When your adolescence and early adult years are spent trying to figure out the best way to kill yourself without looking like a loser, planning for a long life or planning for retirement aren’t really priority number one.
I still have no retirement plans.
As I’ve said before, I don’t exist outside of work.
The childhood I had didn’t lead me towards finding meaning for life within myself. The meaning for my existence has always come from working.
And to anyone who thinks of coming at me with “well, we’ve all had tough childhoods”……… you can go fuck yourself.
I’m tired.
Even more so since I got involved with the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service in 2011.
You can only be called a liar so many times by the Canadian Armed Forces before it really takes a toll on your mental health.
And let’s face it, my mental health wasn’t all that great to begin with before I sent that fateful email off to the Edmonton Police Service in March of 2011.
And believe me, getting called a scam artist by Harjit Sajjan didn’t help my depression or anxiety much either.
The only reason that Sajjan allowed the release of the courts martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork in 2020 is he realized that somehow I had become aware of the existence of the documents and he calculated the risk that I would somehow find out the contents of those documents and he didn’t want to have the public find out that I had been telling the truth about CFB Namao while he called me a scam artist to my face.
And my brother’s death has really reinforced for me the fact that no one really gives a shit.
So yeah, I have no intention of sticking around past 2027.
I have no intention of retiring and spending more time with my constant companions of betrayal, depression, anxiety, and CPTSD.
It was back in the winter of 1987 when I had learnt that Scott had impersonated me for the first time.
I had been a member of the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets at the Dennison Armouries on Dufferin and Wilson since the fall of 1984. I had achieved the rank of leading cadet, and with the exception of the ongoing issues involving Mr. Stevens, everything was looking up.
This was a Wednesday night parade night when the executive officer A/Slt John Potter pulled me aside and told me that my father wanted my brother Scott to join my corp. Mr. Potter said that he didn’t want my brother anywhere near the cadet corp.
I told Mr. Potter that there wasn’t anything that I would be able to do. If Richard wanted Scott in cadets, then Scott was going to be in cadets. And I knew better than to ask Richard to not let Scott join my corp. If Richard thought that I wasn’t sticking up for Scott then I was in for one fuck of a beating when I got back on base.
Don’t forget, in the fall of 1983, the North York Board of Education had to separate my brother and I and send us to separate schools due to “intense sibling rivalry”.
By the time 1987 rolled around, that “rivalry” only got much worse. Both Richard and Sue had washed their hands of any responsibility for Scott, and anytime that Scott got in trouble with the Toronto Police Service it was my fault for not looking after him.
Mr. Potter took me outside of the armouries and let me have a smoke.
“Bob, do you understand the trouble that your brother gets in to?”
All I could do is sigh. Nobody knew about CFB Namao. All I needed was for Mr. Potter to find out the truth about CFB Namao and myself, that I was some crazed homosexual that made the babysitter abuse his younger brother. And to make matters even worse were the ongoing events with Mr. Stevens, which would have surely cemented my status as a perverted homosexual.
“Bob, you know that I work with troubled youth, right?”
I didn’t pay much attention other than I was trying to hold back the tears. I loved cadets, but here was Richard trying to fuck me over. I was envisioning Scott joining cadets and fucking up and getting into trouble and then Richard blaming me for not looking after Scott.
“Bob, two weeks ago I was dealing with a couple of teens from a group home that had been arrested for B&Es when I overheard that my star cadet had been arrested for theft of a car.”
You think that I stole a car?
“No Bob. It was your brother. When I heard that ‘you’ had stolen a car I had to go see this for myself. I didn’t recognize the kid in the interview room. So I asked the officer what the kid’s name was. The officer gave me your full name, your social insurance number, and your date of birth”
Oh, don’t worry, my father will say that it was my fault that he stole the car.
“Your brother wasn’t too happy with me when I told the investigator that I knew who that name and D.O.B. belonged to”
How did you find out that it was Scott. I know at least 3 of his friends that would give false names if they were arrested.
“When your father came to pick him up. Your father seemed very reluctant to give the police your brother’s name. Your father didn’t seem too concerned about what Scott had done in either stealing the car or using your name”
I lit up a second smoke. And you think that I can tell my father to not let Scott join my corp. Scott’s the little angel that can’t do anything wrong. No matter what the fuck he does, Richard and Sue blame me.
“I don’t mind working with kids that get into trouble Bob. Kids fuck up. Kids need help. But, your brother is different. He won’t admit that he’s done wrong”
Welcome to my life Mr. Potter. Anything that he’s done is my fault. Richard said that it’s my fault for not looking after him.
“Then it’s settled, just tell your father that you don’t feel comfortable with your brother in the corp. Ask your father to send your brother to another cadet corp. Preferably at a different location.”
He wasn’t listening. Just alike all of the other adults in my life up to that point in time. Just in one ear and out the other.
I went back in to the armouries, got my stuff, and left even through classes were about to begin.
I showed up the next week and got a demerit for leaving without permission the week before.
And the following week my brother showed up as a new entry.
Not too long later the CFB Borden event occurred.
And then between home life on Canadian Forces Base Downsview, the ongoing matter with Mr. Stevens, and Mr. Potter’s misdirected displeasure for not dissuading my father from making Scott join my corp., I quit cadets.
How many other times in my life did Scott impersonate me? I don’t know. Sure, finger printing should have easily cleared up any criminal investigation. But there are many types of investigations that wouldn’t necessarily result in finger prints being taken but that would tag my name and D.O.B. in these investigations.
I know that on New Year’s Eve 2000 in Vancouver, my brother gave my name and my D.O.B. when he was found riding without a fare on the Skytrain.
I only know this because the fine for this went to collections in 2006.
I get a call from a collections agency asking when I wanted to resolve the $40 fine.
I asked them for a copy of the ticket, so they sent me a copy of the ticket that was issued
It was my D.O.B. and my full complete name. The address was fake, but the postal code for the area of the address had the address actually existed was correct. The box on the ticket that said “ID Produced” was checked “N” meaning that the person giving my name didn’t produce any ID. There was a second piece of paper signed by another fare inspector stating that they witnessed the person using my name refuse to sign the fare evasion ticket.
As ICBC was responsible for the ticket in the first place, I had to go through their dispute process. They asked me why they should believe me that this wasn’t my fare evasion ticket.
Simple.
I was working from 22:00 on December 31st, 1999 until 06:00 January 1st, 2000 for a property management company downtown Vancouver as we had to be on standby for the much overblown “Y2K” bug that was expected to plunge the world into chaos. We had to be in the buildings to ensure that the automation systems didn’t crash.
And I lived in the West End of Vancouver, so being on the Skytrain heading out to Surrey at 00:30 made no sense.
“That might work for your name, but how did they get your social insurance number?”
I had been mugged in Vancouver in July of 1995. My wallet was stolen. Maybe whoever stole it used my SIN?
The collections was cancelled. But I get the sense that ICBC and Translink have a folder on hand with my name in it waiting for me to pull another fare evasion so they can jump up and down screaming “We knew you lied!!!!”.
Prior to September 11th, 2001 I had frequently crossed into the United States. I’d driven down from Vancouver. I’d taken the bus down from Vancouver. I’d even walked across land crossings numerous times.
But after 9/11 when crossing the border placed one under extreme scrutiny I didn’t dare cross. Even though I knew in 2006 that it was probably Scott that had used my name, I couldn’t prove it so I didn’t push it. But outside of Mr. Potter, other people had told me at various times that Scott had claimed to be me.
And no matter how much I wanted to drop down to Portland or Seattle for a weekend, I didn’t want to run the risk that Scott had used my name and got into some sort of trouble that would have made crossing the border impossible at the least or a criminal affair at the most.
I had my passport since 2010. But I still didn’t try to cross the border.
I wouldn’t cross the border until 2013 when I was in Ottawa Ontario to drop off a letter at National Defence Headquarters. A childhood friend of mine from CFB Shearwater lived in Ottawa at the time. She wanted to meet up while I was in Ottawa. She planned a day trip for us and her sister to go to Boldt Island in New York State. Fuck was I ever nervous at the border crossing.
Nothing strikes fear into me like “Have you ever been arrested”. This doesn’t mean arrested and charged, or arrested and convicted. This means just arrested. And this also includes “has there ever been an arrest warrant issued for you”, meaning has there ever been an arrest warrant issued in your name.
Border agents don’t often have hours to sit down and listen to 40 years of a fucked up life.
