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1 Military Police Complaints Commission 2 3 4 FYNES PUBLIC INTEREST HEARINGS 5 held pursuant to section 250.38(1) of the National Defence 6 Act, in the matter of file 2011-004 7 8 LES AUDIENCES D'INTÉRÊT PUBLIQUE SURE FYNES 9 tenues en vertu du paragraphe 250.38(1) de la Loi sure la 10 défense nationale pour le dossier 2011-004 11 12 13 14 TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS 15 held at 270 Albert St., Ottawa, Ontario 16 on Thursday, May 10, 2012 17 jeudi, le 10 mai 2012 18 19 20 VOLUME 20 21 22BEFORE: 23 24Mr. Glenn Stannard Chairperson 25 26Ms Raymonde Cléroux Registrar 27Ms Chantale Cyr 28 29 30APPEARANCES: 31 32Mr. Mark Freiman Commission counsel 33Ms Genevieve Coutlée 34 35Ms Elizabeth Richards For Sgt Jon Bigelow, MWO Ross Tourout, 36Ms Korinda McLaine LCol Gilles Sansterre, WO Blair Hart, PO 2 Eric McLaughlin, 37 Sgt David Mitchell, Sgt Matthew Alan Ritco, Maj Daniel Dandurand, 38 Sgt Scott Shannon, LCol Brian Frei, LCol (ret’d) William H. Garrick 39 WO (ret’d) Sean Der Bonneteau, CWO (ret’d) Barry Watson 40 41Col (ret’d) Michel W. Drapeau For Mr. Shaun Fynes 42Mr. Joshua Juneau and Mrs. Sheila Fynes 43Ms Marie-Christine Fortin 44 45Ms Jill C. McMillan For Ms Rebecca Starr 46 47 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. © 2012 48 49 200 Elgin Street, Suite 1105 333 Bay Street, Suite 50 900 51 Ottawa, Ontario K2P 1L5 Toronto, Ontario 52 M5H 2T4 1 (613) 564-2727 (416) 861- 2 8720 1 2 (ii) 3 4 5 INDEX 6 7 8 PAGE 9 10AFFIRMED: REBECCA STARR 18 11 12Examination-in-chief by Mr. Freiman 19 13Cross-examination by Ms McLaine 139 14 15 16 17 1 2 (iii) 3 4 LIST OF EXHIBITS 5 6NO. DESCRIPTION PAGE 7 8P-68 Military Police Policies and Technical Procedures, 9 Chapter 12 16 10 11P-69 Military Police Policies and Technical Procedures, 12 Chapter 12, Annex A 17 13 14P-70 Final Report of the 2009 Summary Investigation into 15 Circumstances Surrounding Administrative Action Taken 16 by the Unit After the Death of Corporal Langridge 17 17 18P-71 Annexes A to R and S to the 2009 Summary Investigation 17 19 20P-72 Witness Book Index, Rebecca Starr 18 21 22P-73 Testimony Questions 18 1 1 2 3 4 5 1 Ottawa, Ontario 2--- Upon resuming on Thursday, May 10, 2012 3 at 9:40 a.m. 4 THE CHAIRPERSON: Good morning. 5 Mr. Freiman? 6 MR. FREIMAN: A few things. First 7of all, Mr. Chairman, I would like to note that Ms 8MacMillan is here this morning to act as counsel 9for our next witness, Ms Starr. 10 Next, you will no doubt recall 11that there were some discussions a couple of days 12ago with respect to redaction matters and what 13would and would not be redacted. 14 At the end of those discussions, 15you will remember that counsel agreed to go away 16and to see whether we could have a creative 17solution that would accomplish the needs of this 18hearing without violating any of the principles 19that each of the three sets of counsel believe are 20important. 21 I can tell you that I am very 22pleased that this morning in a meeting among all 23counsel we came to a resolution that, to my mind, 24is imperfect. That probably means that it’s a 25reasonable compromise, because I expect that my

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 2 2 3 4 5 1colleagues will he the same impression. 2 Let me simply for the benefit of 3those sitting in the room review what the issue is 4and what solution it is that we have found. 5 The issue is that there is a 6statutory provision whose meaning is, frankly, in 7dispute among counsel that deals with what can and 8cannot be done at your hearing, what pieces of 9evidence, what documents may be introduced and any 10restrictions on the documents or information that 11you can have in order to help you to come to your 12decision. 13 Commission counsel has taken the 14position that any document, any information, that 15was available to the Military Police must of 16necessity be available to you as part of your 17review of whether the complaints about how the 18Military Police conducted their functions are 19justified or not justified. 20 My friends at the Department of 21Justice take the position that the statute itself, 22the National Defence Act, sets out certain 23restrictions on what evidence may be received and 24accepted. Their reading of that section and of the 25meaning of the words leads them to the conclusion

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 3 2 3 4 5 1that the words spoken by anyone at the board of 2inquiry or anyone participating in the summary 3investigation may not be revealed in these 4proceedings and may not be used by you in your 5assessment. 6 I believe Colonel Drapeau in 7general takes a view similar to that of Commission 8counsel, that on a functional and pragmatic basis 9that would contradict the intention of the 10legislation to allow you to deal with a complaint. 11 As I say, no counsel has retreated 12from their position and no one has made any 13concessions as to the meaning of the section or how 14it is to be applied. 15 That having been said, in order to 16meet everyone’s pragmatic needs, we have come to 17the following resolution: Where there is any 18statement that was made at the board of inquiry or 19that was made in the summary investigation that was 20available to the Military Police and that was in 21their files or that they reviewed, rather than 22producing the words themselves in those statements, 23Commission counsel and the Department of Justice 24will work together to prepare a summary that will 25deal with the information without disclosing the

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 4 2 3 4 5 1words and that will protect the Department of 2Justice’s belief that witnesses cannot be 3identified and linked to their words either. 4 That accomplishes, from the 5Commission’s point of view, the very important goal 6of making available to you the information that was 7available to the Military Police. It may not be in 8the exact words of a witness and the words may not 9be linked to a specific witness, but it will put 10before you and make available to you that which was 11available to the Military Police. That’s our 12bottom line. 13 I understand how this meets the 14purposes of the Department of Justice in that the 15exact words of the statute are, in their view, 16complied with and I take no position on that. So I 17am very happy and satisfied with that. 18 Counsel may have some additional 19statements to make about the Department of 20Justice’s position. As for Colonel Drapeau, I am 21also pleased to say that he has come to the 22conclusion -- and he can say whatever he would like 23when I am done -- that this arrangement also meets 24the needs of the Complainants and allows them to 25make submissions about the way that the Military

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 5 2 3 4 5 1Police did or did not carry out their duties. 2 Finally, all I have to say is that 3I am extremely pleased that notwithstanding 4strongly-held positions on all sides, we were able 5to have creative, civil and productive discussions 6that have led to, I think, an appropriate and 7pragmatic solution. 8 I repeat again, I am sure everyone 9has a feeling that not everything they would have 10wanted has occurred, but that’s the sign of a good 11compromise. 12 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr. 13Freiman. Colonel Drapeau, any comments? 14 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: Mr. Chair, 15good morning. 16 I will echo what Commission 17counsel has said. Reluctantly but pragmatically we 18agree to that. I will make my comments brief. One 19proviso -- it’s a big proviso -- time is of the 20essence. We have also agreed that, to the degree 21possible, we will have the actual records to be 22released by the end of next week. I am holding to 23that. That may or may not happen, but it’s 24certainly not next month. So time is a factor. 25 THE CHAIRPERSON: Ms Richards?

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 6 2 3 4 5 1 MS RICHARDS: I am in the back and 2they didn’t give me a microphone. I’m not going to 3read anything into that, but I managed to find out. 4 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes, you 5shouldn’t read anything into that. 6 MS RICHARDS: We are pleased that 7we have been able to come to a compromise on this. 8 Don’t bother; I’m not going to 9speak after this, everybody will be glad to hear. 10 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. 11 MS RICHARDS: The only other 12proviso that we have discussed is the intent of the 13legislation, certainly in our view, is that the 14statements cannot be used against witnesses in an 15attempt to impeach or discredit them. So all 16counsel have agreed that with the summaries they 17will not be used for that purpose. 18 THE CHAIRPERSON: That last part, 19is everybody agreed on that? 20 MR. FREIMAN: Everyone is agreed 21on that, but just so that it’s clear and on the 22record what Commission counsel’s position on that 23last point is, yes, we agree, that is what we will 24do. Our view of the purpose of that provision in 25the statute is twofold. We agree that part of it

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 7 2 3 4 5 1is to protect witnesses from being impeached on 2what they say before the board of inquiry so as to 3ensure that they are free and candid in what they 4say without fear of repercussions. 5 But the second reason, and the 6pragmatic reason for you, is that Parliament 7intended that this Commission not subcontract its 8fact-finding function to another body. So it’s our 9view that the reason for that provision is to 10prevent the Commission from simply accepting 11statements or facts that were made in another body 12without critically subjecting them to a test. 13 THE CHAIRPERSON: Colonel Drapeau? 14 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: And 15likewise, the agreement should not be seen as 16endorsing the position of my friend from the Crown 17to their interpretation of section 250.42(3). It’s 18not. But for the purpose and for pragmatic 19reasons, we are moving ahead, but we have a 20different interpretation of that particular 21position. 22 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. I 23appreciate the co-operation of all counsel. In 24terms of the interpretation, I suppose the only way 25at some time in the future, whether it be this

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 8 2 3 4 5 1hearing or another hearing or hearings into the 2future, the only way the matter is going to be 3resolved is through Federal Court. That would be 4my guess. 5 Having said all that, I think we 6are ready to proceed with our witness. 7 I’m sorry, do you have another 8issue? 9 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: I have two 10issues, Mr. Chair. 11 When Mrs. Fynes testified on 12Monday, she raised her apprehension that the police 13report that was presented to you in a book of 14evidence might be one of several versions. I 15covered this point later on in comments and in fact 16informed the Commission that in a couple of 17instances we have at least two reports. One report 18was obtained by Mrs. Fynes under Access to 19Information, which I will table now as an exhibit. 20 One report is at Collection D, tab 216, document 524, and it’s 578 pages in length. 22This is the General Occurrence Report 2008-6544. 23 Mrs. Fynes on her own obtained a 24copy of the same General Occurrence Report 2008- 256544, and that particular report is 714 pages in

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 9 2 3 4 5 1length. Not only is the volume itself augmented 2quite substantially, but the sequencing of the 3actual report is different. I have quoted last 4time where one would find a passage at a given page 5and then in a second edition it would be totally 6reversed, and so on. 7 What I am tabling now is a copy of 8the report received by Mrs. Fynes under Access to 9Information and I am showing also the differences. 10We don’t know if there were two sets of books. We 11just find it odd -- I am not saying it’s nefarious, 12just odd that there are two copies being issued. I 13don’t know what the explanation is. What we are 14asking for is to raise that to you and then maybe 15if there is a plausible explanation for it, that 16would be fine. 17 THE CHAIRPERSON: The report that 18you are tabling, is it all 714 pages? 19 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: It is. 20 THE CHAIRPERSON: We need to be 21careful, if that is going to be put into the 22record, that personal information needs to be -- 23 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: Both 24versions are in evidence. The second one, which I 25should have cited, is at Collection A, tab 1,

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 10 2 3 4 5 1document 001. That’s the one that is 714 pages in 2length. 3 In the collection that we have, 4same documents shown in two locations, one is 578 5pages in length, the other one is 714 pages in 6length and the sequencing is different. 7 THE CHAIRPERSON: Your question on 8that is...? 9 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: The question 10is, is there a separate report, two sets of books? 11Why are there two separate documents? On the face 12of it they are different, their flow, their 13sequencing, where you would find on page X, the 14other one you find it at page X3. Why is that? 15And we haven’t got the time or the means to see if 16in fact there is any -- there may be a plausible 17explanation, but at the moment Mrs. Fynes’ comment 18that there may have been two sets of books stands. 19 THE CHAIRPERSON: Before we jump 20to that conclusion, I think we need an explanation. 21 Ms Richards? 22 MS RICHARDS: I’m sorry, I know I 23promised that I wouldn’t speak again, but this is a 24serious issue. It is a serious and, in my 25submission, a spurious allegation that has been

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 11 2 3 4 5 1repeated, unfortunately, more than once now since 2that testimony before you that there were two sets 3of books. There is absolutely no evidence before 4you about that. We take it very seriously. We 5think it is an inappropriate allegation to make. 6 You, Mr. Chairman, in your 7position have dealt with the SAMPIS system, so you 8are familiar that this is an electronic system. I 9have spoken with Commission counsel. I will speak 10to her again. Because of the nature of these 11completely unfounded allegations, we will work to 12get some evidence that we can provide, perhaps by 13an affidavit, before you to deal with this issue. 14I will see if I can get something for next week. 15 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. It may 16even result in somebody explaining SAMPIS so there 17is a complete understanding of how SAMPIS works and 18how the documentation flows and the changes go. 19 MS RICHARDS: We will certainly 20have a discussion, as I have said, and counsel have 21had some discussions. We are certainly concerned 22about timing at this stage because, as you know, we 23have expressed this before about the timeliness of 24the hearing and the witnesses. Commission counsel 25and the parties are going to have some discussions

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 12 2 3 4 5 1today and we will find the best way forward. I 2just wanted to be clear on the record on the 3position certainly of the subjects is that there is 4one set of books. There is no basis for any 5allegation there are two sets of books, and we are 6going to work with Commission counsel to get some 7evidence before you quickly. 8 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: If I may, 9that is precisely what we want. In fact, if we can 10put this allegation to bed, I would be very happy, 11very pleased. It has been made. We are giving you 12what it is that we have. There seems to be two 13different versions, and they are different. So 14let’s address them as quickly as possible and move 15on. 16 THE CHAIRPERSON: I would like to 17keep it in the frame of mind of looking for an 18explanation of why there is a difference in the two 19rather than an allegation of two sets of books. 20 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: Agreed. 21 THE CHAIRPERSON: I think that is 22a more fair request. 23 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: Agreed. 24 THE CHAIRPERSON: Ms Coutlée? 25 MS COUTLÉE: Yes, Mr. Chairman,

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 13 2 3 4 5 1Commission counsel has been having discussions with 2the Department of Justice to come up with the best 3way to bring some evidence before you that would 4explain why different versions, different printed 5versions of the General Occurrence files have 6different page numbering and are different in 7overall length. 8 The concern from Commission 9counsel’s perspective is to ensure that the record 10before you and before this hearing fully reflects 11all of the documents that were included in the 12electronic system and available to the Military 13Police members involved in the investigation. So 14we will be working with the Department of Justice 15to ensure that the record before you is complete 16and that there is an explanation for any 17discrepancy in the pages. 18 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. I think it 19can be resolved with the necessary review. I have 20dealt with the SAMPIS system in the past hearing, 21and as well we deal with SAMPIS through all of our 22Military Police complaints. SAMPIS is a key part. 23Every file has a GO file and with electronics 24different versions can come out. I think for the 25record it would be a good thing for us to get that

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 14 2 3 4 5 1explanation. 2 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: Mr. Chair, 3we haven’t dealt with SAMPIS. I don’t even know 4what the initials stand for. 5 THE CHAIRPERSON: I just like to 6call it SAMPIS. It’s their internal record system 7for their investigative files. There is a long, 8fancy name for it. 9 MS COUTLÉE: I can get that at the 10break. 11 THE CHAIRPERSON: We will give you 12the name of that. It’s another acronym you can add 13to your list. 14 Are we all set? 15 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: I have a 16second point. 17 THE CHAIRPERSON: Go ahead. 18 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: Mrs. Fynes 19also noted that during her interview with the NIS 20on May 5, 2010 there were some comments that she 21would have made during that interview that are not 22reflected on the transcript. I think we heard that 23the transcript was made by the Commission based on 24the audiotape that was provided to the Commission. 25 We have received through Access to

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 15 2 3 4 5 1Information an audio-video of that particular 2interview which we will enter now as evidence. 3That particular video that we are going to show you 4-- we have a correspondence to you and Commission 5counsel. In four specific locations on the tape -- 6first hour, first minute, three seconds is one. 7The second one is at the first hour, 11 minutes, 44 8seconds. The third one is at the first hour, 17 9minutes, 4 seconds. The fourth one is at the first 10hour, 59 minutes, 30 seconds. There is, at least 11prima facie when you look at the video itself, 12there is a jump, there is a -- I wouldn’t call it a 13slice, but there is certainly something that 14catches your eye that something has happened there, 15whether it’s a malfunction or whether it’s being 16stopped and restarted, whatever it is. 17 So, what I am asking is to have 18Mrs. Fynes recalled as a witness to address that 19particular video. It would only take maximum 10 20minutes or so to show those particular parts and 21let her testify as to what commentary she would 22have made that is not shown at that precise spot. 23 THE CHAIRPERSON: I would like to 24park that issue for this minute. We have our 25witness who is waiting. At the conclusion of that,

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 16 2 3 4 5 1I will hear comments from counsel and then we can 2address that if that is fine with you, in fairness 3to the witness. 4 COL (RET’D) DRAPEAU: That is fine 5with me. 6 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Freiman, Ms 7Richards, are you fine with that? 8 MS RICHARDS: I am absolutely fine 9with that. I think in fairness to the witness, she 10shouldn’t be made to wait any more. 11 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. We are 12ready to go. 13 MS COUTLÉE: Mr. Chairman, just 14before we bring in the witness, as a matter of 15housekeeping we have to enter the exhibits. 16 Military Police Policies and 17Technical Procedures, Chapter 12. 18 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P-68. 19 EXHIBIT NO. P-68: Military 20 Police Policies and Technical 21 Procedures, Chapter 12 22 MS COUTLÉE: Military Police 23Policies and Technical Procedures, Chapter 12, 24Annex A. 25 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P-69.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 17 2 3 4 5 1 EXHIBIT NO. P-69: Military 2 Police Policies and Technical 3 Procedures, Chapter 12, Annex 4 A 5 MS COUTLÉE: The Final Report of 6the 2009 Summary Investigation into Circumstances 7Surrounding Administrative Action Taken by the Unit 8After the Death of Corporal Langridge. 9 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P-70. 10 EXHIBIT NO. P-70: Final 11 Report of the 2009 Summary 12 Investigation into 13 Circumstances Surrounding 14 Administrative Action Taken 15 by the Unit After the Death 16 of Corporal Langridge 17 MS COUTLÉE: Annexes A to R and S 18to the 2009 Summary Investigation. 19 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P-71. 20 EXHIBIT NO. P-71: Annexes A 21 to R and S to the 2009 22 Summary Investigation 23 MS COUTLÉE: Witness book index 24for Rebecca Starr. 25 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P-72.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 18 2 3 4 5 1 EXHIBIT NO. P-72: Witness 2 Book Index, Rebecca Starr 3 MS COUTLÉE: And testimony 4questions. 5 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P-73. 6 EXHIBIT NO. P-73: Testimony 7 Questions 8 MS COUTLÉE: I am not sure whether 9there are objections to entering the video proposed 10by Colonel Drapeau or whether that can be entered 11right now. 12 THE CHAIRPERSON: I would like to 13leave that until after the arguments. We will deal 14with that at the appropriate time. 15 MS COUTLÉE: Perfect. 16 THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Freiman? 17 MR. FREIMAN: Mr. Chairman, our 18next witness is Ms Rebecca Starr. 19 MS RICHARDS: While we are getting 20the witness, SAMPIS stands for Security and 21Military Police Information System. 22 THE CHAIRPERSON: Shame on me for 23forgetting that. 24AFFIRMED: REBECCA STARR 25 THE CHAIRPERSON: Good morning and

