shades of Somalia”
The military chain of command does NOT allow for independent investigations.
Yes, you’ll have the provost marshal and the Chief of Defence Staff and the Minister of National Defence tripping all over themselves to exclaim that investigators with the CFNIS are free and independent of the chain of command.
This is absolutely B.S. and they know it.
There are absolutely no exceptions to the service offence of “Insubordination” in the National Defence Act. All members of the Canadian Armed Forces are subject to being charged with having committed the service offence of “Insubordination” if they disobey the “lawful” command of a superior.
And yes, there is a significant difference between “lawful” and “legal”. Basically “legal” infers that the command does not violate any criminal code statute. “Lawful” just means that the person issuing the command has the authority to issue the command, lawful does not vouch for the legal status of the command.
Insubordination is the most serious service offence that a member of the Canadian Forces can commit. Insubordination comes with an automatic sentence of life in prison or a lesser sentence.
In between when I became ensnared with the defective military justice system in 2011 and now we’ve had the External Review conducted by Madame Marie Deschamps, a retired Supreme Court justice.
Then we had another External Review conducted by the Honourable Louise Arbor.
Both reviews basically said the exact same thing. The Canadian Forces Military Police are inept and unskilled when it comes to sexual assault investigations.
Then we had the Third Independent Review of the National Defence Act conducted by the Honourable Morris J. Fish, a retired Supreme Court justice.
While Mr. Fish makes some very powerful recommendations it would appear that Mr. Fish was shielded from the fact that the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal often overstep their jurisdictional boundaries and involve themselves with investigations involving only civilians. This runs counter to the spirit of CFPM 2120-4-0.
These reviews resulted in the Minister of National Defence instructing the military police in 2021 to hand over all sexual assault investigations to the civilian police. The investigation into my complaint against the man in the sauna was retained by the CFNIS with no explanation as to why other than that I was told by the CFNIS that the CFNIS was the only police agency able to work on historical military cases.
And before my time there was the military police fiasco in Bosnia and then subsequently the military police fiasco in Somalia which led to the elimination of the CFSIU, the creation of the Provost Marshal, and the creation of the CFNIS.
And who can forget the “CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy”.
The CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy is well worth the read, and it highlights all of the long standing flaws in the National Defence Act and how civilians are an afterthought to the military justice system and how civilians are at a substantial disadvantage when navigating the military justice system.
And as the offences that are alleged to have occurred during the CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy occurred pre-1998, even if the RCMP were to become involved with this investigation they’d have to hand it right on over to the CFNIS as these offences occurred on a defence establishment making them service offences. And as we all know, there is a 3-year-time-bar on all service offences that occurred prior to 1998. Yes, Rape was a crime that was specifically excluded from prosecution by the military tribunal system, but there was nothing stopping the military police and the CFSIU at the time from investigating this matter. In fact as this occurred on a defence establishment it would have been well within the mandate of the base military police and the CFSIU to investigate. So yes, the 3-year-time-bar would apply. And as these service offences occurred prior to 1998, the commanding officer of the accused would be required to review the charges before sending these charges to the provincial crown prosecutor. There was no mechanism in the pre-1998 National Defence Act to allow for the military police or the CFSIU to bypass the commanding officer and go straight to the provincial crown.
And as luck would have it, the Military Police Complaints Commission is not allowed to look at or review pre-1998 military police or CFSIU investigations.
So here we are again. It’s now 2024 and the CFPM, the CFMPG and the CFNIS still exist.
How many more years of dysfunctional and unaccountable military police will Canadians be willing to endure? Or is this a case of “out of sight, out of mind”?
Will the recommendations from Deschamps, Arbour, and Fish amount to anything or will the MoD, the CDS, and the VCDS slap a fresh coat of paint over the mildewy wallpaper without addressing the rot and disease underneath?
The Provost Marshal and the military police, including the CFNIS need to be scaled down. They need to have their responsibilities limited to offences of a purely military nature. Any crime of a civilian nature that occurs on a defence establishment or involves someone subjected to the Code of Service Discipline, especially if the victims are civilian, needs to be handed over without question or delay to the outside civilian authorities having jurisdiction.