I have no fucking idea of where Scott used my name.
I know that he used my name back in 1987 related to car theft charges.
I know that he used my name on January 1st, 2000 for a fare evasion ticket.
Where the fuck else has he used my identity?
Do I blame Scott for using my identity?
Not really.
Richard and Sue taught Scott that he really wasn’t responsible for anything, that everything was all my fault. So it only follows that he would take the next step and not just blame me but transfer the trouble to me.
Hit me up with the Midazolam, propofol, rocuronium, and bupivacaine. It’s been an interesting life, but I’m tired of all of this horseshit.
Two weeks ago I went to see a photographer who took some pictures.
The last time Albert took some pictures of me was back before COVID-19
I honestly have no idea of where I would have ended up in life had I not been raised in a severely dysfunctional family.
Richard was not the type of parent to foster any type of growth.
Shut you fucking mouth. Why the fuck do you have to listen to that shit? Just go to school and take some fucking basket weaving courses and stare at the fuclking blackboard.
I learnt electronics from Richard? Not fucking likely.
I learnt automotive mechanics from Richard? Definitely a big fucking no there.
Surely Richard instilled a love of computers in you? Between 1987 and 2000 I didn’t own a computer. Never really had an interest in computers. Sure, I use the internet for my blogs, and doing research and such, but nope, no great love for computers
I was into make-up in the period of 2006 to 2011, but my dealings with the Canadian Armed Forces destroyed me emotionally and mentally. In a way I probably should have listened to Richard.
Wearing make-up died.
But my dresses never left.
Anyways, enjoy the pictures…………
This dress has a ton of fabric.MeMe againYep, me againGuess who?BlueYet another dressUh-oh my slip is showing…..
They’e good to ride and easy to fix, but that’s it.
Scooters?
Nope.
Cheap to ride and charge, but that’s it really.
Camping?
Nope.
Travel?
Nope.
Music?
Yes, but just listening to music, anything musical inside of me was successfully killed by my father.
Television / movies?
Nope. Thankfully Richard and Sue didn’t want us in the PMQ while we were kids, so going for long lonely walks as a kid to keep the pain of the cold at bay is what I would do instead of getting hooked on TV as a kid.
Sports.
Fuck no. I loved sports before the events of CFB Namao. But after Captain Totzke said that I could never play sports due to my “homosexuality” I grew to resent sports. Besides, I learnt from my father to despise hockey and such. He didn’t hate hockey. He loved it. He would sit at home screaming and yelling at the TV screen getting pissed of angry and drunk when the Toronto Makebeliefs would lose a game, which was almost every game back in the ’80s. When Richard was ranting and railing against his favourite team you didn’t dare disturb him.
Electronics have always been something that I was able to use on jobs to keep my employment and offset my depressed personailty.
People can detect my issues long before they’ve ever talked to me.
The one thing that I always had was my ability to do techinical work that was far above the pay grade of the job that I was applying for.
When I started working at Lions Gate Lanes in 1992 I wasn’t “one of the guys”. I didn’t hang out with the men’s bowling leagues and shoot the shit about sports teams and tit’s ‘n’ ass like the other mechanics would. But what I did have going for me is that I could repair the CPU and Video boards for the AS-80 scoring system, along with the optical scanners. Repairing the overhead video monitors was extremely beneficial.
I could do the same mechanical work that everyone else was expected to do, but I could use my electronics knowledge to offset that I wasn’t a “team player” like the other guys.
When Lions Gate Lanes closed down in the summer of 1993 I was offered a position at a bowling centre in Mississauga owned by the same company.
The head mechanic out there wasn’t going to be told what he had to do by a West Coast manager. And besides, I wouldn’t drink with the boys, I didn’t get a kick out of the girlie posters in the work shop, and I didn’t shoot the shit with the boys.
People find it odd that I don’t “check” people out or enjoy porn, or pin ups, or talking about sex in general. Y’all can thank Captain Totzke for that odd aspect of my personality.
People often take my lack of interest in girls, not as a general lack of interest in sex, but as a sign that I’m gay.
Yeah, I’ve sucked dick in my life.
But that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re a homosexual, right?
Not being interested in girls doesn’t have anything to do with the abused you suffered at the hands of the babysitter. Nope. Not being interested in girls = being a homo.
Anyways the head mechanic at Mississauga wasn’t going to have a homo in his shop.
This is why I was able to get my employment insuarnce claim re-opened after they completed their investigation.
When I came back to Vancouver I would end up getting a job at a small bowling cente in East Richmond. The centre was brand new and had only been open since 1989. It had the latest computerized pinsetters. And that was a major problem. Their mechanics couldn’t do any type of electronic repairs or electronic troubleshooting.
I came in and was able to repair just about everything in the centre. Pinsetter CPU boards, I/O boards/ power supplies, AS-90 Scoring system, etc. Plus I could MIG weld which was beneficial as this pinsetter was made from stamped sheet metal and would often suffer cracks.
I never did get sent for factory training at either bowling centre.
You’re far too smart.
But without factory training there would be absolutely no advancement.
I started working in commercial office buildings in 1998.
Working on the building automation systems was a piece of cake as I had a good understanding of electronics and computers.
But more of the same shit.
When you’re dealing with tenants that pay thousands of dollars per month in rent, they want special treatment, and it’s expected that you’ll kiss their asses and tickle their nutsacks whe requested.
Fixing things is what I do.
Blowing sunshine up the ass of some rich trustfund brat who’s running his “own” company because daddy gave him a $500,000.00 loan wasn’t a skill of mine.
Heaping praise on someone who makes their living from trading penny stocks and scamming seniors with investment scams wasn’t a skill that I was very good at.
Want your lights fixed?
I’m your man.
Want your heatpump replaced?
I’m your man.
Want your nutsack tickled because you fell into a CEO position that your father bought for you?
Go fuck yourself.
Bobbie, why didn’t you just go to trade school or take a diploma program?
Well, calling up daddy and stepmommy for a loan or help with getting a loan, or help with a place to live was not in the cards .
At this point in time I had no idea where my mother was, and as I would find out when I located her in 2013 and talked to her, it wouldn’t have been of any use.
And then there’s the problem of my depression and my anxiety and my intense self loathing.
I would have been absolutely terrified of approaching my father for any type of help with as any failure in a trade or diploma program would have only elicited more scorn and derision from him.
So I took Power Engineering. Started with my 5th class refrigeration operator, and then did my 4th class.
I thought that Power Engineering would be something. But its not.
There’s a misconception in property management and plant management that Power Engineers are engineers.
They’re not.
They have an understanding of refrigeration plant operation, boiler plant operating, operating low pressure and high pressure thermal plants, operating low pressure and high pressure steam plants, firing oil fired boilers, natural gas fired boilers, oil fired boilers, black liquor fired boilers, and fluidized bed boilers. They understand thermodynamics, psychrometrics, enthalpy, and other basic principles of physics.
But that’s not what the majority of empoloyers that require power engineers on site hire power engineers for.
The vast majority of employers just hire power engineers to satisfy the basic requirement to meet provincial regulations of having a power engineer on site while the boilers or chillers are in operation.
The vast majority of plants that hire power engineers are looking for “Johnny the janitors” who can look after stuff that janitors can look after, but the employers cheap out and just dump all of the work that doesn’t require a TQ on to the power engineers.
If I had a chance to do my life over again, what would I do?
Probably something in fashion, or theatrics.
Back at Pierre Laporte I used to do the lighting for school productions and I’d look after the sound.
I was good enough at this that Mr. Ford got me a weekend job at a local P.A. rental shop repairing lighting and sound equipment.
I like clothing.
I love dresses and mix and matching with dresses.
As I’ve said numerous times, I’ll never understand why men don’t wear dresses.
For some reason when it comes to dresses and my manner of dressing, I don’t give two fucking shits what anyone thinks.
I don’t identify as a women.
I don’t want to be a woman.
But I love dresses.
I liked make-up when I was into it in the period of 2006 to 2011.
But then again I bought myself a nice little sewing machine a few years ago.
I got rid of it a short while ago.
It was painful looking at it as it sat in my apartment unused.
See, every time I tried to use it Richard was there screaming at me for being such a silly fucker.
My brother doesn’t understand what it’s like having Richard and Terry living in my head.
So, as it turns out a coworker and their spouse have discovered my blog, and they’ve been reading it.
We had a little talk on Thursday about the contents of my blog.