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 19 2 3 4 5 1welcome. 2EXAMINATION-IN-CHIEF BY MR. FREIMAN: 3 Q. Ms Starr, good morning. By 4way of introduction, I would like to set out a few 5ground rules, as I have with a number of other 6witnesses that we have had before us. You are 7coming here to assist this hearing, and thereby to 8assist the Chair of this hearing, in gathering 9relevant information and facts that will help the 10Chair to make a determination with respect to a 11number of complaints that have been made about the 12Military Police. 13 We are very grateful to you for 14coming to assist us. This is about the complaints. 15It’s not about you. 16 A. Okay. 17 Q. We will try to keep ourselves 18focussed by reminding ourselves of that fact. 19 The other ground rule I would like 20to talk about is the result of the undoubted fact 21that this can be an emotional experience for you, 22and we understand that. So as I have offered to 23other witnesses who have testified, if at any time 24you feel you need a break or you just want to 25pause, just raise your hand and we will stop and

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 20 2 3 4 5 1accommodate that. 2 A. Okay. 3 Q. Ms Starr, you are known to us 4through our documents by another name, Rebecca 5Hamilton-Tree, but through the course of today’s 6evidence I will refer to you by your current name. 7 A. Okay. 8 Q. Ms Starr, this hearing really 9arises out of a very sad circumstances, and it’s 10the suicide of Corporal Stuart Langridge, and what 11happened before and some events that happened 12afterwards. You are in a position to assist us 13because you were in a personal relationship with 14Corporal Langridge. 15 What I would like to do is start 16out by asking you when and how you met Corporal 17Langridge -- and I am going to call him Stuart for 18the rest of this morning -- when and how you met 19Stuart and the first few months of that 20relationship. 21 A. Stuart and I met online, on a 22friend website. We met in October of 2005, at the 23end of the month. We started dating and spending a 24lot of time together, pretty much immediately after 25meeting.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 21 2 3 4 5 1 Initially our relationship was 2fantastic. Stuart loved to have fun. He loved 3being in the military. He was a happy guy. He had 4tons of friends and they were all great, happy 5people. It didn’t really change until probably -- 6well, a little bit in 2006 when he father passed, 7and then in 2007. 8 Q. Let’s just slow down. We 9have you meeting online and beginning to spend a 10lot of time together. I guess I have to ask you 11whether at some point spending a lot of time 12together meant that the two of you shared 13accommodations. 14 A. Yes. I moved in with Stuart 15and his roommate, I believe, in May of 2006. 16 Q. The roommate was...? 17 A. Corporal John Rohmer. 18 Q. Just to clarify on that 19account, was Corporal Rohmer a friend of yours or a 20friend of Stuart’s? 21 A. He was a friend of Stuart’s 22but became a friend of mine over the years. 23 Q. Okay. We have you moving in, 24sharing accommodation. What was the address of the 25first place where you shared accommodation?

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 22 2 3 4 5 1 A. Apartment -- 2 Q. Just the -- 3 A. It was an apartment in 4downtown Edmonton. 5 Q. That’s fine. You will see 6later on, I’m sure, that issues of addresses may 7have some relevance to us. I just wanted to 8establish what address at what time. 9 A. Okay. 10 Q. You lived in an apartment in 11downtown Edmonton. 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. You have told us about the 14first months. You have told us about Stuart’s 15attitude toward the army, his attitude toward life 16in general. Did that change at any time? 17 A. He struggled with life in 18general for a little while in 2006 right after his 19father passed away. 20 Q. Again, I am sorry to ask for 21personal details, not about you, but about Stuart 22at this point. When you say he struggled with 23aspects of life, what does that mean? 24 A. There was a little bit of 25binge drinking and possibly some overuse of other

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 23 2 3 4 5 1illegal substances. 2 Q. At the time were you aware of 3the illegal substances? 4 A. Not until later. 5 Q. You located this in time in 62006 and you told us that that was subsequent to 7the passing of Stuart’s biological father. 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. Can you contrast before and 10after other than on the issue of binge drinking? 11 A. Even, for example, when it 12came to going out with friends or having a couple 13of beers, it became a depressing activity, whereas 14before if we had a couple of drinks it was fun and 15everybody had a great time and we went out and 16other people were around. He became slightly 17antisocial, I guess, might be a good word, mostly 18spending time at home with just Corporal Rohmer and 19I and didn’t want anybody extra to be around. 20 Q. Can you turn your mind back 21to those times and tell me in addition to what we 22have talked about, did you see any difference in 23terms of Stuart’s attitude toward the military? 24 A. Not at that point in time, 25no.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 24 2 3 4 5 1 Q. We have heard in evidence 2that at some point in late winter, early spring 32007 Stuart was sent on a leadership course, a PLQ 4course. Can you tell us from your perspective what 5happened after he went away to that course? 6 A. This was in the spring. 7 Q. Yes. 8 A. I remember that he didn’t 9really want to be there. I don’t recall why, but I 10believe he might have come home early, but I am not 11100 per cent sure. He didn’t finish the last 12module or something, I believe, because he was 13having chest pains and was really stressed out 14about everything. 15 Q. Let me ask you about that. 16When did Stuart start complaining about chest 17pains? Had he complained about chest pains and 18stress and anxiety when you first formed a 19relationship? 20 A. No, he didn’t. 21 Q. When did that change? 22 A. That’s probably the first 23time that I recall him mentioning any chest pains 24and anxiety. It was right around the PLQ course. 25 Q. We have also heard that

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 25 2 3 4 5 1around about this time Stuart was sent for an 2addictions course. Do you remember that event? 3 First of all, did Stuart talk to 4you about the fact that he had been asked to go to 5see an addictions counsellor -- which I understand 6was a counsellor who could deal with the broad 7subject matter of additions from alcohol through 8drugs. 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. Do you remember him talking 11to you about that? 12 A. Going to the addictions 13counsellor himself -- 14 Q. Yes. 15 A. -- like the one-on-one 16meetings? Yes, I do. But at that time he told me 17that it was because the military was concerned 18about his drinking. 19 Q. You have talked about the 20binge drinking, so you associated it with the binge 21drinking. 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. We have also heard a good 24deal of evidence about an incident in June of 2007. 25I wonder if you can set the stage for us. We have

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 26 2 3 4 5 1heard that things happened over the course of a 2weekend, starting, I believe, the 22nd of June 32007, culminating on the 25th of June 2007. Just 4tell us the story, please. 5 A. The 22nd was when I -- I just 6want to make sure because the dates get a little 7bit jumbled. It was when I found the cocaine, 8right? 9 Q. I think so. 10 A. I had been at home and Stuart 11and I had an argument. I couldn’t figure out -- he 12was being so irrational. I was in our bathroom and 13going to take an Advil or something and I found a 14bunch of cocaine. I was so upset that I didn’t 15know what to do and who to talk to, so I took the 16cocaine and left the house -- I told him that I was 17going for a walk -- and went to Corporal Rohmer’s 18house. 19 Q. By this time Corporal Rohmer 20was no longer living with you. 21 A. No. This was after we had 22moved into our townhouse in the north end of 23Edmonton. 24 Q. Again, not to interrupt the 25story, but the townhouse we are talking about is

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 27 2 3 4 5 1the -- give us that address. 2 A. 138 13107 153 Ave. 3 Q. Thank you very much. You 4went to Corporal Rohmer’s house. Then what 5happened? 6 A. I was looking to them for 7advice -- Corporal Hillier came as well -- as to 8what to do because I didn’t realize -- I was aware 9of the fact that Stuart had done coke, more so 10recreationally occasionally, but not that it was 11being kept in our house anymore and not that he was 12still doing it anymore. 13 I didn’t know what to do. We 14spoke to -- we called an AADAC phone number to try 15and ask what to do. 16 Q. What is AADAC? 17 A. Like Alcoholics Anonymous. 18I’m not even sure if it was AADAC, but it was some 19sort of addiction support help line. 20 By that point in time Stuart had 21found out that I was obviously not just on a short 22walk and went to look for his cocaine and found out 23that it was missing. So he called me and got very 24mad at me that I had taken his cocaine and 25threatened me, said I had to bring it back right

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 28 2 3 4 5 1now, that I didn’t understand how much he had paid 2for that. 3 I told him that I wasn’t going to 4bring it home and that I was probably just going to 5flush it down the toilet. 6 Eventually it turned from that 7anger to saying ANo, I’m so sorry, do whatever you 8want, just come home.” 9 The rest of the evening -- I think 10he ended up drinking and I ended up staying with 11his friends. I am not exactly sure how the rest of 12the things played out, in what order. 13 I know that at some point over 14that weekend -- when I came home the next day, for 15example, there were pills all over our house. When 16I tried to wake Stu up, he said, AI just wasn’t 17feeling well, so I took some extra pills.” 18 I still don’t know if he actually 19swallowed all the pills or just made a mess and was 20trying to ask for help from that attempt, but there 21was definitely evidence there that he wanted me to 22think that he had attempted to commit suicide. 23 At that point I wasn’t sure if I 24believed him and I didn’t call an ambulance. He 25seemed to be fine and he said that he had taken

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 29 2 3 4 5 1them several hours before. I also know that at 2some point during the weekend he came to find us, I 3was with Corporal Hillier and Corporal Rohmer, and 4that Stuart had, like, brought an axe from our 5house and was angry with us. Basically I couldn’t 6even tell you that I knew the person that showed up 7at the 711 and was yelling at me that he wanted his 8drugs back and wanted to know why I was hanging out 9with his friends. 10 Eventually Corporal Hillier ended 11up having to hit him more in a self-defence manner 12and essentially held him down in the parking lot 13while they tried to get him to focus and take some 14deep breaths so that he wouldn’t be so crazy, for 15lack of a better word. He ended up with, I 16believe,’ a black eye or a large bruise and small 17scrape. 18 Q. So we’ve gotten us from the 19events of the Friday through to some point in the 20weekend. We know that Stu had an appointment for 21an addictions program scheduled for the following 22Monday. Can you tell us what you remember about 23that Monday? Did you move back into the townhouse 24at that point? 25 A. Oh, yes. I only spent the

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 30 2 3 4 5 1one evening away because I knew that he would get 2ridiculously drunk. I was home Saturday and 3Sunday. I remember he apologized for everything 4and he felt so sorry that he had cocaine in our 5house and he told me that he’d never do it again. 6We spent Sunday -- I believe he was fairly hung- 7over and we just kind of got our lives ready for 8the Monday. 9 He told me that he was going to 10the five-day course. He wasn’t very excited about 11it. He had said that he didn’t understand why he 12had to go and he didn’t see that there was a 13problem. But when we got up in the morning, he got 14up at the same time and went to the course, as far 15as I knew. Until I got home later that night, I 16was unaware that there was anything wrong. 17 Q. So you got home, and when did 18you find out that there was something wrong? 19 A. I get home about 4:00 and his 20course was supposed to end at four. When he hadn’t 21gotten home by five, I realized that something 22obviously was wrong. I called the hotel that the 23course was being held at and they told me that they 24had been done since, like, 3:30. The front desk 25lady said that she would go and check the room and

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 31 2 3 4 5 1just make sure there were no stragglers left 2behind. Sometimes they have one-on-one chats 3after. She ended up finding a counsellor there, 4one of the gentlemen who was leading the program, 5and he and I spoke on the phone. He said that 6Stuart hadn’t returned after lunch that day. 7 At this point I had no idea what 8to think. He hadn’t contacted me at all. Corporal 9Hillier at that time was living in another 10townhouse in the same townhouse community and 11apparently received a text message, and probably 12right after I finished the phone call with the 13hotel, he showed up at my door and said AWhat’s 14going on?” Corporal Hillier and my mom and a bunch 15of other members of my friends and family that, if 16Stuart had had their number, Stuart had sent them a 17text message saying AGo to her. She needs you now. 18You’ll understand why later.” 19 Q. What happened after you 20discovered the fact of this text message? 21 A. I freaked out a little bit. 22We called 9-1-1 -- no, we called the base first. I 23ended up getting patched through to the Military 24Police and they asked me if Stuart had been on the 25base when this took place. I said no and he told

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 32 2 3 4 5 1me that he was unable to assist me. 2 Q. All right. 3 A. At which point in time I 4called 9-1-1 and told them that we were positive 5that my fiancé was attempting to commit suicide. 6They ended up sending police cars to our house 7because a suicide -- they send police first because 8it’s causing harm to yourself. When the police got 9there, I talked to them about where he might be. I 10believe it was Corporal Hillier who went in their 11vehicle with someone else -- I can’t remember, I 12believe it was Corporal Rohmer, but I’m not 100 per 13cent sure -- went in their vehicle because they 14thought they knew where Stu might go, where he 15would go to be alone. 16 He ended up being just north of 17our townhouse community. He had driven the Jeep 18into the bushes causing severe damage to the 19outside of the Jeep. He had been drinking and 20doing cocaine and had set up a hose from the 21exhaust pipe to the window of the vehicle. 22 Q. Take your time, take your 23time. 24 A. The police tried to go and 25meet with Jay to find them, but the police couldn’t

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 33 2 3 4 5 1find where they needed to go, so my dad and I went 2in our vehicle and showed them. By the time we got 3there, the guys had gotten the Jeep out of the 4bushes and unhooked everything and thrown it away 5so that I wouldn’t see it. And Stu was really 6drunk. Eventually the ambulance showed up and they 7transported him to the Alec. 8 Q. Take a minute, please. Are 9you okay? 10 A. Yes. 11 Q. I want you now to think back 12to the few days that Stuart spent at the Royal 13Alexandra Hospital after these events. Do you have 14any recollections of what happened between you and 15Stuart, anything that he told you or anything the 16doctors might have told you that was relevant to 17what was going on? 18 A. I don’t really remember at 19that time talking about a lot of specifics. The 20time in the Alec kind of gets all jumbled together 21between visits for me, at this point. 22 I remember that specific time he 23was really struggling with not being able to smoke 24cigarettes. That was his big thing. I don’t 25really recall talking with any doctors or anything

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 34 2 3 4 5 1else. 2 Q. We have seen references in at 3least one document relating to this period of time, 4to the military preparing a suicide watch or 5preparing for a suicide watch. Was that something 6that anyone talked to you about? Were you aware of 7that concept? 8 A. At the end of June? 9 Q. Yes. 10 A. No, I don’t believe so. 11 Q. Okay, that’s fine. Tell me 12what happened, if anything, after Stuart’s 13discharge. What was the situation? 14 A. We went home and he promised 15to make some changes in his life. The summer 16actually was okay. We both cut down on drinking a 17lot. At this point I still didn’t know -- I didn’t 18know that the cocaine was an issue until later or 19that it was a daily issue. Things started to get a 20little bit better. As normal couples do, we had 21our up and down days, but it was pretty good. 22 Stuart was contemplating whether 23or not he wanted to be in the military any more. 24 Q. Tell me about any discussions 25you had on that topic.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 35 2 3 4 5 1 A. He said that he wasn’t sure 2that’s what he wanted to do. He told me that he 3had already gone twice and that when he joined the 4military, he joined the military to do things that 5were more peacekeeping and he felt that his last 6time or what it was turning into now on the 7deployments, that they were actually shooting other 8people and he didn’t feel that it was as nice as -- 9or what he felt he joined, for example, when he 10went on his tour to Bosnia. 11 Q. I would like at this point 12for you to think back and tell me whether Stuart at 13any point -- let’s start dividing the time up -- at 14any point before this incident with the suicide 15attempt, whether he had talked to you at all about 16his experiences in Afghanistan or in Bosnia. 17 A. He would start to tell 18stories, but then mostly he would say that he 19wasn’t allowed to talk about them. 20 Q. Did you get an impression as 21to his attitude toward his time in -- you have told 22us a little bit about the change in role -- but his 23specific time in Afghanistan? 24 A. I remember him telling me one 25story about kids and what he saw them doing because

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 36 2 3 4 5 1they thought it was fun, and just looking at the 2poverty in Afghanistan and how different it was 3there. I know that that really affected him. But 4other than that, he never really wanted to talk 5about it. Sometimes he would get thoughtful and 6quiet and you could tell that he was thinking about 7something and he would say AI’m just thinking about 8something that happened while I was on tour.” 9 Q. Do you remember any 10conversations with Stuart over that summer about 11what, if anything, people on the base knew about 12the incident in the woods? 13 A. I don’t remember any specific 14conversations. The army base is kind of like a big 15high school. There were a couple of them there and 16they probably told one other person and then 17everybody knew, maybe not all the details, maybe 18not the right details, but they at least knew that 19there was an attempt. 20 Q. What was Stuart’s view about 21the fact that that information had been spread? 22 A. He was embarrassed, but I 23don’t remember having detailed conversations about 24it. 25 Q. I would like to ask you one