Sure, you’re going to get a lot of naysaying from those involved with the Canadian Forces. But that’s only because the people making those complaints understand the need for the military to retain its own police agency in order for the military to hide secrets from the civilian world.
Many of our NATO allies currently operate with civilian police attending to civilian matters and the military police attending to purely military matters. Doing the same in Canada shouldn’t be out of the question, and its definately preferable to allowing the military to keep doing its own thing.
Well, one thing that I’ve noticed over the past few weeks is how soft my skin is now.
Since I started taking estrogen a few weeks ago my skin has become noticeably softer and smoother.
And yes, this was to be expected, but I didn’t think that it would have been this noticeable.
My breasts are noticeable, but not that noticeable. I’ve seen guys with bigger Molson boobs than what I currently have.
They’re just barely large enough to show through my tops, but they are large enough to snag the shoulder strap of my laptop case.
I don’t think I’ll have to resort to the Judy Blume exercises…….
But hot damn my nipples are super sensitive.
My body fat feels different too. It’s a lot more squishy and jiggly.
Mood?
My mood is different. Can’t quite explain it, but it’s different.
I’ve got an appointment with my doc next week.
See how well my kidneys and liver are taking to the new hormones.
This will be the first of my never ending blood tests and we’ll see how much estrogen was in my bloodstream on the final day of the four day period for my patch.
We’ll decide if I stay with the same patches or if I go up in strength.
And we’ll eventually decide if I go on androgen blockers.
Then I’ll know for sure what the mood difference is between androgen and estrogen.
Sometimes when I go to apply a new patch, the exposed portion of the patch will fold over and touch itself. Because of the adhesive I can’t get that half apart. I wasn’t sure what to do with the 1/2s that were good. Well, I can actually cut off the stuck together part of two different patches and then use the good parts as one patch and cover them with Tegaderm. Just like new!
WordPress sometimes prompts me to write about a certain topic. It’s geared towards “family” type events.
There are very few that actually seem to apply to me.
Today’s prompt was somewhat interesting.
I think the biggest fear that I had in my life was my father.
I overcame that fear somewhat in 2006 during a series of phone calls that I had with him.
Then there was his death in January of 2017.
That was a major relief.
My brother thinks that I’m over exaggerating my fear of Richard, but as Dr. Gabor Maté observed, “no two children have the same parents”.
The most significant fear that I had of Richard was his temper. Richard had very poor impulse control and very poor control of his anger. He also couldn’t take into account the difference in physical strength between himself and the person he was lashing out at.
My fear of Richard only grew more intense when I became involved with military social worker Captain Terry Totzke.
Richard is dead and gone. And the world is probably better off for this. But his effects still haunt me and have left their traces upon me.
My grandmother was another person that I feared as a kid.
Her anger and her impulse control were worse than Richard’s, but at least she lacked the physical strength of Richard.
Alcohol. I’ve always feared being an alcoholic.
Both my father and my grandmother were intense alcoholics. Both were happy drunks for the most part. Conversely both were intensely angry people when they were sobering up.
I’ve had so little alcohol in my life I can almost remember every exact time.
The last time that I had a drink was back in July of 2011.
Before that it was January of 2010
Before that it was August of 2006
Before that it was September of 2005
Before that it was May of 1994
Before that it was sometime in the winter of 1990 in Gagetown, New Brunswick.
Before that it was sometime around 1986.
I can’t remember all of the “sips” that my father or my grandmother would give me when they were drunk.
I do remember the beer that grandma made me drink in the summer of 1984.
Most of these were just casual get-togethers when I was changing jobs and moving up the so called ladder.
But becoming an alcoholic has always been one of my fears.
Growing up on military bases I was exposed to a significant amount of alcoholism. It was as if being an alcoholic was a requirement to join the Canadian Forces back in the ’50s through the ’90s.
Being a “homosexual” and subsequently growing up to be like the babysitter was always a major fear of mine. Both Captain Totzke and my father would keep telling me that if I didn’t stop kissing, hugging, and being interested in other boys that I would grow up to be just like the babysitter and the priest from Namao.
Imagine the type of fear that would instil into a 9 to 11 year old.
Being told that you’d be going to a psychiatric hospital or jail for “allowing” the babysitter to do what he had done.
Beeshive 