Of course they haven’t had the chance to digest the entire blog, so I thought that I would write this post which quickly recaps everything I feel to be of importance.
At the end I’ll recap my reasons for desiring Medical Assistance in Dying.
I was born into a very dysfunctional military family.
My father’s mother had been through Indian Residential school as a child and bore the emotional damage that one could expect. Grandma was a full fledged alcoholic by the time she was in her late teens / early twenties. She had my uncle Norman when she was about 16. She had my father when she was 23. Uncle Norman was full Cree. My father was half Cree half Irish.
My grandmother raised my father and my uncle Doug on her own and she obviously transferred her emotional damage to my father as he was already a very heavy drinker when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1963 at age 17. His academic abilities were nothing to be proud of as his grade 9 math had to be upgraded before he could officially join the navy. His academic skills left a lot to be desired and he was of no help to me with school related topics.
In fact, teachers calling home would often enrage him beyond all reason. To him, school was a daycare centre where children were sent to keep their mouths shut and to stare at the chalkboard.
I was born in 1971. And since the day I was born until age 16 I lived in military housing. 7 PMQs on five different bases in four different provinces by the time I was 12.
My mother left in 1976. She couldn’t take my father’s drinking or physical abuse any longer. Due to the unique nature of military dependents (children and non-serving spouses) living in military housing, my father was able to have the base military police remove my mother from the PMQ and to bar her from contacting my brother and I.
My father brought his alcoholic and emotionally damaged mother into the PMQ to raise my brother and I. She lived with us in the PMQ attached to Canadian Forces Base Summerside from 1976 until the spring of 1978 when she returned to Edmonton, AB. During her time with us on Summerside she put me into Sunday school and we also had involvement with the Knights of Columbus.
In the spring of 1978 my father obtained a compassionate posting from Captain Lynda Tyrell, military social worker for the Atlantic region of the Canadian Forces. The Canadian Forces paid to relocate him to Canadian Forces Base Namao just north of Edmonton, AB. Richard took my brother and I with him from Prince Edward Island to Alberta without sole custody and without the permission of our mother. Doing so is a criminal code offence called “kidnapping”.
The ability of serving members to use the Canadian Forces to transfer them and their children to a different jurisdiction from which the freshly ejected spouse was residing in was documented in a 1996 study commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces titled “Canadian Forces response to Spousal Abuse”.
If it wasn’t for my grandmother calling my mother in the fall of 1978, I don’t think my mother would have known where we ended up moving to.
In August of 1978, Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae had been posted to Canadian Forces Base Namao from Canadian Forces Station Holberg due to allegations that he had inappropriate relations with a teenage boy on the station.
On CFB Shearwater and CFB Summerside my father was rarely home. He was happy to have his career in the military as it gave him a reason to not be at home raising his children. He could go off on “military exercises”, drink and hang out with the boys and leave a woman at home to raise his kids as raising kids was obviously woman’s work.
In order to do this on CFB Namao he brought his mother into the PMQ to raise my brother and I. Grandma brought her husband Roy William (Andy) Anderson into the PMQ with her. Grandma and Andy lived in the ground floor bedroom.
Much like on CFB Summerside, grandma put me into Sunday School at the base chapel. Grandma would take my brother and I to Sunday service at the chapel. In fact we had our Sunday church clothes that we’d wear, and after church we had to change into our regular clothes before we could go out and play.
Grandma also put me in the Red Cross learn to swim program, the base hockey team for 6 to 8 year olds, the Youth Bowling Council at the base bowling alley, Beavers, and basketball.
My grandmother had a fierce temper and an equally fierce temper. She wasn’t above using sticks or whatever else was at hand to inflict corporal punishment. Her two actual maxims were “Children are to be seen and not heard” and “Children only speak when spoken to”
Towards the winter of 1978 both grandma and Andy had been drinking very heavily in the PMQ. Andy took a shower one night to “sober up”. He slipped in the shower and cracked his skull. Once Andy went into the hospital, he never came out again. And this is what led to my brother and I requiring the babysitting services of one of Captain Father Angus McRae’s altar boys. This altar boy was born in June of 1965 and had the initials of P.S..
P.S. would turn out to be quite a pedophile. He had an intense sexual attraction to children, especially boys. P.S. was late 13 when he started abusing children on Canadian Forces Base Namao. He wouldn’t stop until he was investigated by the base military police in May of 1980.
May of 1980 is the same period of time that the babysitter had been found buggering me in his bedroom with his penis firmly inserted into my rectum. It’s just too unbelievable that I was found being buggered by the babysitter right around the time that the military police, specifically Sgt. Mossman and Sgt. Clark, investigated P.S. due to numerous complaints that the base military police received due to the complaints of “numerous parents” on the base.
P.S. was a very angry teenager. He didn’t have the self restraint and self control that Captain McRae would have. See, Captain McRae would get us intoxicated before he abused us. Captain McRae would also be very careful with what he did so there wasn’t any evidence.
There were times when the babysitter would cause me to have rectal bleeding. All grandma would say when she saw my underwear is that I had to learn how to wipe my ass properly and that I had to stop scratching myself.
As I said, there was no confiding in grandma.
And there was no way I could confide in my father.
Even at 7 and 8 years of age, kids on base knew what queers and fags were. And you knew sure as fuck that you didn’t want it known that you touched another boy’s penis or let another boy touch your penis. And getting fucked by another boy? You were just asking for a beating.
So no, there was no telling my father.
The babysitter wanted every type of sexual pleasure. And if you didn’t perform and pleasure him he’d make his displeasure felt.
The memories of what he did to me, what he made me do to him, what he did to my brother, what he made me do to my brother, what he made my bother do to me, and what he did with the other kids will be with me until the day I die.
As I told Master Corporal Christian Cyr of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service on May 3rd, 2011, there were 5 visits that the babysitter took me to see the father at the base chapel. I don’t remember anything about the visits after the “sickly sweet grape juice”
In the aftermath of CFB Namao, my family was moved off the base and sent down to Canadian Forces Base Griesbach.
At the school on base for the children of military families I started seeing a man named “Terry”. Terry was upset at what I had been doing with the babysitter on CFB Namao. He said that boys who had sex with other boys had a mental illness called “homosexuality”. He said that because of what I let the babysitter do to my brother that I was a sexual pervert. On the days where my father would attend meetings with Terry my father would agree with Terry like Terry had some magical power over my father.
Terry would warn me that he had the base military police watching me and that if I ever tried to kiss or touch another boy that I would be going to psychiatric hospital for treatment.
Terry told my father that it was a good idea to not let me play in sports any longer as I obviously couldn’t control myself around other boys. I know that my father took this to heart as there was a school field trip that he specifically wouldn’t allow me to go on as “there would be naked boys in the change room and that I wouldn’t be able to control myself”.
In the spring of 1982 the relationship between my father and his girlfriend was deteriorating. He told me and my brother that in no uncertain terms that if she left, he’d put our bodies in a duffle bag and that no one would ever find us.
In the summer of 1982 I started going to a “special school” that treated homosexual children. Or so my father and Terry used to say.
In the spring of 1983 my father said that I had been “expelled” from the special school for kissing another boy. When we moved from CFB Griesbach in Edmonton, AB and went to CFB Downsview in North York, ON in April of 1983 I asked my father why we had to move. He said that the counsellors wanted to give me drugs to stop me from liking boys, and that he didn’t want me to take these drugs so in fact he was saving me and that I owed him for that.
When we arrived in Toronto, I hated it. I was big. It was polluted. And going to civilian schools was a nightmare.
When I told my father that I didn’t like Toronto he unleashed on me. Said that the was sick and tired of me fucking with his military career. Said that I cost him dearly.
Over the time on CFB Downsview my father would often lay into me whenever my brother would get into trouble. He’d say that my brother was acting the way he was because I had let / allowed the babysitter to touch my brother, that I wasn’t raising my brother the way that I was supposed to.
I have no doubt in my mind that because of my grandmother’s alcoholism, she’d often get pissed for days and that it would be my father’s responsibility to raise his younger brother Douglas. Out of the two, Doug was the more casual and more laid back. Richard was the anal retentive prick. Doug was grandma’s favourite of the two. Whereas Richard was the more dependable of the two.
In the summer of 1985 while my brother and I were staying in Edmonton with our grandmother over the summer Richard and Sue got into a massive domestic dispute that seemed to revolve around the fact that my father hadn’t divorced my mother until the spring of 1985 even though he had married Sue in a private ceremony in the spring of 1982.