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 37 2 3 4 5 1more question about this time period and that has 2to do with the kind of work that Stuart was doing 3on the army base and his view of the work that he 4was doing. Do you remember what his employment was 5at this point? 6 A. I don’t really recall what he 7was doing in June. I know that at some point later 8on -- I don’t think it was until fall, but I might 9not be correct. He was given what he called 10meaningless tasks. I know that when he was in the 11military family support area, closer to the end he 12was completely dissatisfied. He would come home 13early all the time and he’d go in the morning and 14go to the gym and that’s pretty much all that he 15seemed to have to do. 16 Q. I think at one point he was 17working in the kit shop. Do you remember that? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. What was his view about 20working in the kit shop? Do you remember? 21 A. That it was a meaningless 22task. 23 Q. Then we heard, and it’s not 24clear what the timing was, that at some point he 25was transferred to work under Master Corporal

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 38 2 3 4 5 1Fitzpatrick at the duty centre. Do you remember 2that transition? 3 A. Yes, vaguely. 4 Q. Again, specifically with 5reference to that sort of employment, what was 6Stuart’s attitude? 7 A. Again, he believed that it 8was meaningless and that he wanted to be doing 9something more useful. He wanted to be prepping to 10go on another tour or at least working on tanks or 11Coyotes and he didn’t want -- 12 Q. I would like you to explain 13something to me. You just said that he wanted to 14be working to prep for another tour, yet a couple 15of minutes ago you told us that Stuart had told you 16he didn’t want to go overseas because of the change 17in the role for Canada’s forces. How can you 18reconcile those two statements? 19 A. He would flip-flop back and 20forth a lot between that. I think that it had to 21do with either his feelings for the military or how 22sober he was that day. It changed with his 23fluctuating emotions. If something at work made 24him angry, then he didn’t want to go again. If 25something at work made it easier to not be at home,

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 39 2 3 4 5 1then he wanted to go overseas. 2 Q. The last point about this 3period of time, do you know what Stuart told either 4his mother or Mr. Fynes, his stepfather, about what 5had happened that summer? 6 A. Nothing. At the time when it 7took place, I had also contacted Shaun and notified 8him. Actually, I was looking to see if anybody 9else had heard from Stu to see if I could find him. 10It was discussed on the phone between Shaun and I 11that we would not tell Sheila because she had just 12undergone a surgery and was still very frail from 13recovery. So it was never spoken about with Sheila 14at all. Shaun was aware of it and I believe we 15spoke at one point about it during the summer, but 16that was pretty much it. 17 Q. The next relevant incident, I 18believe, occurred some time in October of that same 19year and it again had to do with what might have 20been an attempt by Stuart to harm himself. 21 Can you tell us about that 22incident? 23 A. Can you remind me of which 24attempt this was? 25 Q. This had to do with -- there

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 40 2 3 4 5 1was a call to the base about Stuart -- well, it had 2to do with pills. 3 A. Okay. I went to the base, 4that incident. I had come home from work -- I’m 5not sure why -- to check on him. I knew something 6was wrong. He had swallowed two whole bottles of 7pills which, as far as I am aware, were full of his 8prescription medications from the doctor on the 9base. When I came home, I could tell that he was 10out of it. He was in bed and he wouldn’t get up. 11He told me to just go away and that everything was 12fine and he was just tired. 13 I ended up going to the base, 14because I didn’t know what to do, and asking for 15help from them. I gave them my house key and I 16sent them back to the condo. 17 Q. What did you tell them on the 18base? 19 A. That I believed that Stuart 20had attempted suicide and that I didn’t know what 21to do and that I needed their help. 22 Q. Yes. 23 A. I believe they sent an MP to 24my house to go in and check on him. They 25determined at that time that they would call 9-1-1.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 41 2 3 4 5 1An ambulance came and picked him up and took him to 2the hospital. 3 Q. Do you recall any details 4about that stay in hospital? 5 A. Not specifically. Again, 6there was always the need to smoke. I can’t 7remember if that was the time when he had attempted 8suicide while in the hospital as well. I know that 9one of the times in the Alec he did. 10 Q. We will deal with what we 11know from our records in due course, but right now 12we will just think about your recollections and 13your memory. 14 Was this attempt discussed with 15any members of Stuart’s family? 16 A. I believe that that was the 17time that I contacted the family and told them what 18was happening. I said that I needed their help 19because I couldn’t do it by myself any more. 20 Q. We have seen references in 21documents and we have heard some evidence as well 22about an intervention that occurred. You and Mrs. 23Fynes are mentioned as having done an intervention. 24Can you tell me about that? 25 A. I don’t necessarily recall

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 42 2 3 4 5 1doing an intervention. I know that Sheila came. 2 Q. That’s what it’s about. 3 A. Yes. Sheila came and we 4basically sat him down and told him that this 5needed to get fixed. He said that he was sorry and 6that he wanted to fix everything and that he was 7going to get help. 8 Q. Let’s slow this down a little 9bit. What did Stuart explain to you, if anything, 10about what he had done and why he had done it that 11led him to be admitted to the hospital? 12 A. I don’t recall what his 13reason for his attempt was at that point. I do 14know that he had consumed large amounts of alcohol. 15At this point in time I’m also aware of the fact 16that there was probably cocaine use as well. I 17wasn’t aware that the cocaine was again a 18consistent issue at this point still. I thought it 19was just drinking now. 20 Q. You and Mrs. Fynes sat Stuart 21down and said something has to change. 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. So what happened? Did 24something change? 25 A. I don’t remember. I believe

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 43 2 3 4 5 1that we quit drinking, but not until December, if I 2recall. So I am not sure what happened between 3those two times. It might have happened right 4away. 5 Q. Let’s move on to December. 6The first thing I want to talk about with you in 7December is the fact that in early December you and 8Stuart sat down with Captain Volstad and made a 9declaration. Can you tell me the events leading up 10to that, what it was that you did and what you and 11Stuart were thinking about when you did it? 12 A. Stuart had been asking me to 13sign the common law declaration since we had been 14eligible in July. He had wanted to and wanted to, 15and I said if you want to be married, let’s just 16get married. At that point we weren’t financially 17in a position to get married other than go down to 18the courthouse and sign some papers, so I kept 19pushing it off. 20 In December when we signed it, Stu 21was very happy. It was a great day for both of us 22because it was something that we both wanted. The 23reason that it was signed at that point was that it 24would allow me to attend treatment at Edgewood with 25him, something that was really important because

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 44 2 3 4 5 1Stuart had committed to me that I could be a part 2of his treatment from start to finish. All I 3wanted to do was to be able to help care for him 4more and that would allow me to get information 5from the military and to go there with him and to 6communicate with him while he was there. 7 Q. I just want to stop for a 8moment. I understand that the program you were 9going to was the spousal program. 10 A. Yes. 11 Q. Can you explain what the 12purpose of the spousal program was from your 13perspective? 14 A. The spousal program is not 15just for spouses. It’s for any family member or 16friend who is close to somebody with an addictions 17problem. Basically it covers things from co- 18dependence. There is usually a co-dependent 19relationship between an addict and most of the 20members in their family or friend circle. It also 21teaches you how not to -- I always forget what the 22word is. 23 Q. Enable. 24 A. Enable them, yes. Really 25when you get there, it is probably one of the most

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 45 2 3 4 5 1difficult things that I have ever done in my entire 2life. 3 I was lucky compared to some of 4the other people because Stuart had already left, 5so he wasn’t there, but you are not allowed to talk 6to your person while you are there, but you are in 7their space the whole entire time, and they try to 8get your attention because they want it to be about 9them. 10 They teach you things about 11yourself. They really delve into why you build 12walls around yourself and let this person in and 13you don’t allow the healthy things in. It was 14really a hard course. It was not, by any means, 15fun. 16 Q. We are going to get to that 17period in a while. Maybe we can go back to it when 18we reach that chronological stage. At this point, 19though, you have told us that the reason for the 20timing was that Stuart was going to Edgewood and 21you would be eligible for the spousal program. 22Let’s stop for a minute and discuss what led Stuart 23to the decision, or was it his decision, to go to 24Edgewood? 25 A. I believe it was a

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 46 2 3 4 5 1combination of Sheila and myself and the addictions 2counsellors. Basically getting him to admit that 3he had a problem drinking and/or cocaine and that 4he needed help, that he needed to go somewhere and 5get help. 6 Q. Let me stop you for a moment. 7You said getting him to admit that there was a 8problem with drinking or cocaine. From your 9perspective at this point, what was Stuart’s 10problem? 11 A. From my perspective in 12December I wasn’t really sure what the problem was 13because we quit drinking. I couldn’t figure out 14what was wrong. I know that he wanted to drink, so 15I thought that maybe it was that need or that urge 16to have a drink, but shortly afterwards in later 17December I found out that he was actually using 18cocaine all of the time. 19 Q. Let’s go back to the 20declaration of common law spouse. I had put you 21and Stuart in an office with Captain Volstad. We 22have heard lots of evidence about what Captain 23Volstad might have said to you, but were you 24instructed about any paperwork that needed to be 25dealt with as part of the declaration of common law

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 47 2 3 4 5 1spouse? 2 A. No, just that we had to sign 3the one piece of paper. 4 Q. From your perspective, was 5there any follow up that was necessary? 6 A. No. 7 Q. We have you now declaring 8common law status. We are at the beginning of 9December. Can you tell us what happened in the 10next two or three weeks after that? 11 A. Shortly after that Stuart’s 12younger brother Michael came to stay with us. 13 Q. Why was it that he came? We 14have heard that Michael had autistic challenges. 15 A. Yes. 16 Q. Why was he coming to visit 17with you? 18 A. I forget all the details, but 19I believe that he gets to go for vacations 20occasionally and that if they have -- if there is 21respite care or something. I can’t remember the 22right terms for it. That it would be a great 23reason for him to come and spend some time with his 24brother and that we wouldn’t have to worry 25financially about him getting there and stuff

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 48 2 3 4 5 1because that would all be paid for through his 2money, through Michael’s money. 3 He really wanted to see his 4brother and he liked to come and stay with us. I 5remember we got a postcard in the mail shortly 6before and he was so excited to come in 7anticipation. 8 Q. How did that visit go? 9 A. It was okay. Stuart ended up 10in bed the entire time. I took Michael out and fed 11him and got him in his jammies and helped him brush 12his teeth and made sure that he did all the things 13that he was supposed to do and took his meds. 14Stuart basically stayed in bed the whole entire 15time that he was there complaining of stomach 16problems, either in bed or in the bathroom. I know 17that it was hard for Mike because he always asked 18AWhere’s Stuart? Why is Stuart not coming?” 19Stuart would say, AI’m sorry, Buddy, I’m not 20feeling well today.” 21 Q. You have told us a little bit 22about some of the changes that were attempted in 23your life. One of them was to stop drinking. Was 24there any thought given to finances and budget 25matters at this point?

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 49 2 3 4 5 1 A. Yes, to a certain extent. 2Throughout all of this when we had good days, we 3were still planning on spending the rest of our 4lives together, so there were certain points where 5we were planning -- when we first got together, he 6had a fairly large credit card debt. We had gotten 7a Home Depot card in order to make a couple of 8purchases when we first moved into our townhouse. 9We were working really hard to pay down those debts 10so that we could then get a better mortgage. We 11had planned on buying my parents’ condo from them 12once we had a couple of other finances settled. 13 Q. We have heard that at some 14point in late December efforts were made to send 15Stuart to Edgewood earlier than scheduled. Why was 16that? 17 A. Because he ran away and did 18cocaine for two days. He basically disappeared. 19He wouldn’t answer his cell phone sometimes. At 20one point he attempted to drive himself to Edgewood 21because he said he needed to get there now. I’m 22really not even sure how he made it there and back, 23judging by the way that he was when I saw him when 24he returned home because he was so high. Then I 25remember eventually when he came down, everybody

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 50 2 3 4 5 1wanted him to go right away to treatment, but he 2said that he wanted to stay home at least for 3Christmas and promised that he would go right 4after. 5 Q. Was the family aware of this 6incident? 7 A. I’m not sure. 8 Q. We know that Edgewood was not 9able to take Stuart immediately but that the time 10for his admission was brought up a few days in any 11event. And we know that in the first week of 12January of 2008 Stuart went off to Edgewood. What 13was his attitude towards going to Edgewood by the 14time that he was ready to go? 15 A. I would almost say that it 16changed from minute to minute. When we were 17actually at the airport, he said, AThis is freaking 18stupid, I don’t want to go.” But I said, AYou need 19to go and try for us and for your family and for 20everyone who loves you.” He ended up, even though 21he didn’t look excited about it, walking through 22security and getting on the plane. 23 Q. Were you in touch with Stuart 24while he was at Edgewood? 25 A. When a patient first goes to

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 51 2 3 4 5 1Edgewood, they are not allowed any outside contact 2with friends or family for the first, I believe, 3seven to ten days in order to kind of take them 4away from anything that might have been triggers in 5their life and allow them to kind of become a part 6of the family at Edgewood without any external 7factors. So, no, I didn’t speak to him for the 8first few days until the day that he had decided 9that he was going to leave. 10 Q. Tell us about that. 11 A. I received a phone call from 12Stuart’s counsellor that he had been assigned at 13Edgewood. He told me that he had Stuart in the 14office and that we were on speaker phone. He said 15that he had been sitting with Stuart for the last 16chunk of time and was unable to convince him to 17stay but that Stuart wanted to come home and he 18didn’t want to stay any more. 19 He contacted me in the hopes that 20maybe there was something that I could say or do or 21talk him out of leaving. I talked to him about the 22fact that I wasn’t going to be in the house when he 23came home. 24 Q. Why was that? 25 A. Because I was afraid -- I

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 52 2 3 4 5 1knew the minute he left supervision of Edgewood 2that he would get completely drunk and that he 3would come home angry and unhappy and probably to 4get drugs, and I just didn’t want to be there and 5be a part of it, and also because over the course 6of this entire year, year and a half, I had been 7getting advice and seeking counselling on my own as 8well. Some people would say different things all 9the time, and sometimes they would suggest that I 10try pulling away and saying AI’m done. You fix it 11and then we’ll talk.” 12 So I thought that maybe even just 13by threatening that I wasn’t going to be there if 14he left the facility would get him to pay some 15attention, but it didn’t. 16 Q. So we have you speaking to 17him in the presence of his counsellors there. You 18are telling him that if he comes home, you are not 19going to be there. Did you have any contact with 20him after that before he arrived in Edmonton? 21 A. Yes. I spoke to him probably 22the whole time that he was in the airport waiting 23for his flight. They couldn’t get him a flight 24right away, so I believe it was several hours 25before he actually got on a plane.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 53 2 3 4 5 1 Q. Yes. 2 A. He had stopped at a liquor 3store and purchased beer and was carrying it in his 4bag. I am surprised they let him on the airplane. 5 Q. Why do you say that? 6 A. Because he could hardly hold 7a conversation with me he was so inebriated. 8 Q. So we know that Stuart came 9back. Where were you when he came back? 10 A. I had taken some of my things 11because I had a job and still technically needed to 12go to work the next day. Over the course of this 13time I had taken a lot of time off work and still 14needed to be attending. I had collected my clothes 15and certain things, personal belongings. My 16parents winter in the States, so they weren’t in 17their home. So I took some things and had some 18girlfriends help me and went and spent the night 19there. 20 Q. I want to go over with you a 21couple of observations that others made around this 22period of time. You have a book of documents in 23front of you. I wonder if you can turn up tab 58. 24This is an addictions treatment form by Mr. Don 25Perkins.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 54 2 3 4 5 1 First, let me ask you, did you 2know Don Perkins? Did you speak with him? 3 A. Yes, I did. 4 Q. Let’s look at what Mr. 5Perkins says. I will read it in its entirety. 6 AAt approximately 1600 hours, 7 10 January 08, Mr. Strilchuk 8 received a call from Edgewood 9 that the member had signed 10 himself out of treatment and 11 was returning home. Member’s 12 mother came up from Victoria, 13 found member at the airport 14 in an intoxicated state. 15 Member called into this 16 office this morning stating 17 he was too tired to come in 18 and would see us this week. 19 Effectively, member had 20 refused medical treatment 21 and, as such, is absence from 22 duty. Medical treatment 23 letters should be cancelled 24 as of 2400 hours 10 January 25 08. Due to his coming home

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 55 2 3 4 5 1 in this state, his common law 2 left the home and sought 3 safety at her sister’s 4 place.” (As read) 5 Just before we get any further, 6the information that Mr. Perkins is recording here, 7was any or all of this information that you gave 8him? 9 A. Not that I am aware of. I 10might have told him that I was staying with my 11parents. 12 Q. Yes. 13 A. But -- 14 Q. The rest of it you did not 15talk to him about. 16 A. I don’t recall the 17conversation, no. 18 Q. Let’s move down: 19 ARisk assessment, high. 20 Member has attempted suicide 21 before. I believe he is at 22 extremely high risk at this 23 time.” (As read) 24 I would like to ask you: Did it 25occur to you that Stuart was at high risk of

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 56 2 3 4 5 1harming himself? 2 A. Yes, it did. 3 Q. What did you do in order to 4deal with that fact? 5 A. I tried to stay in touch with 6him, but it’s kind of hard, unless you are going to 7sit with them while they get drunk and high, to 8control that. So I just tried to check in on him 9occasionally. 10 Q. At some point you went off to 11Edgewood, you have told us. 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. Did you go after Stuart had 14left? 15 A. Yes, he had already come 16home. 17 Q. Can you tell us what your 18reasoning process was, given that Stuart was not 19taking treatment, for you to go to the facility? 20 A. Because his addictions 21counsellors on the base, along with his counsellor 22at Edgewood, and Stuart as well, suggested that I 23attend in order to help me understand what was 24going on, help me better deal with the situations 25at home, and therefore to give Stuart better help

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 57 2 3 4 5 1and offer him all the support that I could in the 2correct manner but without enabling him. Everybody 3was really supportive that I should still attend. 4I was the only person there who didn’t have a 5family member in treatment and it was a little bit 6different, but the counsellors all, when I got 7there, were so happy that I still chose to attend. 8 Q. During the period of time 9between when Stuart came back and when you left for 10Edgewood, you say you were in touch with him 11frequently. Do you have any observations as to how 12he was doing? 13 A. I can’t remember if it was 14the week before or the week after. There were days 15where he was fantastic, or said he was. I mean, it 16was obvious that he wasn’t okay. He looked awful 17physically. But there were days where he said that 18he was going to go back to work and be the best 19soldier that he could be, and excited about going 20back to work. Other days he told me it was stupid 21and he couldn’t believe I was going to this stupid 22thing at Edgewood. Mostly he was just happy to be 23home. I would say that that would be one of the 24general things that I felt. 25 I know that he was stressed