September 1985 was the first birthday that I had had since my mother left in 1976. Richard promised that he would never forget my birthday again. He never acknowledged my birthday after that.
I quit school at the end of grade 8. I only went to school for one month of grade 9.
I left the house when I was 16, not too long after my 16th birthday.
I didn’t know at the time that 6 years prior that I had been diagnosed with major depression, severe anxiety, an intense fear of men, and an intense fear of being touched. I was found that I didn’t have the ability to form friendships. I also couldn’t express my emotions.
All I knew from my father’s constant reminders is that I was a lazy fucking cocksucker who couldn’t get out of bed on time for school. My suicidal ideations were just my attempts to “get attention”. My frequent outbursts of tears were just because I was just a fucking crybaby trying to get attention. Etc, etc, etc.
I didn’t have many conversation with my father after that.
In June of 1990 he called me up and invited me to move back to Edmonton with him on his final posting. He said that he was going to try to make the family work this time. This of course was more bullshit from Richard.
In August of 2006 I had an intense conversation with Richard. He wouldn’t accept any blame for the events leading up to us requiring a babysitter. In fact, he blamed his mother for hiring the babysitter even though he claimed he told grandma not to hire the babysitter. I told Richard of my plans to press charges against the babysitter as I was sick and tired of being blamed for what the babysitter did to my brother. Richard warned me about doing that. He said if I went sticking my nose into that I might not like the smell of the shit.
After this I started changing.
Not coming out of the closet, but not afraid to try to figure out what I was. This is the period of time that I started wearing dresses and playing with makeup.
This is also when I legally changed my name to Bobbie Garnet Bees.
I don’t think Richard reacted too well to me changing my name. I did write him a letter explaining why I legally changed my name. But I think it was the fact that I wasn’t sure of my gender or my orientation at the time that caused him to break off all communications with me. After this he would never answer my calls again and my letters to him were always sent back “RTS”.
In 2010 I left the hospital to go work for a private employer. This didn’t last too long as there were massive fights and disagreements going on at the shareholder level. One faction of shareholders decided to fire everyone at the business. I took these shareholders to the Supreme Court of BC and just before a trial date was to be booked, their lawyer called me and offered to settle out of court.
Due to this I decided that enough was enough, that I was going to go after the babysitter.
I emailed the Edmonton Police Service and gave them a brief explanation of what happened and what I wanted to do. From certified tribunal records I would learn that the Edmonton Police Service contacted the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team. ASIRT contacted the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service. And the Master Warrant Officer Terry Eisenmenger told Warrant Officer Blair Hart to explain to the Edmonton Police Service that “at the time of the offences, the RCMP would have had the jurisdiction for this investigation, but that the CFNIS were going to take this investigation”. MWO Eisenmenger then instructed WO Hart to check with the RCMP to see if I had ever tried to report this matter to them.
I was contacted on March 5th, 2011 by Petty Officer Steve Morris from the CFNIS Western Region. He told me that the military police were going to investigate this matter. I asked him what had changed as when I tried to report this to the military police in 1984 and 1990 I was told that this was a matter for the civilian police. PO Morris gave me a brief description of how the CFNIS came to be. Of course he left out the whole matter of the troubled missions in both Bosnia and Somalia and how the CFSIU were found to be utterly useless due to direct exposure to manipulation by the chain of command.
One of the first things that the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service did in March of 2011 was to request the investigation paperwork from the Canadian Forces Special Investigation Unit investigation into the matter of Captain Father Angus McRae in 1980 along with the Courts Martial transcripts from Captain Father Angus McRae’s courts martial which ran from July 15th to July 18th, 1980.
The fact that the CFNIS in March of 2011 knew to request CFSIU DS 120-10-80 and the transcripts from Courts Martial CM62 indicates that the CFNIS in 2011 knew what this investigation was all about even before my statement was taken on Thursday March 31st, 2011 at VPD headquarters by master corporal Robert Jon Hancock on the CFNIS Western Region.
I have no doubt in my mind that I am not the first person from CFB Namao to go after the babysitter, and as such I have no doubt in my mind that the CFNIS have experience with the babysitter and his relationship as Captain McRae’s accomplice.
In fact, with the sheer number of victims that the babysitter abused along with the sheer number of children that the babysitter escorted over to the chapel to be abused by Captain McRae I have no doubt in my mind that the ghosts from the babysitter’s past keep coming back to haunt him and are probably what drove him to attempt suicide in the year 2000.
I March of 2001, due to his suicide attempt, the babysitter launched a civil action against the Minister of National Defence. The Minister of National Defence, the Canadian Armed Forces, and the Archdiocese of Edmonton settled with the babysitter in November of 2008. The settlement cheque was disbursed to the babysitter in December of 2008.
I also have no doubt that the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal are well aware of the babysitter’s civil claim and subsequent out of court settlement with the Canadian Armed Forces.
As such, I have no doubt that the CFNIS, the Provost Marshal, and the Vice Chief of Defence Staff all have specific protocols and procedures in place for dealing with complaints against the babysitter.
Due to very odd and unique language in the National Defence Act, the Vice Chief of Defence Staff has the authority to issue directives to any CFNIS investigation. As the Military Police Complaints Commission has indicated in the past, the VCDS has no legal training, no legal background, and is very political in nature only being one or two steps removed from the Minister of National Defence who is a political appointee.
Why else would the CFNIS in March of 2011 request CFSIU DS 120-10-80 and the Courts Martial transcripts from the archives?
As I was told by Sgt. Damon Tenaschuk in 2017, it was odd that this paperwork still existed. Paperwork like this is usually destroyed seven years after it was created, unless it was used periodically. This paperwork should have been destroyed in 1987. But it has obviously been frequently used since 1987.
My interview with Mcpl Hancock was interesting. It was the first time that I had told anyone outside of my father and “Terry” of the abuse and what had happened on CFB Namao.
Everything in the interview was going okay until towards then end when Mcpl Hancock kept asking me if there was anything else I wanted to talk about, anything at all, was there anything that I wasn’t telling him about from CFB Namao.
What Mcpl Hancock didn’t share with me at this time was that he already read the CFSIU investigation paperwork and that he already knew what the babysitter had done.
On May 3rd, 2011 I was contacted by Mcpl Christian Cyr. I don’t know why Cyr had bothered to contact me. And in many ways it probably would have been much better of he didn’t. But Cyr has a problem. He is one of those types of guys that once he knew a secret, he has to gloat to others about his secret.
Cyr called me and left a voice mail message for me to call him back, so I returned his call. Cyr, being the braggart that he was, blurted out two pieces of information that would prove that he had seen the CFSIU paperwork from 1980 and that he had seen the Courts Martial transcripts.
He first tried telling me that when the babysitter was found buggering me in the spring of 1980, that the babysitter was only 12 or 13 years of age. Next Cyr asked me if I knew anything about the base chaplain being charged with molesting children during the same period of time that I was accusing the babysitter of abusing me.
The problem with the date of birth, and this was confirmed by the Military Police Complaints Commission in the November 2020 final report, is that the speculation of the babysitter’s age only exists in the CFSIU paperwork from 1980. The babysitter was in fact born on June 20th, 1965. The was the D.O.B. given to me my the RCMP in August of 2012. This D.O.B. was also confirmed by two newspaper articles involving the babysitter in his adult years.
Why did this error in the babysitter’s age exist at all? It seemed to stem from the CFSIU investigation back in 1980 as a way to block the RCMP from being called on base to deal with the babsitter. If the babysitter was under 14, then it wasn’t much use calling the police in as the Juvenile Delinquents Act really didn’t call for any type of punishment for offenders under 14.
But at the time, the Canadian Forces had to be aware of the babysitter’s true age as the Canadian Forces couldn’t conduct a service tribunal for sexual assaults where consent wasn’t a possibility. In 1980 the age of consent was 14.
And the Military Police Complaints Commission in November of 2020 confirmed that the CFNIS had done CPIC checks of the babysitter and that these CPIC checks had the correct date and age of the babysitter. Again, the MPCC noted that this error in age existed only in the CFSIU paperwork and no where else. Meaning that Mcpl Cyr had read the investigation paperwork from 1980 and already knew what the babysitter had done.
Because of my interaction with Cyr, I was able to do a Google search for “CFB Namao Molesting Priest”. This is how I discovered the whole sordid history of what happened on that base and how even back in 1980 the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence “threw a veil of secrecy” over all aspect of the courts martial. The Canadian Forces in 1980 didn’t want the Canadian public to know that children on bases weren’t safe from the pedophilic children of other service members or predator priests, especially not seeing as how these priests were members of the regular force and held the rank of Captain.
Because of my interaction with WO Hart on July 18th, 2011 and his insistence that my case wasn’t going anywhere due to a complete lack of believable evidence I decided to track down my records for that “special school” that I went to for treatment of my homosexuality.
Was I ever in for a very rude awakening.
There was no program for homosexual children. I was in a program for emotionally disturbed children.
But even more shocking than that was who “Terry” was and why my ball-less wonder of a father hung from every word that Terry said. Terry was Captain Terry Totzke, military social worker with Canadian Forces Western Command. My ball-less wonder of a father would have had to pay attention to every thing that Terry had to say of he wanted to keep his career in the Canadian Forces.
Terry, seeing as how he knew about the babysitter, and that he knew about Captain McRae, was obviously working on blaming me for what had happened to me and my brother on CFB Namao with the goal of having me forever keep my mouth shut about the abuse.
Other interesting things I learnt from my social service paperwork.
My brother and I had both been brought to the attention of Captain Totzke due to our bizarre behaviour when we started to attend school once we moved from CFB Namao in October of 1980.
I was sent for psychological testing and I was found to:
be suffering from major depression
be suffering from severe anxiety
be terrified of men
was extremely terrified of being touched.
was convinced that my father was going to drown me in the toilet
My father was found to:
Not take responsibility for the family
Blamed others for problems with his family
Blamed his son’s emotional problems on his alcoholic mother who was cruel to his children, especially when she was inebriated, which was frequently.
claimed that he had sole custody of his children.
The expulsion? Nope, I wasn’t expelled. Captain Terry Tozke was warned by Albertya Social Services that I was supposed to be removed from my home and placed into foster care or residential care as a means of persuading my father to participate in the family counselling as they were beinging to form the opinion that my issues were all related to major dysfunction in the household that was due to known issues with my father. I was pulled out of the Westfield program days after this meeting.
The surprise move to Ontario from Alberta was no doubt due to the desire of Captain Totzke and my father to get me out of the jursidiction of Alberta Social Services.
According to my social service paperwork, I was supposed to have been instutionalized in a psychiatric facility for children both in Alberta and then in Ontario. Captain Totzke, Captain Tyrell, and my father never followed through with any psychiatric treatment.
If I was so emotionally disturbed as a result of the 1-1/2 years of sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao, why were Totzke and my father so against me receiving treatment?
Secrets.
As long as I lived at home with my father, Totzke had direct control over me. If he wanted me to believe that I was the author of my own misfortune on CFB Namao, then so be it. If he wanted to cement this belief any harder, then he could just make sure that I understood that I was to blame for what happened to my brother.
If I was removed from the home, then Totzke would lose his control over me. And whoever it was up the chain of command that decided that CFB Namao was to remain a secret would not have been happy. I guess that the reasoning was that if I was taken out of my father’s care that I would start talking about CFB Namao and then the civilian authorities might start sticking their nose into the military’s business.
My father also had his own reasons for not wanting me placed in foster care or residential care. He lied to Alberta Social Services when he said that he had been awared sole custody of my brother and I. In 2013 the PEI government revealed that Richard only made an application for custody, but never follow through. He was never awared sole custody by any legal authority in Canada. He committed parental kidnapping. If the courts found out about this, Richard would have been looking at not only the loss of his kids, but also the loss of his military career, and possible jail time, and the very real possibility of monthly child support payments.
The CFNIS investigation was ended on November 4th 2011 when PO Steve Morris contacted me and said that the CFNIS couldn’t find any evidence to indicate that the babysitter was capable of what I accused him of.
On November 27th, 2011, after a plea in the Facebook groups for former military dependents I contacted a man named Fred Cunningham whom lived in St. Albert, AB.
Fred had a lot to say about the 1980 investigation into Captain McRae. He said that the investigation was started because of P.S.’s molestation of numerous young children on the base. I asked Fred how old the babysitter was in 1980. Fred said that he was certain that the babysitter turned 15 just before Captain McRae’s court martial in July of 1980.
Fred stated that the military police tried to have the matter moved to civilian court seeing as how the majority of children were under the age of 14. According to Fred, the “brass” intentionally dismissed all of the charges brought against captain McRae for any child under the age of 14. P.S. was the only child over the age of 14. This meant that Captain McRae’s accomplice was officially recognized by the Canadian Armed Forces as Captain McRae’s only victim. The rest of us were thrown under the bus.
Fred said that when the charges for the other children were dropped one boy in particular became enraged and swore that P.S. had stabbed him in the back. Fred said that this boy, who was also named Fred was a prolific pyromanic who had set numerous fires on the base. I asked Fred if he was insinuating that the young Fred had any responsibility for the fire at the babysitter’s PMQ which caused $56k in 1980 dollars worth of damage and resulted in the death of a civilian gas fitter. Fred said that he was going to refuse to answer that.
Fred did confirm to me the fire that occured in PMQ #26 on June 23rd, 1980 and that this fire did in fact result in the death of a person, but he wouldn’t say who this person was.
I submitted two FOIs to DND for fire information related to addresses that the Namao telephone book indicated that this boy’s family resided in on CFB Namao. Both of these FOIs came back and indicated that this boy was in fact a known pyromanic and had set the fires that had occured at this family’s PMQs. That he had a tendency to light fires and then “play the hero” after “discovering” the fire. One of the fire marshal reports indicate that Fred A. and P.S. were friends and that they had been playing together prior to one of the fires at F.A.’s house. The fire marshal report also indicated that F.A. was currently not in school as he was in the process of being sent to an institution for treatment related to his pyromania.
Fred also said that the military police did everything in their power to try to bring the RCMP in to deal with the babysitter, but that the brass wasn’t going for it.
Fred implored me to keep this information to myself as he wasn’t legally allowed to discuss this. He wouldn’t tell me what he meant. I would later learn that the Official Secrets Act / the Security of Information Act makes it an offence for anyone who was ever subject to the Code of Service Discipline to discuss ANY information that they had learned of while they were on a defence establishment. Basically anyone who was ever a member of the Canadian Armed Forces is barred from talking about anything they were involved in while they were on a base. This would easily apply to members of the military police or the CFSIU for any investigation that they were involved in while on a base.
As I would learn later on, there were two flaws in the pre-1998 National Defence Act that allowed the Canadian Armed Forces to hide and bury not only the events of CFB Namao but quite honestly.
The first and most horrific flaw that was removed from the National Defence Act in 1998 was the Summary Investigation Flaw.
In the military justice system at the time there was no such thing as a “prosecutor”. After an investigation the CFSIU would lay charges directly against the alleged offender. The charges were then forwarded to the commanding officer of the accused. The commanding officer would then review the charges and either cause them to proceed to summary investigation, to a court martial, to a civilian tribunal, or the commanding officer could dismiss any or all of the charges.
The Canadian Armed Forces confirmed that captain father Angus McRae’s commanding officer was the base commander of Canadian Forces Base Namao, colonel Daniel Edward Munro. Daniel Edward Munro is a retiree living in Victoria, BC. He retired from the Canadian Forces a Brigadier General.
As the base commander of CFB Namao, Munro would have had direct control over the base military police and the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit Western Region detachment.
I contacted Mr. Munro in 2016. Oddly he didn’t want to discuss anything about CFB Namao. I should also point out that it was Munro’s decision to not call in the provincial fire marshal to review the fire at P.S.’s PMQ.
After my telephone call with Mr. Cunningham I wrote a letter to the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal and discussed what I had been told by Mr. Cunningham. This letter was sent in the last two weeks of December 2011.
In January of 2012 I received a telephone call from lieutenant colonel Gilles Sansterre. Sansterre was the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal at the time. He told me that I couldn’t believe anything that this “Fred Cunningham” person had told me. The military couldn’t find any records of Cunningham. Sansterre said that maybe this “Cunningham guy” was giving me information that he had heard second or third hand.
I would learn in 2017 that Fred Cunningham was warrant officer Fredrick R. Cunningham. WO Cunningham was the Acting Section Commander of the CFSIU at the time and had been personally tasked by the base security officer, captain David Pilling with investigating captain father Angus McRae for having committed acts of homosexuality with young boys on the base. WO Cunningham was also the prosecution’s main witness against captain McRae.