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 58 2 3 4 5 1financially. We had a lot of discussions about 2that. We spent a lot of time together, but never 3really talked about too many serious things because 4it was just kind of nice to feel that he was -- 5when I was with him mostly he felt as though he was 6at peace and I thought that he was sober. 7 Q. Who was living where at this 8point? 9 A. Stuart was living in the 10townhouse and I was in the townhouse, living there, 11when the days were good. 12 Q. And when they weren’t? 13 A. When they weren’t, I would 14take some clothes and go to my mom and dad’s. 15 Q. We’ve heard some evidence 16that some time in this time period Stuart was 17transferred to a recce troop within Headquarters 18Squadron. Do you remember that incident happening? 19 A. Vaguely. 20 Q. Do you remember what Stuart’s 21perception or what his perspective on that transfer 22was? 23 A. I believe that that was in 24correlation with the days where he was excited and 25happy to go back to work and be the best soldier he

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 59 2 3 4 5 1could be. 2 Q. We’ve also heard that at some 3point Stuart left that assignment. Did you have 4any contact or conversations either with Stuart or 5anyone else about what happened to end that 6transfer? 7 A. No, I’m not sure. 8 MR. FREIMAN: I think, Mr. 9Chairman, we are at a point where we are going to 10be passing on to a new and, sorry to say, difficult 11topic. But this might be a very good time for the 12morning break. 13 THE CHAIRPERSON: We will break 14until 10 after 11. 15--- Short recess at 10:55 a.m. 16--- Upon resuming at 11:13 a.m. 17 MR. FREIMAN: 18 Q. Ms Starr, just before the 19break I said we were going to be getting into a new 20topic. Not for the first time I have to correct 21myself. I have actually forgotten to ask you a 22couple of questions. I would like to go back to 23part of our very early conversation. 24 We were talking about Stuart’s 25chest pains and when they started. We have seen in

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 60 2 3 4 5 1the medical records a number of other symptoms that 2are mentioned. I would like you to turn your mind 3back and tell me when you first noticed these 4symptoms or if you noticed them at all. One 5symptom was nightmares. 6 A. Yes. 7 Q. When, if at all, did you 8first notice Stuart having nightmares? 9 A. I would say it was probably 10around the same time as the chest pain, so just 11before or just after the PLQ course. 12 Q. What about profuse sweating? 13 A. Yes, probably around the same 14time, weather sleeping and waking up soaking wet or 15just sweating all the time during the day, it was 16very consistent from that point forward. 17 Q. Finally there was night 18terrors, that is, waking up in the middle of the 19night screaming or highly agitated. 20 A. Yes. Not necessarily 21screaming to that extent, but being afraid or being 22angry and not remembering exactly where he was and 23why he felt that way. It would take him a little 24bit to realize where we were. 25 Q. When would that have started?

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 61 2 3 4 5 1 A. Probably around the same 2time. 3 Q. During this period of time, 4that is, the period of time following his return 5from Edgewood, up to the time you went on your own 6course to Edgewood, did you get an impression from 7Stuart as to what he thought about the state of 8your relationship? 9 A. That we were still together 10and that he still referred to me as his wife. 11 Q. So you went to Edgewood, you 12came back from Edgewood. Actually, let me take you 13to a couple more documents. Could you turn up tab 1456. This is a note compiled by Shannon Newing. 15Did you know Nurse Newing? 16 A. The name sounds familiar. I 17met a lot of the medical staff there. I couldn’t 18maybe put a face to the name, but I definitely am 19aware of the name. 20 Q. If you look at the top, you 21are going to see that Nurse Newing reports as 22follows: 23 AMember continues to struggle 24 with relationship issues with 25 respect to fiancée leaving

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 62 2 3 4 5 1 him after he left treatment 2 at Edgewood. States 3 continues to speak with 4 Rebecca and that she is 5 calling me constantly. 6 Doesn’t feel like much has 7 changed other than we aren’t 8 living together.” (As read) 9 Can you tell me whether that 10corresponds to your recollection of the state of 11your relationship at this time? 12 A. To a certain extent the 13details are true. Nothing had changed. We were 14still together. As I stated before, the only 15reason that I wasn’t there was on days that I was 16afraid or he was drunk. 17 Q. Just one more document. 18Could you look at tab 55. This is also a nursing 19note from Shannon Newing. It’s about a week after 20that. Here is what she says: 21 AComplaining of sick of 22 everything, thinking 23 seriously of getting out of 24 the military. States can’t 25 face going back into work.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 63 2 3 4 5 1 Gets chest pains and panic 2 attacks. Scared when thinks 3 of having to go back to work. 4 States has been doing half 5 days then full days but for 6 the last week and a half has 7 avoided work as much as 8 possible.” (As read) 9 I want to stop there for a moment. 10Do you have any recollections of Stuart and his 11attitude towards his work at around this period of 12time? 13 A. Yes. He never wanted to go 14and he didn’t want to be there. He felt ashamed of 15what had happened and he felt judged at work. 16 Q. The next sentence is: 17 AStates often thinks of 18 hurting himself in the 19 evenings just so he won’t 20 have to go back into work. 21 Then states he knows he can’t 22 kill himself because of his 23 family and Rebecca.” 24 I’ll just stop there. Did you 25ever have any conversations with Stuart around this

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 64 2 3 4 5 1period of time about what he was thinking in terms 2of hurting himself and whether he would or might do 3that? 4 A. Yes. Every time that Stuart 5would get drunk and -- at this point I was aware of 6the cocaine use -- so high, as soon as he would 7start to come down or feel a lull or maybe have a 8bad drunk or something would set him into a bad 9mood, he would always phone and say AI am not okay. 10I don’t want to do any of this any more. I don’t 11want to be a part of life. I don’t want to go to 12work.” He was constantly talking about wanting to 13hurt himself or just wanting for it to all be over. 14 Q. Let’s pick up the chronology 15of what is going on. You are back from Edgewood at 16some point near the end of January. I understand 17that toward the end of January or the beginning of 18February another incident occurred. 19 A. Yes. 20 Q. Can you tell me about that 21incident? 22 A. I don’t recall the 23circumstances surrounding that incident. I would 24have to be reminded, but I do know that he ended up 25going into the Royal Alec again right before he

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 65 2 3 4 5 1went to the Alberta Hospital. 2 Q. As I understand it, you got a 3call from him and that led you to do certain 4things. Can you remember? Does that help you at 5all? 6 Let’s do this a different way. We 7know that Stuart was admitted to the Royal 8Alexandra Hospital around the 1st or 2nd of 9February. 10 A. Yes. 11 Q. Were you involved in getting 12him to the hospital? 13 A. I don’t believe that I was 14involved in taking him, no. 15 Q. I understand that at some 16point during the time when he was in hospital you 17went back to the townhouse and you discovered some 18things there. 19 A. That was actually after he 20had gone to the Alberta Hospital, not to the Alec. 21Do you want me to talk about that? 22 Q. Yes, please. 23 A. After he had been released 24from the Alec -- 25 Q. Let’s wait before we get

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 66 2 3 4 5 1there. I would like to talk about the release. 2Whether you took him in or not, at some point you 3discovered that he was in the Royal Alec Hospital. 4 A. Yes, I was aware of it and 5working with Emergency Medical Services. Even 6though I wasn’t there right away, I had asked the 7supervisors to let me know if he was in a state 8that was worth me going and seeing him. They told 9me that he was basically incapacitated and that 10there was no point in being there, that he wouldn’t 11be aware that I was there. 12 Q. Did you at any point see him 13while he was in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in 14early February? 15 A. Yes, I did. 16 Q. Tell us about those events. 17 A. The first time that I went 18there, as the supervisor had told me, he was asleep 19and barely able to wake up to say hello and didn’t 20really even realize where he was, I don’t think. 21Then I believe again he had been transported 22upstairs to the psychiatric ward, and that he was 23up there in his room. 24 Q. We have heard some evidence 25about events surrounding Stuart’s leaving the Royal

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 67 2 3 4 5 1Alexandra Hospital on this admission. Do you 2remember any such events? 3 A. With all of the times when he 4was at the Alec -- and again, I get them a little 5bit fuddled. I think that this was the time that 6he didn’t feel like the doctor was listening to 7him. 8 Q. Yes. 9 A. And again, as with every 10time, wanted to just go outside and have a 11cigarette. I believe that the doctor at this time, 12he wanted him to stay, but Stuart said he wasn’t 13interested in getting care from them. 14 Q. We understand from the 15medical records that Stuart might have tried to 16harm himself while he was in the Royal Alexandra 17Hospital. 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. Were you aware of that fact? 20 A. Yes, I was. 21 Q. Tell us what you knew and the 22events around that. 23 A. I can’t remember what it was 24that he attempted it with, but that he tried to 25asphyxiate himself with, I believe, his shoelaces

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 68 2 3 4 5 1off the side of his bed in his room. 2 Q. Were you there? Did you see 3the physical evidence of that? 4 A. No, I wasn’t there at that 5point. 6 Q. We know that Stuart was 7discharged on the 4th of February, or maybe it was 8the 3rd of February. We have heard some evidence 9about the circumstances around that. We also know 10that within a day he checked himself into the 11Alberta Hospital. Do you have any recollections of 12the events following his discharge leading up to 13his readmittance into the Alberta Hospital? 14 A. Yes. First he probably 15chain-smoked a package of cigarettes. I remember 16standing outside with him. Then after that -- 17 Q. Wait a second. Standing 18outside where? 19 A. Outside of the Alec. 20 Q. Okay. 21 A. After that, he ended up going 22home where, through conversations with him on the 23telephone, I believe that he got drunk and high. 24 Q. Yes. 25 A. We ended up having an

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 69 2 3 4 5 1argument because, once again, he was drunk and 2high. I told him that he should call me tomorrow 3when he was sober. He eventually called me at some 4really insane hour of the morning and told me that 5he needed help. I said AWell, just call an 6ambulance.” He said, AI don’t want to go back to 7the Alec again. The doctors suck there.” 8 So, we looked into -- I Googled 9for him how to get from where he was to Alberta 10Hospital and talked to him on the phone the whole 11entire way. We stayed on the phone most of the 12time because to be admitted there -- it’s kind of 13like sitting in a waiting room and you have to wait 14for somebody to see you and assess you. You can’t 15just walk in and say APlease lock me in a room for 163 days.” 17 So, he probably sat in the room 18waiting the whole entire day to meet with a doctor 19and eventually he was committed there for a 30-day 20period. 21 Q. So we have him being 22admitted. Now I would like you to pick up the 23narrative of what you discovered when you went back 24to the townhouse. 25 A. I knew I had to go back to

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 70 2 3 4 5 1the townhouse. Stuart and I had purchased a puppy 2together in the fall of the previous year and she 3was there at the townhouse. 4 I didn’t want to go alone. 5Although I hadn’t spoken to Corporal Rohmer for a 6while, I phoned him and told him that I needed his 7help. He met me at the townhouse and came inside 8with me. It was basically torn apart. I hadn’t 9been there for a couple of days. 10 On the main floor and upstairs 11there were pills everywhere, drugs all over the 12counter, empty beer cans, empty bottles of rye. 13When I went upstairs, there were, again, pills all 14over the place. The bathtub was half filled with 15water and there were knives everywhere. 16 In the basement there were 17somewhere between three and five nooses made out of 18different things that he had obviously attempted to 19hang himself with. He tied them into the rafters 20in the basement. Some of them you could tell that 21he had realized that that wasn’t going to work or 22it wasn’t going to hold and other things you could 23tell that he had actually gotten up on top of 24something and attempted to hang himself, but the 25thing he was standing on broke, most likely before

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 71 2 3 4 5 1he could do anything else. 2 Corporal Rohmer assisted me in 3cleaning up everything just to make sure that it 4wasn’t there if I had to come back again. We just 5kind of put everything back where it belonged and 6got rid of all the booze and drugs. And then we 7left. 8 Q. During the period that Stuart 9was in the Alberta Hospital, I understand you 10visited him and saw him a number of times. Did you 11have any discussions with him about this discovery? 12 A. A little bit. His doctor and 13his nurse told me not to push those conversations 14too much. It’s kind of a strange thing when you’ve 15gone through so many suicide attempts. I remember 16at one point having a conversation where I said AI 17can’t believe the mess you made in the house.” And 18he laughed and jokingly said, AOh, sorry about 19that.” 20 At this point, they have given him 21lots of happy pills at the hospital, so he was a 22completely different person. 23 Q. Just before you move to what 24you were going to say, I want to stop you there on 25the issue of medication.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 72 2 3 4 5 1 Do you have a recollection of the 2history of Stuart’s medications and what sort of 3medications he got and when? 4 A. I believe as soon as he 5started talking to them about chest pains -- and 6I’m not 100 per cent sure if it was in the spring 7of 2007 or until the fall; I believe it was spring, 8though -- he was prescribed antidepressants and 9sleeping pills because he wasn’t sleeping properly. 10For a while he had Ativan that you take under your 11tongue for when he experienced extreme moments of 12anxiety. I believe there was something else as 13well, but I can’t recall what it was. 14 Q. This series of prescriptions, 15was it stable or were there changes in the 16medication? 17 A. There were changes in the 18medication frequently. 19 Q. Did you notice any 20differences with different kinds of mediation or 21was it about the same? 22 A. There were certain 23differences, but I believe, from my perspective, 24that what Stuart was dealing with, he would have 25needed to talk about the stuff too, so I don’t

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 73 2 3 4 5 1think that necessarily the drugs were making enough 2of a difference even when they were okay. Also at 3this point, by late December, I am aware of the 4other drug use and drinking which really doesn’t 5help when you are trying to stabilize your body on 6the medications that he was being prescribed by the 7doctor. 8 Q. I apologize, I stopped you 9almost in mid-sentence for that little pharmacology 10detour. 11 A. That’s okay. 12 Q. Can we pick up the story, 13then. You were speaking to Stuart and you said 14that your perception was that he was in an elevated 15mood and you felt that could have been because of 16pills. We have seen some references in the medical 17records to the fact that there were times when 18Stuart wanted to talk to you and times he didn’t 19want to talk to you. Tell us about that. 20 A. When he was in Alberta 21Hospital? 22 Q. Yes. 23 A. Yes. I would refer to them 24as good days and bad. At this point I am aware of 25the fact that sometimes it was as per Stuart’s

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 74 2 3 4 5 1request. At that point in time I was being told 2that his doctor wasn’t allowing him visitors or he 3had lost lots of his privileges for doing 4something, but they wouldn’t tell me what. On the 5days that I was allowed by the doctor, from my 6perspective, to go, I would always be there. 7Sometimes they would be short visits, sometimes 8they would be more than once a day, but there were 9times when the doctor would say AI don’t think you 10should come today” or AYou can’t come today”. 11 Q. At some point during Stuart’s 12stay in the Alberta Hospital, your effects and 13Stuart’s effects were taken out of the townhouse. 14 A. Yes. 15 Q. Can you tell me about that? 16 A. It became apparent that we 17weren’t going to be able to afford the townhouse. 18About them moving specifically, at one point when 19-- Stuart was normally responsible for the rent and 20he was unable to pay the rent, so I had to try and 21find a way to cover it. The landlord told me that 22if I needed to break our lease, I was going to have 23to either pay it out or abandon it. She and I had 24had a lot of conversations and she was kind of 25aware of what was going on, so she suggested that I

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 75 2 3 4 5 1abandon it and then we just lose our damage 2deposit. 3 At that point in time I had missed 4so much work that my mom went to the house and 5packed up all of my personal things such as my 6clothing and pots and pans in the cupboards that 7she knew were mine because they had come from her 8originally, and all of my personal effects that 9would have been in the house. Anything that was 10ours or that she wasn’t sure about was later packed 11up by Sheila and the military afterwards. 12 Q. Do I understand that all of 13your personal effects got taken or were there still 14things that were yours that were in the townhouse? 15 A. There was still a lot of 16things that were mine and/or ours, things that we 17had purchased together, things that my mom wouldn’t 18have known were necessarily mine or something that 19wasn’t only Stuart’s. But at that point my mom was 20hoping that I was going to not speak with Stuart 21again, as it’s hard to watch your child be with 22someone who is destructive. So she just wanted to 23get all my clothes and all my stuff out of the 24house. 25 Q. Let’s go back to events at

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 76 2 3 4 5 1the Alberta Hospital. I understand, first of all, 2that you had a conversation with Padré Hubbard. 3Can you tell us about that? You don’t have to 4reveal any personal details you shared with him, 5but what was the topic of the conversation vis-à- 6vis Stuart? 7 A. I don’t recall a specific 8conversation with Padré Hubbard at that time. 9 Q. All right. Let’s pass on to 10a different topic. I understand that you informed 11the people at the Alberta Hospital of some 12financial issues that Stuart had gotten himself 13involved in. Do you remember this? 14 A. Yes. At Alberta Hospital you 15earn certain privileges. One of the privileges is 16to get to carry money and certain things you never 17actually get to carry on yourself. It’s always 18kept behind kind of like the nurse’s desk just for 19safekeeping so that no one else can steal things 20from your room. It’s very open there and people 21wander freely. 22 At some point Stuart had said that 23he had run out of cash that was there and I brought 24him his bank card. I believe it was some time in 25mid-February. I gave him his bank card. I was

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 77 2 3 4 5 1responsible for paying -- we still didn’t have 2shared accounts, but it was my responsibility to 3make sure that the cheques went through and that 4everything happened. I had access to all of his 5bank accounts and he had access to mine if he 6wanted. 7 I became aware probably the second 8week of February that the cheque had bounced for 9the rent for our townhome. When I went onto the 10bank to see what was wrong -- because Stuart should 11have been paid the day before -- I noticed that 12within 24 hours or less than 48 hours he had been 13able to spend his entire paycheque while at Alberta 14Hospital. 15 Q. I don’t need the exact 16amount, but approximately how much money would that 17have been? 18 A. I would say just over a 19thousand or just under two thousand. I’m not sure, 20somewhere in there. 21 Q. Did you draw any conclusions 22as to what had happened to that amount of money? 23 A. I assume that it was for 24drugs. 25 Q. How was Stuart’s sobriety

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 78 2 3 4 5 1from your point of view during the time that he was 2at the Alberta Hospital? 3 A. Before that incident I 4thought it was great. He was in a locked ward and 5I just assumed that when you are in the care of 6hospital staff that it’s pretty impossible to buy 7illegal substances, but apparently when I 8questioned the hospital staff about where he could 9have spent this money -- because there is a 10convenience store on site, but they sell chocolate 11bars and pop. You would have to buy a lot of 12chocolate bars and pop to spend that much money. 13The doctor and the nurse admitted to me that 14sometimes on the grounds there was easy ways to 15exchange drugs, whether he on his cell phone was 16contacting his dealer and having him meet him 17outside on his smoke break or whether there was 18somebody else within the hospital who set it up for 19him. They couldn’t tell me. 20 Q. Did you notice anything in 21your discussions with Stuart that would lead you to 22believe that he was having trouble with sobriety? 23 A. I felt that he wasn’t getting 24as better as I thought that someone would if they 25had been sober for that long. He told me that they

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 79 2 3 4 5 1had him on so many different medications and were 2playing with different combinations of medications 3that I never -- I didn’t know whether or not he was 4like that because of the pills they gave him or 5because he was on drugs. 6 Q. Dealing with the entire 30- 7day period, did you see any changes, developments, 8things getting better, things getting worse, things 9staying the same? 10 A. There were days that he hated 11being there, of course, as anybody would. But from 12a total progression, I would say that he got way 13better. He made friends in there who had not 14similar problems but were in similar emotional 15states as he was. He was so excited, already 16planning for us to go on camping trips, I remember, 17with another couple that was there, and excited to 18get out and do all this stuff and happy that he was 19there. He felt safe. He didn’t like his roommate, 20so they moved him, but after that he was okay. 21 Q. As the stay extended and we 22were getting closer to the time for him to end his 2330-day committal, there were discussions about what 24next. Do you remember those discussions and what 25you were told about what’s next?