And, more importantly, everything Mr. Cunningham had told me was backed up in the CFSIU paperwork. The very same paperwork that the CFNIS had in 2011.
In 2012 I filed a complaint with the Military Police Complaints Commission. This review went nowhere as reviews are extremely limited and in my matter the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal willing and intentionally withheld information from the Military Police Complaints Commission. The Provost Marshal hid the existence of CFSIU DS 120-10-80 and the court martial transcripts from the Military Police Complaints Commission. These were two very important documents as in CFSIU DS 120-10-80 is the babysitter’s statement to the military police in which he admitted to molesting numerous children on the base and in the court martial transcripts captain McRae’s defence counsel is using the babysitter pedophilia and current psychological treatment for being sexually attracted to young children to discredit his testimony against captain McRae.
Even when submitting the CFNIS brief to Alberta Crown Prosecutor Jon Werbicki in October of 2011, master corporal Robert Jon Hancock failed to disclose to the crown that P.S. had already been investigated by the military police for sexually abusing young children on the base and that the colonel Daniel Edward Munro had prevented the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from being brought in to deal with the babysitter.
I wonder if former Alberta Chief Crown prosecutor Orest Yeriniuk realizes that the Canadian Armed Forces intentionally withheld information from him and made him look like an absolute fool. I wonder if Alberta Crown prosecutor Jon Werbicki realizes that he was played like a cheap violin.
Giving fucked up briefs to the provincial crowns in nothing new. This was a tactic that the CFSIU employed. Give the crown such a fucked up and useless brief that only a moron would allow charges to be proceeded with. This allows the military police to state that “they thought for sure they had enough evidence” while at the same time blaming the provincial Crown knowing that the victims would almost never be allowed to see the communications between the military police and the crown.
I know exactly what the CFNIS sent to the Crown and I know what the Crown’s replies were back to the CFNIS. Alberta Crown prosecutor Jon Werbicki said that what I had endured on Canadian Forces Base Namao was nothing more than childhood curiosity and experimentation and that it was very suspicious that I never told anyone about the abuse.
Yeah, it seems that the CFNIS excised a lot of information to the Alberta Crown.:
They removed any mention of my grandmother living on base raising my brother and I.
They removed any mention of military social worker Captain Terry Totzke and the conversion therapy that I had been receiving as a result of my sexual activities with the babysitter and McRae.
They didn’t tell the Alberta Crown that the psychologist hired by the Canadian Forces in 1980 found that my father had a severe issue with personal responsibility and would often tell people he perceived to be in positions of authority what he thought that they wanted to hear.
The CFNIS failed to disclose to the Alberta Crown that Alberta Social Services was of the opinion that my father frequently lied, or as they politely said “Mr. Gill has a tendency to tell conflicting stories from one meeting to the next”
They didn’t disclose to the Crown that my father described my grandmother a heavy alcoholic who refused to admit to her problems and that my father described her as being very cruel to his children.
They didn’t tell the Alberta Crown that the babysitter had been investigated in 1980 for having molested numerous children on the base.
They didn’t tell the Alberta Crown about the babysitter’s predilection for young prepubescent children.
They didn’t tell the Alberta Crown that the babysitter was receiving psychiatric treatment at the time for his attraction to children.
The CFNIS didn’t disclose to the Alberta Crown that when P.S. was contacted by CFNIS investigator mcpl Robert Jon Hancock in August of 2011 that P.S. told Hancock that “anything he had been involved in as a youth has already been handled by the military and that if charges were brought against him a lawyer would handle that”. Does this allude to Munro’s decision to not allow the babysitter to be handed over to the RCMP in 1980, or does this allude to the terms of the out of court settlement agreed to between P.S. and the DOJ, the DND, and the CAF in November of 2008.
The CFNIS got the response they wanted from the Crown. No charges.
My father died in 2017.
Believe me, the world is a better place without that asshole.
But the sad thing is, he’ll never have to apologize for what he did.
It was his alcoholism and anger that caused my mother to be ejected from the PMQ.
It was his inability to take responsibility for his family that allowed his children to be cared for by his alcoholic and emotionally damaged mother.
It was my father’s fault that grandma was anywhere near us.
It was ultimately my father’s fault that my brother and I ended up with a pedophile babysitter for 1-1/2 years.
I hope that you can understand why I want Medical Assitance in Dying.
I’m not giving up.
I’m not letting the DND or the CAF “win”.
There is no winning in this matter.
The DND and the CAF are completely untouchable.
Nobody of any consequence will ever have to apologize.
There is nothing that anyone can do to erase the trauma that I suffered through, not only at the hands of the babysitter and captain McRae, but also at the hands of my own father and the hands of captain Terry Totzke.
Nothing will ever undo the fact that the CFNIS in 2011 and 2015 to 2018 did everything in their power to gas light me and to portray me as a “societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the military” or someone with money troubles who frequently jumped from one job to another.
Even during a face to face meeting with then Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan, he accused me of being a scammer trying to scam the Canadian Forces for easy money.
Nothing will ever erase the 40+ years that I’ve suffered with severe mental illnesses gifted to me by P.S., captain McRae, captain Totzke, colonel Dan E. Munro, and the whole host of other members of the Canadian Forces that wanted the events of CFB Namao to stay a secret dead and buried in the past.
Medical Assistance in Dying is something that I want.
Even just thinking about my death and being put to sleep fills me with a serene peace and tranquility.
No matter what people wish, there is no way that I can ever get over the betrayal, the pain, the suffering.
And I refuse to live with the damage from horrific chain of command decision both from 1980 and from the present day.
Four simple medications:
Midazolam
Propofol
Rocuronium
Bupivacaine
And all the suffering, misery, and torment are gone forever.
My life will forever be full of regret until the day I die. Regret for things that were denied to me, regret for things that I was not allowed to do.
I never would have figured out that my father was the “artsy type” who would have posed for a statue. But here he is .
Richard Wayne Gill in his younger days.
Yeah, my father definitely wasn’t “dad” material.
As I’ve learnt in life, there actually aren’t too many men that fit the “ideal” model of a modern age “dad”.
Just as not every woman is fit to be a mother, not every man is fit to be a father.
Having sex and reproducing are simple enough that anyone can do it really.
No qualifications or experience required.
My paternal grandmother should never have reproduced.
My maternal grandmother should never have reproduced.
My mother and my father should have had a hysterectomy and vasectomy.
Sure, I wouldn’t have existed. But at the same token I would never have gone through any of the stuff that I went through.
Win-win I guess.
As I’ve said elsewhere, life isn’t a video game.
There’s no final stage boss to fight with the experience points you’ve gained in life.
You don’t win the game of life.
You don’t get bonus points for completing all of the missions and side quests in the game of life.
You don’t win a bonus life.
Two people have sex.
You gestate for 9 months.
You pop out into the world.
You then make a bee-line straight to your inevitable death.
What you life is like in between birth and death is pretty well determined by how well the two people who fucked to bring you into the world give a fuck after you’ve enter into the world.
Why was Richard Gill the way he was?
I don’t think that we’ll ever know.
So, I’m going to talk about my father for a bit.
Richard was my father. We weren’t ever close by any stretch of the imagination.
Richard died in January of 2017. I found out from my brother in 2019.
I didn’t feel anything at first.
I thought for sure that it was going to hit me eventually.
Not even when I held a certified copy of his death certificate in my hands.
It never did. And I honestly don’t think it will.
He wasn’t an evil man. He was just fucked up. And fucked up a lot more than average.
He had a lot of demons.
Growing up on Canadian Forces Bases probably caused his abusive behaviours to be downplayed as he wasn’t the only man in the Canadian Forces that used physical punishment to keep his spouse and his children in line.
I remember seeing other kid get swift kicks. I remember seeing other kids get back handed so hard that blood was drawn. I remember hearing the screams of beatings coming from bedroom windows and the utter indifference from anyone around as nobody in a company town sticks their nose into the business of others.
Growing up on Canadian Forces Bases also meant that his PTSD and depression was nothing out of the ordinary as other members of the Canadian Forces living in the PMQ patches also had issues with PTSD and depression.
No matter how prevalent domestic abuse was in the Canadian Forces, there were always the cheerleaders who would downplay military domestic abuse. Whether it be members of the Canadian Forces, or members of the media, there always has been a desire to ignore and hide the domestic abuse.
And it didn’t help that a majority of this domestic abuse was dealt “in house” by the military “justice” system.
Still, as a kid I didn’t really know to much about him, and he was my own father.
For example, I wouldn’t learn of his birthday until September of 2005 when I had to apply to get my birth certificate from the Nova Scotia government. Yeah, sure, the argument could be made that I didn’t know my mother’s birthday either until 2005, but she left when I was 5 years old.
All the time that we lived in Ontario on Canadian Forces Base Dowsview I had no idea that my father was born in Peterborough, Ontario.
Before age 9 I never really knew him all that well as he was rarely home.
And in those days, when he did come home you just stayed away from him.
On Canadian Forces Base Shearwater it was mainly my mother raising my brother and I.
On Canadian Forces Base Summerside it was my grandmother raising my brother and I from the summer of 1977 until the spring of 1978.
Grandma lived with us from the time we arrived on the base until the spring of 1981 when she moved out and got her own apartment on 111th St. and 107th Ave. On Canadian Forces Base Namao Richard didn’t start living with us again until August of 1980 when he moved back in. Even my foster care records mention this.
I remember when Richard started living with us again my uncle Doug had bought me a 45 RPM of Sam The Sham and the Pharaohs song “Wooly Bully”. Richard had a thing for wool sweaters at the time. And even uncle Doug didn’t like Richard’s temper.
As I said, Richard wasn’t evil. He just couldn’t control his anger or his temper.
Someone said something to me recently that has just started to kinda make sense.
I know that my grandmother was an alcoholic before my father was born.
I was told that Richard was a “brandy baby”. In the sense that he had to be given brandy as a baby to stop his crying. Not for teething, but to reduce his withdrawal symptoms. Apparently he was quite colicky as a baby due to the withdrawal.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome didn’t become a thing until about the 1960. But people before this knew there was a connection to the mother’s drinking and the baby’s health.
Back in the ’40s, no one would have cared about an Indian woman drinking during her pregnancy.
Much as alcoholism has a spectrum, FAS also has a spectrum. Just because my grandmother drank, in no doubt to deal with her own demons, doesn’t mean that she was a “fall down piss drunk” alcoholic. Alcoholic just means that she couldn’t control her drinking.
Some of the stereotypical features of FAS are facial abnormalities, intellectual disability or low IQ, and low body weight. As I said though, FAS is a spectrum. A person doesn’t have to have all of the symptoms of FAS to have FAS.
Some of the other symptoms of FAS are:
Difficulty in school (especially with math)
Speech and language delays
Poor reasoning and judgement skills
Poor impulse control
Alcoholism
Richard only went as far as grade 8 in school. He had to take a grade 9 upgrade course to join the Royal Canadian Navy. This is how he met my uncle Al. Math was one of those matters that could throw him into a fury. If I ever had to ask him for help with my math homework, this would frustrate him and upset him.
He blew up once really good when we lived at 94 Sunfield Road in North York. He hit me fairly hard. The next day he was all teary-eyed and apologetic. He promised that he was going to take an upgrading course and learn the math so that he could help me with my homework.
He took the upgrading course. But the help with homework never came. He took a math upgrading course at York University in North York. But I’ve know for long time that these courses were never to help me wth my math homework. Because at the time Richard was stuck in administrative duties piloting a desk for the Canadian Forces, he could no longer hide his lack of understanding of mathematics behind his mechanical aptitude. I think these upgrade courses were mandated by the Canadian Forces in order for Richard to progress up the ranks now that he was a desk jockey and not a mechanic.
Richard could not speak French. Even his service files from the Canadian Forces indicate that he couldn’t speak French. Now, I have to admit that my French skills are very piss-poor, but I did learn French as a child.
Une, deux, trois, jaune, vert, rouge, bon jour, bon nuit……… you get the picture.
The only real phrase in French that I know is “Désolé, je ne parle pas français”. Which is still head and shoulders above what Richard would have known.
My father would often say that he refused to speak French because my mother had hurt him when she “walked out on him”. When I met my mother in 2013, I asked her how her French was. Considering that she was born in Hull, Quebec and had the maiden name of Dagenais she could speak French fairly well even though she hadn’t used it since she was a kid.
Richard’s reasoning skills were very iffy. He had absolutely no compunction about letting me and my brother wander around aimlessly downtown with no money and no way to get back home other than walking. He’d drop my brother and I off unsupervised at major attractions in the city. And no, Toronto at the time wasn’t some little bucolic town like Mayberry.
Richard did have very poor impulse control. He would take really bad risks. He rear-ended a Jaguar in Toronto because the Jaguar was slowing down for an amber light but Richard though that if he sped up he could swerve around the Jag and make it through the intersection. He rear-ended a Metropolitan Toronto Police car in North York, again because he was trying to speed through traffic. He drove drunk on more than one occasion that caused damage to his cars and injuries to me. When Richard would lose his temper and start spanking either my brother or I he’d lose control and often had to be stopped by someone else whether it be grandma, uncle Doug, or Sue.
If Richard perceived that someone had slighted him on the road, or was too stupid to be on the road he’d have absolutely no hesitation in showing the other person how to drive properly.
Richard also had another impulse control issue. Spending. Although he never had money to spend on my brother or I, he would always be buying himself doodads and gizmos whether or not he had any actual use for them. He’d buy computer parts, use them once, and then they’d sit on a shelf never to be used again. He bought a camera, a Canon AE-1. He had all of the lenses for it, he had the power winder, he had the different flashes for it. But he never really used it. This was just another impulse gizmo. He works on model aircraft for a while, but abandoned that hobby quickly.
He’d buy tons of automotive tools, but he’d never work on cars.
When I talked to Marie in 2013 she mentioned that how on CFB Shearwater, Richard was always going to HFC for loans. These were small loans. Think of them as the predecessor to Money Mart and their payday loans.
As soon as Marie had said HFC I remembered Richard had taken me to store that had the red HFC logo on the front of it. We’d ride his motorcycle over. But being that I was a kid I never understood what HFC was. Did Richard finance his Honda CB 450-Four through HFC? I know his 1969 Thunderbird was bought with his retention bonus that he received from the Canadian Forces when he signed on again after his initial 5 year agreement.
I then thought about when we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario of the times that Richard would race over to the American Express office in North York to drop off a payment cheque as late at night as possible. I still don’t understand what he was doing other than trying to delay the payment for as long as possible without missing a payment. I guess that he figured out that if he got the payment into the drive up drop slot by a certain day that it would take ‘x’ days for the cheque to get processed and sent to his bank for payment.
His inability to manage money probably explains why he didn’t really spend much on my brother and I.
Richard was a very heavy drinker. He was an alcoholic. The only thing is, there were a lot of alcoholics living on the PMQ patches back then. None the less, Richard had a drinking problem. When I brought up the topic of Richard’s drinking with Marie in 2013 she said that as bad as Richard’s drinking was, grandma could easily drink him under the table.
According to Marie, Richard frequently lost his driver’s licence and that’s why she had to learn how to drive in Nova Scotia. And that’s why I mistakenly thought that the Thunderbird was her car. Nova Scotia has an odd peculiarity in relation to its vehicle licences. You can have separate motorcycle and car licences. Not you can have one licence or the other, but you could have both at the same time. Or you can get you motorcycle qualifications as an endorsement on your regular licence. Apparently Richard would simply ride his motorcycle while his car licence was suspended because he had the two separate licences. I haven’t found out if he had a DND driver’s licence, but if he did this would complicate matters further.
Richard totalled the Thunderbird on CFB Shearwater. This got me sent to the base infirmary for stitches. Knowing that the IWK children’s hospital was beginning to have concerns about my home life I don’t think it was a coincidence that I wasn’t sent to a public hospital to get stitches where the civilian police would start asking questions.
Richard nearly totalled his Pontiac Astre on PEI when we were returning from him drinking at the mess on base. We lived in the City of Summerside in housing that was on long term lease to the Department of National Defence. This was after my mother had left. So Richard had to take my brother and I with him when he went drinking. My brother and I stayed in the car while he was in the mess getting pissed. On the way home he drifted over the centre line and side swiped an oncoming car. Tore the grille of the front of his car, crumpled the front L.H. fender. Smashed the L.H. head light. Tore the rear bumper off the other car. We all got out of the car. When the other driver asked Richard if he had been drinking I told the other driving that we had just come from the mess on the base at that my father was drunk. Richard nearly backhanded me into next week.