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 80 2 3 4 5 1 A. I know that Stuart wanted to 2stay. I know that he wanted to go to treatment 3again. But his hopes that he told me were that he 4would be able to stay in Alberta Hospital up until 5the day that he could be flown to a treatment 6centre. 7 Q. Did he tell you why he was 8looking for that sort of an arrangement? 9 A. Because he felt safe there. 10He told me that he didn’t feel like it was as 11possible for him to screw up or fall off the wagon 12when he was there. He at that point wasn’t really 13allowed to go outside even, so I believed that 14maybe he was actually safer there and that there 15was no longer a drug issue. 16 However, he told me that in 17correspondence with the military that he was told 18that they wanted him to be released from the 19hospital as of his last date, at the end of the 30 20days, and go to the base and stay under full 21supervision, being watched the entire time to 22ensure that he didn’t fall off the wagon in order 23to prove himself that he was willing to actually 24try hard enough that they should spend another 25several thousand dollars on him.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 81 2 3 4 5 1 Q. Was this a conversation that 2you had with him before he was discharged or after 3he was discharged? 4 A. Before. 5 Q. Did you have a discussion 6with his treating physician Dr. Sowa about 7discharge conditions? Do you remember what the 8nature of that conversation was? 9 A. Vaguely. I believe that we 10were all in a room with Stuart and Stuart said he 11wanted to say and Dr. Sowa said he couldn’t see why 12he shouldn’t stay but that it was up to Stuart to 13make that decision and ask to be committed again. 14 Q. Yes. 15 A. But there wasn’t really any 16-- I guess he didn’t say what he thought should 17happen. 18 Q. Before Stuart’s discharge, 19did you speak to any of his addictions counsellors, 20Mr. Perkins, Mr. Strilchuk, Mr. Etienne about what 21was going to be happening with Stuart? 22 A. On the base, yes. I can’t 23remember any specific conversations, but I know 24that I spoke to them frequently probably from 25December onward.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 82 2 3 4 5 1 Q. Can you remember what they 2told you about what was going to happen? 3 A. They told me that he would be 4looked after and that I wasn’t to worry. 5 Q. The time comes for Stuart to 6leave. Were you at all involved in his leaving 7Alberta Hospital on this occasion? 8 A. No. He called me the night 9before and he said he was scared. He said that he 10was scared to leave the hospital and that he didn’t 11want to go. I told him to just stay and that we 12could figure something else out if he wanted to go 13to treatment, but there really aren’t a lot of 14treatment options that don’t involve great 15financial responsibility, so there wasn’t a lot 16open to us. 17 He said that it was fine and that 18he trusted them to keep him safe. I said, ADo you 19want me to come pick you up and take you from the 20hospital to the base?” He said, ANo, the MPs have 21to do that.” That was the last time that I talked 22to him until he was on the base. 23 Q. Let’s talk about what 24happened when he got back onto the base. Did 25Stuart tell you what his living arrangements were

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 83 2 3 4 5 1going to be when he got back to the base? We know 2that he no longer had the townhouse as a resource. 3 A. Correct, but he was supposed 4to come and live with me. However, the base had 5mandated that he had to be under their care for the 6days before going to treatment. 7 Q. Let me be sure that I 8understand what you have just told us. I think you 9have told us that Stuart’s first request was to 10stay in the hospital until he could go to 11treatment. 12 A. Correct. 13 Q. And that the military said 14that he would have to go back and prove himself 15before he could go to treatment. 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. You have now just told us 18that Stuart -- was it Stuart’s idea or your idea or 19a mutual idea that on discharge he would come and 20live with you? When you say live with you, where 21would that have been? 22 A. I was currently living in my 23parents’ condo that I was going to be taking -- 24that we were going to be taking over. I didn’t 25mean that he was planning on it, just it was an

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 84 2 3 4 5 1alternative. It’s not that he didn’t have a home 2to go to. The reason that he went to the base was 3because he was told that’s what he had to do. 4 Q. Who told you that was what he 5had to do? Was it Stuart or someone else? 6 A. It was Stuart. 7 Q. He goes to the base. Where 8was he going to be living on the base? Did you 9know? 10 A. They told me that they had 11given him a room in the barracks, in the shacks, 12but that he was to spend most of his time behind 13the duty desk and that if he missed anything or 14misbehaved at all, which I think might have taken 15place by the second day, he ended up sleeping in 16the bed behind the duty desk in Lord Strathcona’s 17Horse Building. 18 Q. Again, it’s important to try 19to get a little bit of precision here. If you say 20you can’t remember, just please tell me you can’t 21remember. 22 You have told us that you were 23told by Stuart that there had been an arrangement 24for a room in the shacks which is the barracks for 25him to live in on his discharge. You also said

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 85 2 3 4 5 1that if he misbehaved there would be certain 2consequences. Was that something that he told you 3or that somebody else on the base told you as he 4was leaving on his discharge? Or was that 5something that someone told you as the result of 6what you described as misbehaviour? 7 A. Yes, that was what somebody 8told me as a result of the misbehaviour. Initially 9the plan was that he would live in the shacks until 10the time that he would go to the new treatment 11centre, but that he would be under close 12supervision while he was there. 13 Q. Do you remember who told you 14that he was going to be sleeping behind the duty 15desk? 16 A. He did. 17 Q. Did he tell you why? 18 A. I knew why, because he had 19missed an appointment. I was at work and they 20called me. They said, ADo you know where Stuart 21is?” I said, ANo. He’s with you. You’re supposed 22to be watching him.” He said that they hadn’t seen 23him, that he had missed an AA meeting or a 24counsellor’s meeting, I’m not sure which, and that 25he had been missing for several hours. I was very

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 86 2 3 4 5 1upset because I didn’t know why they didn’t contact 2me earlier. 3 When I called Stuart, he said he 4needed to talk to me, it was really important, and 5that he had been sitting outside my parents’ gate 6where I was living waiting for me to come home from 7work. 8 Q. Rather than being on the 9base, he is outside the place where you were 10living. Before we talk about that conversation, 11was that an occurrence that happened only once 12during the period after his discharge or did it 13happen more than once? 14 A. Specifically coming to my 15parents’ house, that was the only time. However, 16he would show up at places that I was at or we 17would plan to meet somewhere. At this point I am 18aware of the fact he wasn’t necessarily allowed to 19not be on the base. 20 Q. If I understand correctly, 21notwithstanding the expectation -- I will use that 22word -- that Stuart was going to be on the base, 23there were a number of instances where he showed up 24in places where you were as well, whether you 25planned it or didn’t plan it during this period of

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 87 2 3 4 5 1time. 2 A. Yes. 3 Q. Let’s go back to the first 4one where he shows up at your parents’ place at the 5gate. What was the nature of the conversation? 6 A. He just really wanted to see 7me. That’s all he said. He asked if he could stay 8over that night. I said, ADid you talk to somebody 9on the base?” and he assured me that it had been 10okay. I said, ANo, they think you’re missing. We 11need to contact them.” I said that it was fine if 12he wanted to stay or at least have dinner with me 13and then I would take him back. He seemed happy 14and normal. 15 At one point when I hugged him, he 16smelled so bad like leftover beer. I remember 17specifically thinking that it was an awful smell. 18I said, AWhy do you smell like that?” AI don’t 19know. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He 20denied drinking or anything since he had left the 21base, but when I went out to the Jeep, the Jeep was 22fully of empty beer cans and he had been sitting 23outside of my parents’ gate drinking in the truck 24while waiting for me to come home. 25 At that point he got very angry.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 88 2 3 4 5 1His personality was quite volatile by this time, 2and he basically yelled at me and stormed out of 3the house. 4 Q. What was your understanding 5of the nature of the living arrangements under 6which Stuart was living after he had misbehaved? 7 A. My understanding was that he 8was sleeping behind the duty desk, that if he 9needed something from his room, someone would 10escort him to his room in the barracks and that he 11was basically under constant supervision other than 12to, let’s say, walk himself to his AA meetings or 13his counselling appointments. 14 Q. Was this understanding based 15on what Stuart told you or what other people told 16you as well? 17 A. Based on what Stuart told me, 18but also a little bit from my conversations with 19the addictions counsellors. 20 Q. Do you remember what they 21told you? 22 A. Just that he was never alone 23and therefore there wasn’t any time for him to be 24doing drugs or drinking or trying to hurt himself. 25 Q. During that period of time

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 89 2 3 4 5 1beginning which he was living behind the duty desk 2did Stuart leave the base in order to meet you 3someplace? 4 A. Yes, we met for coffee a 5couple of times just off the base at Namao Centre. 6I also came to the base a couple of times. I 7believe that we hung out outside of the gym and 8stuff that’s there on the base a couple of times. 9We called them dates because there wasn’t a lot of 10other time that we got to see each other. We spent 11a certain amount of time on the phone together, but 12when he could get away when he had permission or 13sometimes when he didn’t, now I understand, he 14would call me and say, AHey, can you come meet” 15sometimes during the day, sometimes in the 16evenings. 17 Q. Can you describe Stuart’s 18mood during this period of time? 19 A. Very up and down, very 20volatile, would go one second from being 21wonderfully happy and so great to be around to 22being rageful at people, at me, at things, at the 23military, at certain people, at his addictions 24counsellors. 25 Q. WE have seen references and

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 90 2 3 4 5 1heard a little bit of testimony about a meeting 2that you might have had with Captain Lubiniecki 3during this period of time. 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. Do you remember having a 6meeting and do you remember what happened at that 7meeting? 8 A. I believe that it was a 9telephone conversation. My concern was that at the 10rate that Stuart had been able to spend his money 11while he was in Alberta Hospital and then, based 12upon the fact that he was being allowed to leave 13the base without supervision and without any 14notification to me, and the fact that Stuart had 15access to all of the money in both of our bank 16accounts, I was concerned that if he spent his 17paycheques, I would no longer be able to pay for 18the Jeep or make the payments on the credit card 19that we shared together. 20 He told me that it wouldn’t be an 21issue and that I wasn’t to worry about it. 22However, I didn’t really understand and, I guess, 23only until yesterday I didn’t completely understand 24how legally you become responsible if you are 25married or common law. I was concerned that if

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 91 2 3 4 5 1Stuart had no money and we had these things 2together, regardless of whether or not my name was 3on them, such as the Jeep which we both purchased 4or the credit cards which were mostly in his name, 5that I would be financially responsible for paying 6them off if he faulted on the payments. 7 So my discussion with him was 8based around whether or not financially I would 9need to get rid of the common law declaration form 10with the military if it was legally binding in that 11way for me to deal with our finances. 12 Q. Do you remember what Captain 13Lubiniecki told you? 14 A. At first he told me that he 15wasn’t sure and that he would get back to me. When 16he did get back to me, he said that it didn’t 17affect that and I said that’s fine, just leave it 18as it stands. 19 Q. We have heard reference from 20time to time to an issue of a restraining order. 21Is that a concept that you are familiar with, 22something that you discussed with anyone around 23this period of time? 24 A. Not that I recall. 25 Q. We have talked about Stuart’s

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 92 2 3 4 5 1moods going up and down, we have talked about his 2arrangements and whether he complied with those 3arrangements during the period of time. We have 4also seen that Stuart was admitted during this 5period of time to the Royal Alexandra Hospital. 6Were you aware of this admission? 7 A. I was aware of it after he 8was already there. 9 Q. Can you tell us what he told 10you about the admission or what anyone else told 11you about that admission? 12 A. I spoke to people from work 13and they said that again it probably wasn’t a good 14time for me to go and see him. He later told me 15that he just had a bad day again. I don’t recall 16him telling me any specifics about those 17circumstances. 18 Q. We have seen references in 19the medical records -- and I don’t have to trouble 20you to look at them right now -- that around this 21time when he was being admitted, Stuart was saying 22that he had grown tired, he can’t take the army 23stuff any more. We had also seen one reference to 24him saying that if he had to go back to work, he’d 25rather kill himself than go back to work.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 93 2 3 4 5 1 Were either of those sorts of 2statements statements that he made to you during 3this period of time? 4 A. I don’t recall him making 5those statements to me, but they sound like 6something where he was in a mood, a statement of 7mind, that he would have said something like that. 8I know that he hated work. 9 Q. During this period of time -- 10and I want to stop the period at the 14th of March, 11the day before the unfortunate event -- were you in 12contact with Stuart’s family? 13 A. I don’t believe so, no. 14 Q. Let me take you to the 14th 15of March. I understand that you had an interaction 16with Stuart on that day. Can you tell us about 17that interaction? 18 A. We were discussing two 19things. First of all, on the evening of the 14th, 20he wanted me to drive out to the base because he 21needed a binder of CDs or movies. I can’t remember 22which it was. But certain things that had just 23gotten mixed up with our moms packing up our stuff, 24me ending up with some of his, him ending up with 25some of mine. I told him that that was kind of a

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 94 2 3 4 5 1ridiculous request on a Friday night. 2 The other thing that we discussed 3was the fact that I had asked him that if he wanted 4to -- financially we weren’t going to be able to 5afford to keep the Jeep, especially if he wasn’t 6going to be paying attention to what he was doing 7with his paycheques. I told him that we had two 8options. We could either sell the Jeep and then we 9wouldn’t have to worry about it, or if he really 10felt the need to continue to own the Jeep, that I 11would appreciate it if he would take my name off 12the paperwork. 13 Q. How did he take that? 14 A. He said it wasn’t my problem 15and he agreed with that. He said he didn’t want to 16sell it, it was such a great purchase, and he loved 17the vehicle. He promised me that by Monday he 18would make sure that it wasn’t a problem anymore. 19 Q. What was the tone of your 20interaction with Stuart that night? 21 A. We probably had five or six 22different phone conversations within the course of 23two or three hours. Some of them were sappy, AI 24love you, I can’t wait”, discussing things like how 25soon would I be able to go and visit him when he

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 95 2 3 4 5 1was at this new treatment facility, and then other 2conversations were angry and Awhy won’t you bring 3me my stuff”, or frustration on my part because of 4the vehicle thing. I had been asking for that for 5over a week at that point. 6 Our very last conversations were 7good. He said AI’ve got to go to bed now, but I 8love you and I’ll talk to you later. I’ll see you 9on Monday.” He sounded okay. 10 Q. I would like to ask you a 11couple more questions about this period of time up 12to and including the 14th. During this period of 13time was there any discussion that you would have 14had with Stuart about the two of you separating? 15 A. There’s a bit of a difference 16between what I would say, first of all, separating 17forever and separating for a couple of days. There 18were points in time where obviously I would say, 19like I said before, I was trying the whole AYou 20know what? Figure out your stuff or I’m going to 21walk away from you for the next few days and we’ll 22see if we can get something fixed.” 23 I don’t remember ever discussing 24breaking up. We were always very consistent on our 25plans for the future, even right up until the last

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 96 2 3 4 5 1day, like discussing when I was going to come and 2visit him in Ottawa -- not Ottawa, sorry -- in 3Ontario. I believe that’s where the other 4treatment centre was. And just discussing our 5future and what it was going to look like and what 6I was going to look after and change our address 7correctly to be at what was then my parents’ condo 8and start discussing with my parents about doing 9some sort of sale with them for the house or 10assuming their mortgage. 11 So there was never any discussion 12other than like a fight here or not talking for a 13couple of hours there that would have, I don’t 14think, led either one of us to believe that 15anything was ever over. 16 Q. WE have seen the report of 17the board of inquiry into these matters. The board 18of inquiry drew a conclusion that there had been a 19fight between you and Stuart the evening before the 20events of the 15th. Is that an accurate conclusion 21for them to have drawn? 22 A. I would say that we had a 23fight earlier in the evening, but by the end of the 24evening I believe that we had reconciled. I don’t 25remember our conversation ending on bad terms.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 97 2 3 4 5 1 Q. The board of inquiry also 2drew a conclusion that you were not aware that 3Stuart had been in the hospital. Was there a basis 4for them to draw a conclusion that you were not 5aware that Stuart had been to the Royal Alexandra 6Hospital? 7 A. It’s possible that I could 8have been confused at that time. Otherwise, no -- 9I mean I wasn’t there, I definitely wasn’t there. 10But just from the perspective of being aware of it, 11I was aware that he was there. 12 Q. I’m afraid I have to take you 13to the events of the 15th. We know what happened. 14 THE CHAIRPERSON: I just want to 15know how long that will take you. It’s five to 12. 16I want to watch the luncheon -- or you can carry on 17and we can pick the best time. 18 MR. FREIMAN: Let’s just get this 19over down to the notification and then we will have 20lunch. 21 Q. Can you tell me when and how 22you discovered what had happened to Stuart? 23 A. I was at my parents’ house -- 24they weren’t home -- getting ready to go out for 25the evening. I received a phone call from Corporal