To her credit, Sue was the only person able to reign in Richard’s drinking.
Richard must have been Sue’s fix’him’up project.
I’m not sure if she was ever able to get him to entirely stop drinking, but she did get him to tone it down substantially. Sue saw grandma as enabling Richard’s drinking, and I think this is one of the reasons grandma moved out of our house in the spring of 1981. At the time when grandma was living with us, when Sue would come home from work grandma would go upstairs and barricade herself in her bedroom.
There were times when Richard would show up home drunk and Sue would kick him out of their bedroom. Richard would go pass out in the living room and often end up rolling around naked and making loud animal like noises.
My brother and I would often take blankets down to him. Sue would tell us not to, that Richard needed to learn a lesson.
I was sent over to the Sgt. and W/O’s mess a couple of times on CFB Downsview to drag him home at Sue’s request. One of these retrievals resulted in Richard buying me a beer when I was well underage. But the bartender served me, probably to keep Richard’s temper down, but called the military police anyways. We got out of there before the MPs showed up.
So were Richard’s issues a result of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Very possible. But he’s dead, so there’s no tests possible.
Were Richard’s issues due to his upbringing that was no doubt dysfunctional due to his mother’s drinking, his mother’s emotional issues due to her time in Indian Residential School, his father leaving when he was young, and his having grown up in an environment that was probably not all that friendly due to his status as a “half-breed”.
Were Richard’s issues due to the PTSD he suffered as a result of his involvement with the HMCS Kootenay gear box explosion on October 29th, 1969?
Bill Parker, Bob Wrightson, Marie, and Pat Longmore said that the HMCS Kootenay event severely fucked Richard up and that the Canadian Forces never helped him. Richard was already a drinker when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1963 at age 17. According to both Bill and Marie the Kootenay incident push Richard very deep into a bottle. I don’t know if Richard ever hit the hard drugs like heroin or cocaine.
After the massive domestic dispute in the summer of 1985, Bill Parker had said that he really wished that I could have known my father before the Kootenay as my father used to be friendly and outgoing but that the Kootenay had changed him for the worse.
Bill also mentioned to me in 1985 that my brother, my mother, and I would often come stay with the Parkers when Richard got out of control when we lived on CFB Shearwater, and that I was more than welcome to come stay with Bill if my father lost his temper and had a meltdown again.
This lodger accommodation would be confirmed when I made acquaintances with Pat Longmore around 2017. In fact domestic violence was so well known on the base and in Shannon Park back then that there was a “battered wives club” that ran secret shelters for women needing to escape violence in the PMQs.
When I was in Nova Scotia in 2015 I met a man named Chris Legere. Chris saw me taking pictures of the HMCS Bonaventure’s anchor and asked me what my attachment was to the Bonnie. I told Chris about my father and my father’s involvement with the Kootenay that day via his attachment to the Sea Kings. Chris invited me to sit down with him. He said that the Canadian Forces tried very hard to downplay the effects of the Kootenay. Survivors of the deceased were told to get off the base as they could no longer live there. Survivors of the deceased were given very little in the way of benefits and assistance. Chris also said that many sailors from the Kootenay that were involved with the gearbox explosion got into hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. Chris said that what was a minor problem on the CFB Halifax and CFB Shearwater with hard drugs prior to the Kootenay bloomed into a disaster afterwards.
As Richard had been with the Sea Kings and more than likely had been involved with the transfer of survivors and deceased off the Kootenay this would have fried his noodle as he had worked with the members of the Kootenay when he had been on that ship as a stoker. According to both Bill and Marie, three of the deceased from the boiler room had been his drinking buddies from his navy days.
Does any of this excuse his behaviour?
No. No it doesn’t.
But it does go a long way towards explaining why things were the way they were.
Did Richard have secrets?
Yes, he had a lot of secrets.
Richard was a womanizer.
Richard had girlfriends when he had girlfriends.
Richard also had an ability to make the truth whatever he wanted it to be.
In 2011 when Richard was asked about the babysitter from CFB Namao Richard claimed that my brother and I never had a babysitter and that we were never sexually abused but that I caused a lot of problems in school and that I always wanted money.
Richard should have know about the social service records in Alberta and Ontario. Richard should have known that everything he had to say could have easily been disproved.
When the CFNIS interviewed my father in 2011, was he told what to say by the CFNIS? Or was he covering his own ass? There’s no way that Richard could have forgotten that his mother lived with us from 1977 until 1978 in Summerside and the from 1978 until 1981 in Edmonton. In fact he blamed grandma for the behaviour and emotional issues that my brother and I were exhibitingRichard was frequently away with the military on exercises for 6 to 8 weeks at a time. And I know that he sure as hell didn’t let my brother and I live feral on the base. Plus you have to take into account that even when he wasn’t on training exercises he was often staying with Vicki in Wetaskiwin or with Sue at her apartment by Londonderry Mall.
My brother is of the opinion that the CFNIS coaxed my father to say what he said. As there is absolutely no way my father’s statement could have ever been reconciled with the contents of my foster care records. And there may be some truth to this as Alberta Social Services indicated that my father had a tendency to tell those that he perceived to be in positions of authority what he thought they wanted to hear.
I lean more towards the possibility that Richard said what he said because he benefited from the sexual abuse of my brother and I. We know from the findings of the Military Police Complaints Commission that the CFNIS had access to the court martial transcripts and the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit paperwork from the Captain McRae child sexual abuse scandal. The military police were well aware in 1980 that P.S. was abusing younger children on the base. In fact Captain McRae’s defence counsel was using P.S.’s abuse of younger children on the base in order to try to discredit the testimony of P.S.. As the Military Police Complaints Commission stated, there is obviously no doubt that the Canadian Armed Forces knew what was happening on CFB Namao back in 1980.
My father was having issues related to his drinking and his temper. I can remember once or twice Richard worried that he was going to get thrown out of the military and that he’d have to go work in a garage or something mechanical.
Did Richard make a deal with the devil in 1980? A deal whereby he would keep quiet about the sexual abuse of my brother and I in exchange for the Canadian Forces cutting him some slack with his issues? I wouldn’t put this past him. After all the psychiatrist hired by the Canadian Forces in October of 1980 said that Richard wouldn’t take responsibility for his problems and expected others to solve his problems for him.
This might explain why no matter how badly my mental health was deteriorating and no matter how my sanity required immediate intervention, Richard wasn’t concerned in the least. He had a bargain to live up to.
Richard’s dead so we’ll never know the truth as to why he did what he did.
I did examine my father for Federal Court in 2013 for my Application for Judicial Review. He practically recanted everything he told the CFNIS.
Yep, grandma was raising us.
Yep, Grandma hired the babysitter.
Richard had no problem using intimidation and threats of violence to get his was.
Around the summer of 1982 the relationship between Richard and Sue was on the rocks. It was documented in my foster care records that Richard and Sue refused to talk to each other and were instead using my brother and I as intermediaries. I don’t know if my brother honestly doesn’t remember this or if he’s just moved this to a far off-limit area of his mind, but Richard had threatened to kill the both of us and dispose of our bodies.
Richard sat my brother and I down on the sofa in the living room of our PMQ on CFB Griesbach. Richard told my brother and I that things weren’t working out between him and Sue and that Sue might be leaving. Both my brother and I cheered. Sue was born in 1958. I was born in 1971 and my brother was born in 1974. Sue was practically the older sister that neither my brother or I wanted. Anyways, Richard told us to shut up. He said that if Sue walked out the door that he was going to kill my brother and I, and that he’d stiff our bodies into a duffle bag. He swore that no one would ever find my brother and I and that he’d simply go move into the barracks like nothing had happened. He just looked at my brother and I and asked “Do you understand? Have I made myself fucking clear to the two of you?”
I honestly do believe that had Richard been able to figure out a way to make my brother and I disappear he would have had no problem slaughtering the two of us and disposing of us. As he told one of his airforce buddies once, the only reason he kept us as opposed to giving us back to our mother is that as long as we lived under his roof he could control the costs whereas if he gave us back to our mother then he’d have to pay child support and alimony.
And my fear of Richard drowning me in a toilet? That wasn’t unfounded. He tried before we had moved off CFB Namao in October of 1980. I honestly can’t remember what this was about. But as we were being moved from Namao to Griesbach he would have known about the Captain McRae / P.S. affair.