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 98 2 3 4 5 1Rohmer. I was like, AOh, hey, we’re going out 2tonight. You should come out with us. Tomorrow’s 3my birthday”, blah, blah, blah. And he said, AOh, 4you don’t know.” 5 And I could tell instantly by his 6voice I knew exactly what had happened. He said 7that he couldn’t believe that nobody had told me 8since everybody on the base already knew. He told 9me that Stuart had committed suicide that afternoon 10and that he found out when they returned from 11another funeral. He said he didn’t know how 12exactly, but that Stuart had been left alone and 13that he had hung himself in his room in the 14barracks. 15 I tried to call the base to find 16out what had happened and no one would talk to me. 17They kept saying that they’d call me back. I told 18them that I knew, but they still wouldn’t tell me. 19They said they couldn’t confirm anything or speak 20to me until they found the right person. 21 Q. When did they find the right 22person? 23 A. Probably about six or seven 24hours later. 25 Q. Who from the military did

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 99 2 3 4 5 1inform you, finally? 2 A. I believe that it was one of 3the commanding officers or possibly two of them 4and, I believe, a padré. 5 MR. FREIMAN: There are other 6matters that I am going to want to talk about, but 7they happen after this, so this would be a good 8time for us to break. 9 THE CHAIRPERSON: In terms of 10timing, is one hour the most appropriate for the 11day? 12 MR. FREIMAN: I think we will be 13fine no matter what arrangement you would like to 14make, but an hour is probably good because we have 15something to do afterwards. 16 THE CHAIRPERSON: All right. One 17o’clock. Thank you. 18--- Luncheon recess at 12:00 p.m. 19--- Upon resuming at 1:08 p.m. 20 MR. FREIMAN: 21 Q. Ms Starr, before we move 22forward, I just want to move backward in time just 23a little bit to ask you some specific questions and 24maybe see if we can jog your memory a little about 25a couple of matters.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 100 2 3 4 5 1 Would you do me a favour and open 2up tab 72, please. This is a copy of a statutory 3declaration that you completed with respect to a 4certain claim that you made. That's of no interest 5to this hearing on the merits, but you make a 6couple of statements, and I wanted to just ask you 7to look at them for a moment, then I want to talk 8to you about them. 9 A. Okay. 10 Q. Page 53, which is close to 11the end. The first full paragraph, I'm just going 12to read four paragraphs. I just want to know a 13little bit more background especially what the 14source of your information for some of these 15statements is. 16 A. Okay. 17 Q. First, you say: 18 "After the 30 days --" 19And we are talking about the Alberta Hospital stay. 20 "-- Stuart's certificate was 21 reviews. His doctor that 22 Stuart remain at the hospital 23 for another 30days. Stuart 24 wanted to stay, as he was 25 finally making progress, and

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 101 2 3 4 5 1 he said that he was scared to 2 leave." 3 I think you have given us more or 4less your recollections and background in support 5of this. I just wanted to be sure that I 6understand what the basis of this knowledge was. 7How do we know that the doctor asked Stuart to 8remain in the hospital for another 30 days? 9 A. It would have either been 10that Stuart had told me or I just can't completely 11recall that conversation. It could have been in 12the meeting where I met with his doctor, his nurse, 13and Stuart. 14 Q. "Stuart wanted to stay as he 15was finally making progress." What's the source 16for that information? 17 A. He felt that he was getting 18better. I felt that I could see a change in him 19from a happier perspective. 20 Q. I know what the source for 21this statement: "He said he was scared to leave." 22 The next paragraph: 23 "The military requested that 24 Stuart be released into their 25 care, where they would force

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 102 2 3 4 5 1 him to live under closer 2 supervision on the base, for 3 two weeks." 4 I would like to know when you say 5the military requested, did you have any 6information as to who that was? 7 A. Specifically within the 8military? No. Just that Stuart had been told he 9had to live on the base for the week approximately 10preceding him being sent to treatment. 11 Q. "At which time, they would 12 commit to sending Stuart to 13 another drug/alcohol 14 rehabilitation center." 15 We have talked about that. It's 16the next sentence I would like to talk to you 17about: 18 "Stuart's time on the base 19 was mandatory in order for 20 the military to continue 21 assisting him with his 22 treatment." 23 Was that something that Stuart 24told you? Was that something that someone in the 25military or in the military medical community told

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 103 2 3 4 5 1you? 2 A. Was definitely Stuart as well 3as it was confirmed or referred to by either his 4addictions counsellors or possibly the 5psychologist, I believe it was, on the base. 6 Q. Do you remember who that 7psychologist would have been? 8 A. No, there were too many of 9them. 10 Q. The next sentence: 11 "Although Stuart frequently 12 changed his mind about 13 getting healthy and aside 14 from his hesitations at 15 leaving the safety of the 16 hospital, he accepted the 17 military's offer of help." 18 We know what the source of that 19is. Next you say: 20 "On March 5, 2008, Stuart 21 began living on the base and 22 the military advised me that 23 he would be safe." 24 Again, I need to know if you can 25recall who you mean by the military advising you.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 104 2 3 4 5 1 A. It would have been one of his 2addictions counsellors. I'm not sure which, 3possibly both, and I believe in conversations with 4Lubiniecki as well. 5 Q. They next sentence: 6 "They ensured me --" 7 I think you meant "assured me." 8 "-- that Stuart would be 9 under constant supervision, 10 which they referred to as a 11 'suicide watch'." 12 Again, I would like you to think 13back who would have made these statements and who 14used the word "suicide watch," or is this just your 15deduction? 16 A. I don't recall who used the 17term "suicide watch" specifically or just 24 hour 18watch, but I do know that -- it was my 19understanding after my conversations with the 20addictions counsellors that he would be with 21someone else 24hours a day. 22 Q. I talked to you about some of 23the conclusions of the board of inquiry, and I 24would like you to open up tab 42. This is a 25specific conclusion of the board of inquiry with

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 105 2 3 4 5 1respect, I think, to the events that happened on 2the 14th and 15th. If you look under letter (d): 3 "The Board concluded that his 4 spouse's decision to finally 5 end their relationship 6 overwhelmed Corporal 7 Langridge emotionally and 8 caused him to commit 9 suicide." 10 Do you have any comments about 11that conclusion and how well-founded it is? 12 A. I don't understand how they 13could have come to that conclusion because I never 14ended my relationship with Stuart and he never 15ended his with me. The first time that I read this 16was when I was notified that I would come to this 17hearing, and just personally, it really hurt my 18feelings. I'm not really sure where it came from 19or what it was founded on. 20 Q. Do you accept that there was 21a fight between you and Stuart that was of 22sufficient severity that it changed his mood and 23put him on a downward slope? 24 A. I don't believe so, no. 25 Q. That's all that I wanted to

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 106 2 3 4 5 1ask you. I would like to move on to quite a 2different topic that will also maybe one that has 3some emotional complexity, and that's funeral 4planning. 5 A. Okay. 6 Q. We have heard that there was 7assigned to you in the day after the suicide an 8assisting officer, then Second Lieutenant Brown. 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. When you first started with 11Second Lieutenant Brown, what was your 12understanding of your role vis-à-vis funeral 13planning? 14 A. Our very initial discussions? 15 Q. Yes. 16 A. It wasn't really clear 17because the military hadn't determined who was in 18charge of making those decisions, like, on the 19Sunday afterward when we first met. 20 Q. Do you remember approximately 21when it was that the military did make a decision? 22 A. It would have been some time 23in the first few days. I know that the first time 24that it really sunk in for me was when we were at 25the funeral and he said, "No, you choose that."

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 107 2 3 4 5 1 Q. Before we get to that, let me 2ask you: When you were told about your role, what 3was told to you by Second Lieutenant Brown as to 4what your role was? 5 A. That as his common law spouse 6or wife that it was basically or ultimately the 7funeral arrangements would be my decision in whole. 8 Q. Did Second Lieutenant Brown 9tell you the basis who had made that decision? 10 A. No, he did not. 11 Q. Did you have any discussions 12with him as to the role, if any, that Stuart's 13parents would have with respect to funeral 14planning? 15 A. We had plenty of discussions. 16I'm not sure if the decisions would have come from 17Adam. I mean, he had told me that it would be up 18to me in the end, but I said that we needed to make 19sure that they were involved. 20 I had a really hard time wanting 21to let go of planning a funeral for somebody that I 22felt that I knew we had discussed what he would 23want, but through conversations with my mom and 24family, I realized that I was his common law 25spouse, and even though it hurt, that I should

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 108 2 3 4 5 1remember that Sheila was his mom and that he was 2going to be her son forever, so through all of the 3decisions of the funeral, I always made sure that 4if we didn't just talk to them that we probably 5gave them what they wanted even though it probably 6wouldn't have been what I had selected. 7 Q. I'm not going to trouble you 8to go through the entire list because we have 9documented the exchanges between Major Parkinson 10and Second Lieutenant Brown, but I would like to 11ask you: From your point of view, what were the 12important issues that needed to be decided, needed 13to be reconciled, and about which you either 14compromised, were not willing to compromise? 15 A. I don't believe that there 16were any things that I wasn't willing to compromise 17on after thinking about it for a while. I know 18that Stuart wanted to be cremated and I know that 19he wanted to have a very small service and that he 20wasn't very religious and I know he wouldn't have 21wanted the military there. 22 However, Shaun and Sheila wanted 23it to be a military involvement. They wanted him 24to be buried. When it came to the casket, I had 25selected three at the funeral home for them to

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 109 2 3 4 5 1select from. There was one that I preferred. 2However, they had chosen another one and it just 3wasn't worth fighting over. 4 There were a lot of discussions 5surrounding the headstone. The one they had wanted 6had a lot of military and stuff and a large cross 7on it, and I just asked that we could have, for 8example, the cross made a little bit smaller and we 9came to an agreement on that. I can't remember 10anything else at this time. 11 Q. That's enough. You had begun 12to talk about the time when it hit home to you what 13your role was as being -- a time when you were at 14the funeral home. We know from various documents, 15or at least we think we know from various 16documents, that you visited the funeral home twice, 17maybe three times. 18 A. Okay. 19 Q. Do you recall who went with 20you? First of all, do you recall that there was 21more than one visit to the funeral home? 22 A. I vaguely remember two, but 23to be honest, in an emotional state like I was that 24week, I don't remember. I just remember being 25there a lot.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 110 2 3 4 5 1 Q. Do you remember who was with 2you? 3 A. The first time, for sure, 4there was Adam Brown and Corporal Rohmer and 5myself. I believe that my mum and the padre might 6have been around, but I can't seem to recall 7whether they were just at the base waiting for us 8or if they actually attended. 9 Q. That's fine. I want to 10direct your attention to a specific incident, which 11I think you know that is somewhat controversial, 12and that has to do with your meeting with the 13funeral director, and I believe that would have 14been a visit in which Corporal Rohmer was also in 15attendance. 16 Let's just start by me asking you: 17What do you remember about that visit and about 18conversations you had with the funeral director? 19 A. I remember that Adam Brown 20told me where and when we were going, and I believe 21I met him on the base and drove with him and that 22Corporal Rohmer was with us as well. 23 We went into a room and met with 24the funeral director where we talked about certain 25things like what we were looking at getting and

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 111 2 3 4 5 1what we weren't, and Adam had told me that anything 2financial to just leave for now. The funeral 3director did ask me if there was anything that 4wasn't covered. For example, we wanted some 5slightly different flowers than are usually paid 6for through the military and he had asked if I 7would be willing to pay for that and I had told him 8"yes." 9 Otherwise, when we were in the 10room, we discussed that I was Stuart's common law 11wife and he asked me some questions that were going 12to go into the obituary, but other than that, any 13other details that were given were given by Adam 14Brown out of Stuart's personnel file. 15 Q. I would like to understand a 16little bit about that. Was it the case that Second 17Lieutenant Brown was carrying Stuart's personnel 18file or was this something that happened 19afterwards? 20 A. I don't know if it was his 21personnel file that he was carrying, but he had 22information about Stuart and from work. 23 Q. You won't be surprised that 24this is an important question. There is some 25discussion and controversy about the question of

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 112 2 3 4 5 1your address or the address that is recorded on a 2number of official papers dealing with Stuart's 3death. 4 Can you tell me from the best of 5your recollection whether you gave an address, and 6if you did, what the address was that you gave? 7 A. If I gave an address, it 8would have been the address of my parents’ condo 9downtown. I don't recall giving any of that sort 10of information. Things such as addresses, birth 11dates were given by Adam Brown. 12 Q. So let me just stop and see 13if I understand correctly. Are you saying that if 14you were asked for Stuart's address at the time of 15death, you would have given your parent's condo as 16the address where he was residing? 17 A. I probably wouldn't have been 18sure what to say because he had been living on the 19base, so most likely I would given the base 20address, but asked for like a personal address of 21where we lived together, yes, that's the address 22that I would have given. 23 Q. So it would be your parents’ 24condo. 25 A. Yes.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 113 2 3 4 5 1 Q. We know that on a number of 2official papers, the address appears is in fact the 3address at the townhouse. Do you have any 4explanation for how the address of the townhouse 5would have gotten onto those papers? 6 A. I personally don't. I would 7assume that maybe the military hadn't updated his 8change in address at that point in time, and so 9that's what was given to them from the military, 10but I wouldn't have given an address to somewhere 11that I had already broken a lease at and no longer 12lived at for over a month. 13 Q. It has been suggested that 14you may have given that address in order to 15maintain an impression that you were still living 16together. What do you say to that? 17 A. I would say that the living 18together wasn't an option based on the treatment 19and other things that Stuart was doing, so we had 20openly terminated our lease there and I would have 21no reason to pretend that we were still living 22together at that address. 23 Q. Can you tell me what was 24Corporal Rohmer's role in all of this? Was he a 25source of any information for the funeral director?

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 114 2 3 4 5 1 A. No, he was there to support 2me. 3 Q. Do you remember anything at 4all about a second visit, and I think that Padre 5Hubbard certainly might have been there? 6 A. I believe that it was the 7time that we actually selected the casket. I 8believe that was the second visit. I'm not 100 per 9cent sure. 10 Q. On the issue of the obituary, 11we have seen some correspondence to the effect that 12Second Lieutenant Brown was sending a draft for 13review by Mr. and Mrs. Fynes. Do you know whether 14Second Lieutenant Brown told you that they had 15reviewed the obituary or whether they had accepted 16or made any changes? 17 A. He got back to me saying that 18they had accepted it with a few small changes. I 19believe it had something to do with the sisters’ 20names or something like that. I said, "Yeah, no 21problem." I think it might have even been spelling 22or something like that or an order and that I was 23fine with it, so we made the changes and went ahead 24with it. 25 Q. I would like to ask you to

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 115 2 3 4 5 1look at tab 32 with me, please. This is Major 2Parkinson writing to Mr. and Mrs. Fynes. He says: 3 "Shaun and Sheila, I've let 4 Evergreen know about the 5 incorrect name on the 6 bookmark and wrong address on 7 the proof of death 8 certificate. They will make 9 the corrections and forward 10 you the corrected bookmark 11 and three certificates. I 12 asked about the next of kin 13 and my assumption was 14 correct. Your three copies 15 will have Sheila listed as 16 NOK and Rebecca will be 17 listed as NOK on her three 18 copies." 19 This was April1st, so this would 20have been after the funeral? 21 A. Yes. 22 Q. Were you aware of discussions 23on these topics? 24 A. Not at this point in time, 25no.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 116 2 3 4 5 1 Q. Were you aware that there 2were plans to have two different versions of the 3proof of death certificate, one for your use and 4one for Mr. and Mrs. Fynes' use? 5 A. Not at that time, I wasn't. 6 Q. Let me direct your attention 7now to the day of the funeral. Do you remember 8anything about the day of the funeral? 9 A. Bits and pieces. 10 Q. I would like to ask you, 11first of all, about seating arrangements. Can you 12tell me, from your perspective, how was the issue 13of seating arrangement dealt with? Who dealt with 14it, and what in fact happened? 15 A. I was told, I believe, two or 16threedays in advance that I would be seated in the 17front row with the Fynes family, with Stuart's 18direct relations, and that it would be me and then 19Sheila and then Shaun and then his siblings and 20that that was just the way it was normally done in 21military services, so therefore, that's where we 22were sitting. 23 Q. Was that the way things 24unfolded? 25 A. Yes.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 117 2 3 4 5 1 Q. Let me ask you, then, about 2something that happened just before the funeral, 3and I guess we have to talk about the whole issue. 4 We understand from some of the 5documents that there was an issue of open casket, 6closed casket, and there was also an issue around 7Corporal Hillier's attendance at the funeral, and I 8think the two of them sort of come together, so I 9would like you to address them both at the same 10time. 11 A. Okay. 12 Q. Tell me what the issues were 13and tell me what developed and what actually 14unfolded. 15 A. I requested that we have an 16open casket or at least a viewing because I wanted 17to be able to say good-bye. I wasn't exactly sure 18what I wanted because I had never been in that 19situation before, but I wanted to make sure that on 20the day of that I had an option of what I wanted to 21do. 22 Initially the Fynes were not 23interested in having an open casket. However, 24through correspondence through our assisting 25officers, we agreed that we would have a viewing

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 118 2 3 4 5 1time separate at the funeral home prior to the 2service and then that the body would be transported 3to the church on the base for the service. 4 The issue surrounding Corporal 5Hillier was that I believe that Shaun and Sheila 6felt that maybe he was responsible for some of the 7issues that Stuart had had with drugs and alcohol. 8Corporal Hillier had been posted out east, so we 9hadn't seen him recently, but both still spoke with 10him quite frequently. 11 It's my understanding that the 12Fynes didn't want him anywhere near Stuart or them 13during the whole funeral and service and 14everything. Eventually, it was my understanding 15from what I was told from my assisting officer that 16it had been agreed that he could attend as long as 17they didn't see him. 18 With respect to the viewing meant 19that we were kind of all given times in which we 20could go so that nobody would run into anybody that 21they didn't want to. It was also my understanding 22that the Fynes still didn't intend to go to the 23viewing as they hadn't wanted one in the first 24place. However, I believe that the assisting 25officers had worked out a time for them to come to

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 119 2 3 4 5 1ensure that they wouldn't run into Corporal Hillier 2when he was there. 3 Q. From your perspective, was 4there any disrespect shown to Mr. and Mrs. Fynes by 5the military during the course of the funeral? 6 A. Not that I'm aware of. 7 Q. I have to ask you this 8question. I'm not sure that it's relevant, but it 9has been put into issue so I need you to be able to 10have the opportunity, if you like, to respond to 11it. It has been suggested on a couple of occasions 12that there was a conversation in the ladies' 13washroom during the funeral at which point you made 14some comments about your plans for that week. Do 15you recall ever saying that you had a good week? 16 A. No. 17 Q. Do you recall ever saying 18that you were looking to find out who wanted to go 19out partying? 20 A. I recall discussing the wake 21that we had planned for after the reception and 22that we were going to go out and have drinks in 23Stuart's honour at his favourite pub and to see who 24wanted to come with us, and I had ensured that the 25Fynes had been invited. However, they were not

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 120 2 3 4 5 1interested in attending. I don't recall discussing 2plans to go out and have a great time over the 3weekend. 4 Q. I want to move us a little 5farther down and talk about a few issues that we 6need to deal with in the context of some complaints 7that were made, and you may have some information. 8 Before I do that, again, I 9apologize. I never know where I'm going. 10Following the funeral, there was an interment in 11Victoria. I take it you attended the funeral. 12 A. I did. 13 Q. From your point of view, was 14there anything notable about what happened at the 15interment? 16 A. Yes. It was probably one of 17the worst days of my life. I, at that point, 18didn't really know that there was anything wrong. 19I was aware that things had changed at the funeral 20in Edmonton, obviously, between my relationship 21with the Fynes. But I was still confused by it 22because they were always so happy about Stuart and 23my relationship. They said they loved that we were 24together and they were part of my family and I 25loved them.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 121 2 3 4 5 1 When I got to the funeral, they 2took us in separate cars, and when we got there, 3nobody looked at me or talked to me and they had 4all brought roses to drop into his grave and I 5didn't have anything to drop in his grave. 6 And when it was over, they were 7standing next to the car and they looked at me, and 8I knew they looked right at me, and they turned 9around and got into the car and closed the door. 10 Q. Take a minute, please. Mr. 11Chairman, I think maybe it would be a good idea to 12take a five minute break. 13 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. We will 14take five. 15--- Recess taken at 1:34 p.m. 16--- Upon resuming at 1:38 p.m. 17 MR. FREIMAN: 18 Q. Ms Starr, I told you I never 19know where I'm going, so I'm going to take a back a 20little -- 21 A. That's all right. 22 Q. -- because I forgot to ask 23you. Just a comment on a couple of things. First 24of all, we have talked about a number of different 25issues with respect to the funeral and different

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 122 2 3 4 5 1perspectives on it. I neglected to ask you about 2your perspective on the issue of the flag and who 3was going to get the flag. 4 A. Sheila had told me that she 5wanted the beret and the medals, and I asked if I 6could have the flag and she said that was fine as 7long as she got the beret and the medals, and I 8believe that that was an agreement that we came to 9mutually on. 10 Q. I have to ask you also about 11a comment that I have seen referred to in one place 12or another, and that's an allegation that Corporal 13Rohmer or you, and it's not clear who, may have 14said on being notified about the events of the 15death of Stuart's death, "Well, Langridge has 16finally gone and done it." Is that something that 17you heard, something that you said? 18 A. I don't believe so. 19 Q. I will get to what I wanted 20to talk about. You may or may not know much about 21this. We have heard evidence and seen some 22documents about a discovery of fourpieces of paper, 23four documents made by Master Corporal Fitzpatrick 24at some point between the death and the funeral. 25What was the first time that you became aware of

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 123 2 3 4 5 1this incident and these facts? 2 A. In a newspaper article 3probably about a year afterwards. 4 Q. Rather than ask you to 5speculate about that, I want to ask you about some 6practical consequences to which these documents may 7or may not be relevant. The first is the issue of 8Stuart's will. What was your understanding about 9the state of Stuart's will and when he had 10completed his will and what was in the will? 11 A. Prior to this death? What 12was my understanding of it? 13 Q. Yes. 14 A. My understanding was that, I 15believe, in 2006 when the supplementary death 16benefits form was filled out, he had brought home a 17new PEN form, a new SDB form, and a new will and we 18had filled it out at home together and discussed 19all the contents and that had been all handed in 20together as a package at the same time. 21 I believed because that will named 22me beneficiary of all items but made Shaun Fynes 23executor and the next of kin form was to be made, I 24believe, me, and then Shaun and Sheila as a 25secondary contact, prior to the things that took

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 124 2 3 4 5 1place after his death, it was my understanding and 2expectation that those documents were all where 3they should be. 4 Q. My understanding is that the 5documents that were found by Corporal Fitzpatrick 6don't correspond at all to the description that you 7have given. The will names Mrs. Fynes as the 8beneficiary and Shaun Fynes as the executor, and 9the PEN form names Shaun Fynes as the primary next 10of kin and Sheila Fynes as secondary, and I don't 11believe that there were any other forms that you 12talked about. What is your understanding as to 13what happened to the forms that you and Stuart 14filled out? 15 A. I honestly have no idea. 16Like I know that they were together. I remember 17that it was something that he kept putting off 18taking them into work and he had to have them back 19and they kept calling and saying, "Stuart, bring in 20your forms tomorrow." So finally I remember 21putting them in an envelope and sticking them in 22his lunch kit and telling him to take it with him. 23 Q. Can we locate these events in 24time, locate them in terms of big events like 25before or after Edgewood, before or after the

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 125 2 3 4 5 1admission to Royal Alexandra Hospital? 2 A. I believe that it was in 32006, so long before any of those events took 4place. I would have to look at the date that he 5filled out the SDB form. 6 Q. We have seen an SDB form that 7dates back to 2006. We have not seen a will that 8dates back to 2006. 9 A. Correct. 10 Q. What was the occasion, then, 11for Stuart filling out, with your assistance, all 12of these new forms? 13 A. I believe that he was to be 14redeployed to Afghanistan. It was my understanding 15that most soldiers are asked to do that again 16before they get deployed. 17 Q. I'm not sure whether you 18noticed in the documents, but we did locate quite 19recently a PEN form naming you as primary next of 20kin. Have you seen that PEN form before? 21 A. Not before today -- or 22yesterday. 23 Q. Let me just make sure that I 24can find it because I do want to ask you. It's tab 2582. This was made out in March of 2007. So I take

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 126 2 3 4 5 1it that before you saw this the other day, you had 2no idea of the existence of this form. 3 A. I did not. I had assumed 4prior to his death that one existed that looked 5like this from earlier, from 2006, but I did not 6know this specific form existed until yesterday. 7 Q. Does the date March5, 07 8mean anything to you in terms of an event that 9might have triggered it? 10 A. No. 11 Q. The SDB form, was this a form 12that you knew Stuart was filling out? 13 A. I was aware of the fact that 14he was changing it, yes. 15 Q. Would this have been around 16the same time as the other document that you had 17expected to find were being filled out? 18 A. They were all together in a 19pile, yes. 20 Q. Tab 47. Do you recognize 21this as a document that you and Stuart would have 22worked on, or is this a different document 23entirely? 24 A. I believe that it's the same 25one.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 127 2 3 4 5 1 Q. Is everything here in his 2handwriting or is anything in your handwriting? 3 A. I believe it's all in his 4handwriting and possibly someone else's at the top. 5It doesn't necessarily look like his printing. 6 Q. But it's not yours, is it? 7 A. No. 8 Q. Did you in fact get the SDB 9benefits after Stuart's death? 10 A. I did. 11 Q. What use did you make of 12those benefits? 13 A. I used them to pay off the 14jeep. I used them, I believe, to pay off a portion 15of the MasterCard that he had outstanding. I paid 16off our dog. I paid of our Home Depot card. I 17believe that that was it at that point. 18 I attempted to make contact with 19the Fynes after learning that I wouldn't be the 20recipient of the will to see what else I could do 21for them financially with that money, but I don't 22remember ever getting a response. 23 Q. When you say you made contact 24with them, can you put that in time for us? 25 A. Probably some time in April

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 128 2 3 4 5 1of 2008, but I'm not positive. It was through, I 2believe, the assisting officer or possibly through 3the adj at the base. 4 Q. Again, I'm going to ask Ms 5Coutlée to find it if we need it, but we have seen 6a document in which Mr. Fynes responds to the 7Fynes' assisting officer with a statement that he 8doesn't see a need to contact you directly or to 9have any further discussions with you. Was that a 10piece of communication that was conveyed to you by 11your assisting officer? 12 A. And this would have been 13after the funeral and all of that? 14 Q. Yes. 15 A. No, I don't. 16 Q. I'm just wondering whether 17that was in response to what you have just told us 18now. 19 A. It may have been, but I'm not 20aware of the response being given, so... 21 Q. I want to talk to you, then, 22about the memorial cross issue. What was your 23understanding of Stuart's wishes with respect to 24the memorial cross? Did you have any knowledge? 25 A. To be honest, it was one of

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 129 2 3 4 5 1things about the military that I didn't know 2anything about. I didn't know it existed. I 3didn't know there was one. I didn't know there 4were forms. 5 Q. When we were talking about 6forms, we have had a lot of discussions about 7missing papers and what people expected there to be 8and what they expected to find with the contents of 9those forms. 10 Did you have any expectations? 11You have begun to tell us about it as to what forms 12would be found in Stuart's personnel file that 13weren't found, and if there were, what did you 14expect the content of those documents to be? 15 A. I expected that this 16supplementary death benefit form would have been 17next to a new PEN form and a new version of the 18will. 19 Q. I think you have told us that 20you expected that you would be the primary 21beneficiary of the will and that some other 22provision would be made for Mr. and Mrs. Fynes in 23the will. 24 A. That's correct. 25 Q. I want to ask you a question

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 130 2 3 4 5 1about the issue of a suicide note. Did you raise 2the issue of the existence of a suicide note with 3anyone? 4 A. Yes, I asked my assisting 5officer. 6 Q. When? 7 A. Some time prior to the 8funeral, I believe. 9 Q. What response did you get? 10 A. He said that he wasn't sure 11and that he would have to ask his superiors. 12 Q. Did he inform you of what 13happened when he asked his superiors? 14 A. He told me that his 15superiors’ response was that if there was a note, 16it would be given to the person that it was 17addressed to if it was of importance right away, if 18not, then it may be a part of the investigation but 19they would be notified that it existed immediately. 20 Q. Can you locate that 21discussion in time? 22 A. It would have been some time 23around in that week after before planning the 24funeral. 25 Q. Did you make any further

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 131 2 3 4 5 1inquiries about the existence of a suicide note? 2 A. Not from that point forward. 3The way that the answer was brought to me, I felt 4that I was aware there was a note that existed just 5based on the tone that the comment was made in. 6However, when nothing showed up in the following 7weeks, I assumed that maybe there wasn't one. 8 Q. When was the first time that 9you became aware of the existence of a suicide 10note? 11 A. I read about it in a 12newspaper approximately a year and a bit after his 13death. 14 Q. Have you ever seen the 15contents of that suicide note? 16 A. I have. 17 Q. Having read the contents of 18the note, what impression did that make on you? 19 A. It hurt my feelings. 20 Q. I will leave it at that. The 21final -- almost final -- topic that I want to talk 22to you about are issues relating to Stuart's 23personal effects. 24 I would like to start with the 25issue of Stuart's computer. We have heard some

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 132 2 3 4 5 1evidence that there was a request made for you to 2have access to Stuart's computer to locate pictures 3for a slideshow at the funeral and to delete 4certain other personal matters there. 5 I understand you made that request 6through your assisting officer. What were you told 7in response to that request? 8 A. I was told that as the 9standing will that was being used placed Sheila as 10the beneficiary, that I would not be allowed to 11touch our computer. However, the two separate 12requests, eventually, the one to have certain 13things deleted from the hard drive was denied, but 14I was allowed to attempt to get on to the computer 15under supervision, and without actually touching 16the computer, to get more pictures for the slide 17show. 18 Q. Did that happen? 19 A. Yes, it did. 20 Q. Can you tell me, first of 21all, from your recollection, was the computer 22operational when you attempted to download images? 23 A. No. It was operational 24eventually. We got it up and running. However, 25there were several times when we couldn't even get

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 133 2 3 4 5 1it to turn on where I would be contacted by Adam 2Brown and he would tell me, "Don't come today. We 3can't get it to turn on," which was something that 4I was aware of before anyway because prior to that 5living with Stuart with that being the computer 6that was in our home, it had issues and it had been 7in for repair and it still wasn't working properly. 8However, we did eventually get on to the computer 9oneday closer to the funeral. 10 Q. Was Second Lieutenant Brown 11present with you when you got on to the computer? 12 A. He was along with somebody 13else in his office. 14 Q. So who did the actual 15downloading? 16 A. Second Lieutenant Brown 17controlled the mouse while I told him what to click 18on. When we found the files we were looking for, 19he downloaded them onto the flash drive for me and 20I took the flash drive home. 21 Q. Were there any hard copy 22photographs that you used for purposes of the 23slideshow? 24 A. Yes, I had my own photo 25albums at home.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 134 2 3 4 5 1 Q. Who prepared the electronic 2version of those physical pictures? 3 A. I don't know. 4 Q. Did you scan them? Did you 5give them to someone? 6 A. To go onto the slideshow? 7 Q. To go onto the slideshow. 8 A. I believe we scanned some of 9them. We may have taken some of them to a place to 10have them scanned to disk. Most of the times when 11I develop photos anyway, I get the disk and copy so 12I would have already had most of them in digital 13version. 14 Q. Did Second Lieutenant Brown 15have any involvement in dealing with these 16paragraphs, the hard copies I'm talking about? 17 A. The hard copies of the ones 18we downloaded off the computer? 19 Q. No. The hard copies that you 20then uploaded onto -- 21 A. No. 22 Q. There has also been an issue 23raised about how the inventory was taken for 24Stuart's possessions and issues raised as to who 25was taking the inventory under what circumstances.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 135 2 3 4 5 1Can you tell me what your awareness of how the 2inventory was taken and by whom? 3 A. I know it was taken by the 4people who worked in that area. I don't remember 5what it was called. I know that -- 6 Q. Quartermasters. 7 A. Yes. I know that we knew 8most of the people in the area, so I assume it was 9people that we knew either well or slightly; I'm 10not sure. I'm pretty sure that Corporal Rohmer 11wasn't allowed to be involved because I was aware 12of the fact that he worked in there. I know he saw 13the cage and where stuff was. Otherwise, I don't 14know who actually did it or what they did when they 15went about doing it. 16 Q. Was anything brought to your 17attention about your own involvement or lack of 18involvement in the inventory process? 19 A. I don't believe so. I was 20aware of the fact that some of my stuff was in the 21cage, but... 22 Q. What's your view as to how 23some of your effects got put into the cage with 24Stuart's effects? 25 A. When I was discussing earlier

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 136 2 3 4 5 1how we were packed and moved out of the townhouse, 2my mum grabbed the things that she knew to be mine 3for sure. Everything else just got thrown in boxes 4by the military who assisted Sheila. Therefore, 5they wouldn't have known what was what. 6 There was also a couple of, like, 7clothing boxes that I believe got mixed up in with 8the boxes that went to the base, and then just 9knowing that if I didn't take certain things, they 10must have been in the cage. 11 Q. Did you ever get any of those 12personal items returned to you? 13 A. I did not. I was told that 14unless I could provide receipts that I had 15purchased every item that I was asking for, that I 16would not be allowed to have my personal items back 17because they would be assumed to be part of the 18estate. 19 Q. Who told you that? 20 A. Adam told me that, but I'm 21not sure who he asked for that information because 22he was unsure initially. 23 Q. Finally, there has been an 24issue about a chair and a footstool that belonged 25to Corporal Langridge. In the period after

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 137 2 3 4 5 1Stuart's death, did you ever have possession of the 2chair and the footstool? 3 A. No, I did not. 4 Q. Let me just conclude by 5asking you a couple of very brief question about 6your involvement, if any, in investigations that 7were conducted into some of the events we have 8talked about today. I understand that you were 9asked to testify at the board of inquiry. 10 A. Yes, that's correct. 11 Q. I understand you did do that. 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. Were you approached by any 14members of the Military Police in the course of any 15investigation or questioning that the Military 16Police might have done about any of these issues? 17 A. By a member of the Military 18Police? No, I was not. 19 Q. Were you approached by any of 20the member of the military who were conducting 21their own investigations? I think Major Chenette 22was in charge of the investigation. Were you ever 23approached by him or by anyone who told you that 24they were working for Major Chenette in connection 25with any of these issues?

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 138 2 3 4 5 1 A. I'm not sure that it was 2Major Chenette. I don't recognize that name as 3all. I was contacted by a member of the military 4who said that they were doing some background 5research as they were afraid that the Fynes were 6going to take civil action against the military. 7 He came to my place of employment 8and interviewed me. He asked me that I not speak 9about any of the things that we spoke about or tell 10the Fynes or anyone else that we had discussed 11anything. 12 Q. Aside from that, have you had 13any contact from anyone with respect to 14investigations about these matters? 15 A. No, I have not. 16 MR. FREIMAN: Ms Starr, I know 17these are difficult topics for you. I thank you 18for coming. I thank you for helping us and I thank 19you for answering my questions. 20 THE CHAIRPERSON: Colonel Drapeau? 21 CCOL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: Thank you, 22Mr. Chair. Ms Starr, I don't have any questions 23for you. Thank you. 24 THE CHAIRPERSON: Ms McLaine? 25CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS McLAINE:

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 139 2 3 4 5 1 MS McLAINE: I have a few 2questions. Thank you. 3 Q. When you and Stuart began 4dating, can you tell me whether he ever spoke to 5you about previous drug or alcohol use? 6 A. I was aware when we first 7started dating that Stuart smoked pot occasionally. 8Lots of the people that that he hung out with did. 9I was also aware a little later on in our 10relationship that he had done cocaine several times 11on a recreational basis, though nothing on a daily 12basis or that I would consider an extreme addiction 13at that point. 14 He had also mentioned to me that 15in the past, he had been addicted to meth and had 16spent many months essentially in someone's basement 17doing meth regularly but that he had kicked the 18habit in the last few years. 19 Q. You have stated that before 20the intervention as it has been called, Stuart's 21mum didn't know about the issues that he was 22having. Can you tell me what his relationship was 23like with his mum? 24 A. I believe that they had a 25great relationship. They were very close as a

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 140 2 3 4 5 1mother and son can be. However, I think that there 2was a certain -- she was in Victoria and Stuart was 3in Edmonton. As much as there was that love and 4that closeness as a family, their lives were very 5separate. 6 I don't feel that she knew what 7was taking place in the day to day lives or what he 8was doing or what his preferences were in things 9like music or what he did as recreational 10activities. He loved her very much and I know that 11she loved him, but I don't think there was that 12daily involvement. 13 Q. Leading up to the time that 14all these incidents happened, what was your 15relationship like with the Fynes? 16 A. Leading up to all those 17incidents? It was amazing. It was the first time 18that I felt by your significant other's parents 19that I was truly accepted into their family. I 20loved them and I thought that they loved me and 21they would always tell my parents how happy they 22were that I was a part of Stuart's life and how 23good it was that we were together. We were close. 24Sheila had Michael come and stay with us. We would 25go and visit them and stay in their place. She

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 141 2 3 4 5 1could come visit us just for fun. It was great 2before. 3 Q. You stated in your stat dec 4that Stuart accepted the military's offer of help. 5To your knowledge, did he agree to the conditions 6that were placed on him when he went back to the 7base? 8 A. Yes, he agreed to the 9conditions because he wanted to go to treatment. 10 Q. As far as you are aware, was 11the military still intending to send him on that 12treatment course? 13 A. It was my understanding that 14he was still going to go, yes. 15 Q. You spoke earlier about 16Stuart's medical treatment and what you knew at the 17time versus what you know now, given what you know 18at this point, do you feel that he had access to 19adequate medical treatment? 20 A. I feel that there were 21options there for him, possibly sometimes not in 22the most perfect moments. It's hard to walk back 23onto the base when you are already embarrassed 24about something to go and get help, but I believe 25that if he had accepted the assistance when it was

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 142 2 3 4 5 1given, that he would have had the opportunity, yes. 2 Q. You and Stuart, you met with 3Major Volstad, I believe, to do your statutory 4declaration for the common law relationship. 5 A. Yes. 6 Q. At that meeting, was it 7explained to you the significance of what you were 8doing? 9 A. It was explained to me that 10it was like we were getting married essentially in 11the military's eyes, so, yes, that it was an 12important decision to make and that wasn't 13something that we should just do lightly. 14 Q. Do you have any doubt that 15Stuart knew what he was entering into with you that 16day? 17 A. No, I'm positive that he 18knew. He had been asking me to sign the stat dec 19for that for months before that. 20 Q. We have heard previous 21testimony from Mrs. Fynes that your relationship 22with Stuart -- and to use her word -- "sputtered" 23from January through March before he died. Can you 24respond to that? 25 A. I feel that there were

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 143 2 3 4 5 1definitely disagreements or moments where we maybe 2weren't at our closest. As I mentioned before, 3there were times where I would try-- I can't 4remember what it's called -- where you withdraw 5yourself from the situation in order to kind of 6teach them a lesson because you are trying to show 7them what they can lose if they don't make better 8changes in their life. 9 But other than those occurrences, 10there was never a time where we weren't still 11planning on spending the rest of our lives 12together, so that was the underlying part of it. 13 Q. We have heard that the 14military was intending to send him to Homewood and 15not Edgewood. Do you know anything about that? 16 A. Is Homewood located in 17Ontario? 18 Q. Yes, it is. 19 A. Then yes. So Stuart didn't 20want to return to Edgewood again. He didn't like 21the people that worked there. He said he had a bad 22experience, so he had asked if they could find 23another facility for him to attend treatment at and 24he was told -- I forgot that it was called 25Homewood, but that was it was located in Ontario.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 144 2 3 4 5 1 Q. We have touched on this issue 2earlier. At the funeral home, there is evidence 3that you indicated that you gave information to the 4funeral director that led him to believe that you 5had twoyears living together. What would you have 6told him? Do you have any -- 7 A. I don't even recall having 8the conversation with him. I believe that we 9walked in and they told him that I was Stuart's 10common law spouse. I would have definitely said 11that I was his common law spouse because I signed 12the documents with the military stating that I was. 13Until more recently, I wasn't unaware of the two 14year rule in Alberta. 15 Q. Did the Fynes ever speak with 16you at the funeral? 17 A. Yes, they did, at the service 18in Edmonton, very little. However, when we were 19sitting and Shaun was giving his eulogy, Sheila was 20holding my hand and spoke to me a bit. 21 Q. What did she say? 22 A. I was shocked by the things 23that Shaun was saying and suggesting in his eulogy 24and Sheila told me to wait and see what they were 25going to do next.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 145 2 3 4 5 1 Q. What did you take that to 2mean? 3 A. That they were going to make 4allegations against the military. 5 Q. You testified that later that 6day, they were no longer speaking with you. What 7is your understanding? What changed? 8 A. Things were awkward before, 9but, I mean, we were at a funeral, emotions are 10high and things are uncomfortable, but there was a 11moment where in the reception in the Lord 12Strathcona's building, the Fynes were asked out of 13the room. I'm not sure by who or where they went 14to talk, who they talked to. 15 My understanding now is that they 16were talking about who would be the beneficiary of 17the money and the will and the supplementary death 18benefits. And the moment that they came back, it 19was like a switch had been flipped and I was no 20longer accepted in their life. 21 Q. You have indicated that you 22used some of the money you received to pay off 23certain of Stuart's debts. Can you tell me why you 24did that? 25 A. I paid off the jeep because

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 146 2 3 4 5 1it was our jeep. We purchased it together and the 2credit agencies have been hounding me to make 3payments as we had already defaulted on several 4months' worth of payments. 5 I had made the last few months 6worth of payments, but after Stuart died, I had to 7use some of the money to pay the rest of the jeep 8off so they would just leave me alone. 9 I assumed that when everything was 10separated that I was going to receive the jeep, so 11I might as well pay it off so that I don't have 12credit issues later. 13 And then I was fully willing to 14help pay off the debts. That had been Stuart's and 15my plan from the very beginning, so it wasn't an 16issue at all. I wanted to help with more, but... 17 Q. Did you make that offer to 18the Fynes? 19 A. The was made either through 20my assisting officer or Lubiniecki. I can't 21remember who it was. 22 Q. What was their response as 23you understand it? 24 A. My understanding was that 25there was no response.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 147 2 3 4 5 1 Q. Who received the jeep? 2 A. The Fynes did. 3 MS McLAINE: Those are all my 4questions. Thank you. 5 THE CHAIRPERSON: I want to thank 6you today for your attending here. I know it's 7most difficult for yourself as it was for Mrs. 8Fynes obviously, and difficult times both from then 9till now and it's understanding, but thank you for 10your testimony. 11 We had another issue from this 12morning. I would like to release the witness 13first, so you are able to go. There were two 14issues raised by Colonel Drapeau, one was relative 15to the reports which is not the issue we need to 16deal with, but the second issue was regarding the 17May5th interview where was there a video and there 18was the belief on behalf of the Fynes that at four 19intervals, there was a jump or a slice or something 20that's missing, et cetera, et cetera. They wanted 21to enter that as an exhibit, but I'm looking for 22responses from counsel first. 23 MS RICHARDS: I will just respond 24first, then, to the issue about entering that as an 25exhibit and I will have some further submissions.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 148 2 3 4 5 1We will deal with the second issue about recalling 2Mrs. Fynes, I guess, separately. 3 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes. That was a 4separate one. 5 MS RICHARDS: On the issue of the 6video, my understanding from what Mr. Drapeau has 7said is that this was a video that was provided to 8them through an Access to Information request. 9 I believe, as in all Access to 10Information request, there would be a letter that 11accompanied that which explained the provision of 12that video. This was not provided through the 13Military Police. I do not know whether or not the 14Access to Information people redacted or changed 15that video in any way, so as a preliminary matter, 16in order to file the video, the accompanying letter 17that goes with it ought to be filed. That's our 18position, but subject to that, we don't, of course, 19have a problem with filing it. 20 I can tell you that, and had 21promised to get back to you about filing the copies 22of the audios and videos that the Commission has 23from the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal and they 24are agreeable to filing those versions in evidence. 25 THE CHAIRPERSON: And that will

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 149 2 3 4 5 1take place at some -- 2 MS RICHARDS: You have them 3already, and then I will address the other as part 4of the -- 5 THE CHAIRPERSON: That we can deal 6with later and we can deal with that in a morning. 7We could take care of that when we get the list and 8the times because I want to make sure that we get 9the right video whether it's video and audio and 10the right time that it was taken. Anything from 11Mr. Freiman before I go back to Colonel Drapeau? 12 MR. FREIMAN: Just very briefly. 13Clearly, this was a very serious allegation that 14was made during Mrs. Fynes' testimony and I invited 15her to present us with any evidence that she had to 16back up that claim, so there can be no opposition 17to entering into evidence whatever Colonel 18Drapeau's clients believe is useful in terms of 19explaining that position. 20 How that is going to unfold and 21how we are going to deal with the allegation is 22something I haven't wrapped my head around, so I 23will make no submissions about that. 24 MS RICHARDS: I'm sorry, but that 25just made me recall that there was another issue

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 150 2 3 4 5 1that arose that I will just raise. My 2understanding from the evidence is that the Fynes 3were provided copies of their video and audio 4recordings directly from the Military Police. They 5didn't just get it through Access to Information. 6They got copies either directly after their 7interviews or they were mailed to them afterwards. 8 And so if they are going to file 9copies in their possession of the audio and videos, 10they should be filing all of them, not just one 11version. 12 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I would 13have to check. I can't remember whether Mrs. Fynes 14said she got a copy after the video, after the 15audio. I would have to go back and look at the 16transcript, but I thought she did, and I think 17that's what you are referring to. 18 MS RICHARDS: Yes. I certainly 19agree. We don't object, but I think if we are 20going to file it, we have to file everything that's 21in their possession and I think it has to be a full 22record. 23 MR. FREIMAN: Just in fairness, my 24recollection is that Mrs. Fynes said that she did 25receive some copies but not all.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 151 2 3 4 5 1 THE CHAIRPERSON: I don't think 2anybody is going to disagree that we should have 3all of the documents that we need, so everybody is 4in agreement with that, so it's a matter of somehow 5between today, tomorrow or the next day, 6accumulating through a coordination of our registry 7and Ms Coutlée and yourselves a list and having 8everybody agree on this is the entire list, this is 9the entire list of video and audios available. 10 COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: This is a 11priority for us, and as I have said from day one, 12we stand by and we commit to a fulsome disclosure, 13so we will as soon as we can, first of all. 14 Second of all, it's a very serious 15issue, serious allegations. This is why we want to 16address it as quickly as we can, so we will have 17that to you. 18 THE CHAIRPERSON: The only reason 19I'm saying have them all together is that I don't 20want a situation where you are filing or asking and 21then we find out there is one or two missing. I 22want to do this right the first time. 23 COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: But as far 24as I'm concerned as I stand before you now is we 25have one copy that has been obtained under Privacy,

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 152 2 3 4 5 1so under the Access to Privacy cell of DND. We 2will check to make absolutely certain there is a 3not a copy issued to the Fynes by the Military 4Police in the week of the interview, but that's it, 5and then we will confirm that in writing to the 6Commission soon as. 7 MS RICHARDS: In the interest of 8fullness, I want to be clear, and I'm sure it will 9not come as a surprise. I think these are serious 10allegations that are without foundation, and I 11think we have to be careful about repeating them 12before this hearing and assuming them to be true. 13 I can tell you that the original 14video and audio of those interviews are in Edmonton 15through a chain of custody, through routine police 16practices as evidence. I have spoken to Commission 17counsel about it. Because of the rules of chain of 18custody, as you are aware, Mr. Chair, they cannot 19be sent. 20 THE CHAIRPERSON: Correct. 21 MS RICHARDS: However, we can make 22arrangements at any time through consultation with 23counsel to have somebody go and review those, and 24the reason I raise the fact that the version that's 25being provided to you today is through Access to

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 153 2 3 4 5 1Information, that's an entirely different issue. 2The issue or the very serious allegation that was 3made, in my submission, without foundation was that 4Military Police members altered the audio and 5video, and the only way we can know that is to look 6at the originals that are in Edmonton. 7 COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: If I can 8address that. I object to the issue that these are 9serious allegation made without foundation. The 10foundation on which Mr. and Mrs. Fynes have made 11the allegation is on their ability to review the 12video and to find -- for lack of a better word and 13to be as precise and as neutral as possible -- 14irregularities. 15 So we will present that, this is 16why they made the allegation, first. Second, Mrs. 17Fynes during her testimony specifically said -- and 18I can't quote verbatim what she said -- but she 19said these words or this exchange or these 20expressions or sentences which I pronounce as I'm 21being interviewed are not shown on the transcript, 22so she said -- so first and foremost, they are 23irregularities on the tape and there are things 24that are missing. 25 All we want to do from the get-go

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 154 2 3 4 5 1is to present what we have to back -- not to back 2up -- the foundation for these allegations to the 3Commission. Let the Commission investigate it, and 4you have a shot at it, but not before seeing the 5video, surely. 6 THE CHAIRPERSON: Let me try to 7bring this to a close. I recognize the seriousness 8of the issue, but I'm also very careful about 9opinions and call it foundation or call it opinions 10or call it whatever thoughts it is. I have been 11through this in other circumstances many times 12before in terms of videos, whether they have been 13altered, different allegations such as that. 14 The way to do this is to do a 15proper examination, and until that is done, we 16should probably just let this sit in terms of -- 17and not create any more -- I don't even know what 18the right word is-- to create additional 19allegations relative to this situation till we 20determine and prove. 21 I will have discussions with 22Commission counsel, but my goal would be is that 23somebody independent needs to do an examination of 24the tapes, both audio and video, and then that same 25person or persons do an examination of the original

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 155 2 3 4 5 1that may, as it is, take it to Edmonton or whatever 2the case is. 3 I am fully aware of continuity of 4evidence requirement and you cannot interrupt that, 5and without interrupting that, we will destroy the 6examination of that tape, so we want to make sure 7it's done properly. 8 You only get one chance at these 9things, so I want the information together, 10together properly, and that can be reviewed, and it 11then can be reviewed against the original by people 12that have the technology. Just because there is a 13blip in the tape does not mean something has been 14cut out. There could be other reasons or could be 15something, so I'm not going to make any assumptions 16at all. You can, I'm not. 17 COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: Mr. Chair, 18we are not. The allegation, in order to reduce 19them to the lowest level possible, we have said in 20the letter that we presented to you copied to 21counsel for the Crown precisely where on the tape 22we find irregularities. 23 The sooner we can address that, I 24think the best for all concern, and the truth would 25prevail, and if the original and formal one, which

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 156 2 3 4 5 1the MPs have full custody, that's fine. Maybe an 2explanation, hopefully there is, but that is in 3support of the allegation Mrs. Fynes made during 4her testimony. That's all. 5 THE CHAIRPERSON: Just so you are 6aware, when an examination of this nature is done, 7it's just not done at the precise fourpoints. It's 8done at the tape that has to -- because it has to 9be a proper examination, and whether it be the 10police or an independent body, it has to be done in 11totality. 12 It's probably going to be costly 13in one way and it's going to be very difficult and 14who are the experts we get is another issue, but 15that's a matter that will be determined. But it 16needs to be done. The allegations are made. 17Everybody has responded accordingly and we need to 18get some answers one way or the other. 19 It's the kind of thing -- it's not 20a he said, she said. It's a matter of there is a 21physical piece of evidence here and that can 22determine whether something has been altered. 23 COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: My last 24comment with your indulgence, Mr. Chair. Mrs. 25Fynes made the comment under oath having an honest

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 157 2 3 4 5 1belief that something irregular happened and that's 2all we are saying for now. 3 THE CHAIRPERSON: That's correct. 4I agree with that. The fact finding will determine 5whether that opinion is good or not. There is lots 6of times people give an opinion and it turns out to 7be right, sometimes it turns out to be wrong, or 8it's just a misunderstanding, so we need to get 9those answers. Enough said, I think. 10 MS RICHARDS: I think you have 11answered the second issue. There was a request to 12recall Mrs. Fynes to talk about what she thinks is 13missing. I think that's premature. 14 THE CHAIRPERSON: We don't need 15that at this stage until we run into-- I'm not sure 16the exact practice of ATIP providing a letter with 17the tape, and I will accept Ms Richards at her 18word. If that's the normal practice, then we 19should try to get that letter. 20 COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: If we have 21it, you will have it. 22 THE CHAIRPERSON: If they don't 23have it, could you ask the -- Access would still 24have it. 25 COL (RET'D) DRAPEAU: Mr. Chair,

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 158 2 3 4 5 1if Privacy and Access issued, then it is a covering 2letter attached to it. That's a normal practice. 3We do this all the time. 4 THE CHAIRPERSON: Awesome. Thank 5you. 6 MS RICHARDS: I guess I would say: 7If you can't find it, let me know. I can make 8inquiries. It's sometimes a little sensitive with 9Access communicating with me, but if I have your 10agreement, then -- 11 THE CHAIRPERSON: I'm sure counsel 12has worked together on the last issue, and if we 13need to have everybody work together, that's going 14to happen again. Are there any other issues? 15 MR. FREIMAN: I should probably 16tell you, Mr. Chairman, that we are planning to 17have a meeting with all counsel to discuss 18scheduling issues and to try to reach a common 19understanding and that's going to happen very 20shortly. 21 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. All 22right. We are adjourned till Monday morning at 239:30. Thank you. 24--- Whereupon the proceedings adjourned 25 at 2:23 p.m.

6 7 A.S.A.P. Reporting Services Inc. 8(613) 564-2727 (416) 861-8720 1 2 3 4 5 1

2 I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT I have, to the best 3 of my skill and ability, accurately recorded 4 by shorthand and transcribed therefrom, the 5 foregoing proceeding using real time computer 6 aided transcription. 7 8 9

10 ______11 Marion Liang, Court Reporter 12

13 and 14

15 I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT I have, to the best 16 of my skill and ability, accurately recorded 17 by Stenomask and transcribed therefrom, 18 the foregoing proceeding. 19 20 21 22

23 ______24 Suzanne Hubbard, Stenomask Reporter

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