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The Current Transcript for December 10, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

ROSANNE CASIMIR: It's going to be providing families answers. It's going to be traumatizing in so many different levels, knowing that they're going to finally know their truths.

MATT GALLOWAY: It has been a difficult year for members of the {Need the spelling!} First Nation after a reckoning on residential schools in this country following the discovery of unmarked graves there. Indigenous leaders have called for the release of all residential school records. This week, the federal government said those documents are coming. In 30 minutes, what that means to survivors and their families and whether the Catholic Church may now follow suit. Also this morning, Luis Horacio Najera was an investigative reporter in Mexico. He had to flee that country to Canada because of death threats from Mexican drug cartels. And now he's learnt those cartels have followed him here.

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: These people who were arrested here, they... I don't think there will be that dumb to reveal, Oh yes, we are part of the Sinaloa cartel because they know the consequences of the Sinaloa cartel, not the consequences of the law.

MG: In an hour, the new face of the drug trade in Canada and how the next generation of organised crime is thriving in our digital world. We start, though, with Facebook, ethnic violence in Myanmar and a multibillion dollar lawsuit. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Rohingya refugees sue Facebook for $150B

Guests: Tun Khin, Awista Ayazi and Katie Harbath

MG: Facebook has been facing a number of lawsuits over its business practices from American and European governments. Now it is squaring off against yet another plaintiff, this time about issues of life and death. Rohingya Muslim groups in both the United States and the UK are suing the company. They say Facebook amplified misinformation and hate speech on its sites, indirectly contributing to ethnic violence in Myanmar. Tun Khin is a Rohingya activist and president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation in the UK. He was forced to flee Myanmar in 2004 following persecution by authorities. He's working with the British law firm, presenting their side of the class action lawsuit, and we reached him today in Washington, DC. Tun Khin, good morning.

TUN KHIN: Good morning. Good morning.

MG: Why did you get involved in this lawsuit?

TUN KHIN: Of course, this is very important for us. As Rohingya, we are seeking justice. So through Facebook, anti Rohingya been... Anti Rohingya were spread up the whole country. And because of that hate speech. Unspeakable violence happened. We lost many lives. We lost many children. About 380 villages have been burned down by Burma's military. Those all have been done by Burma's military given by the justification because of this hate speech, which spread up through Facebook and many people in Burma, military and authorities there were, you know, cheering up. And there is no such anything, you know, on the Rohingya side. They like, get rid of these people, kill them all. They are illegal immigrants. They are animals. You know, they are not human being. We don't want to see them here, just destroy them. Those kind of messages, those kind of polls are spread through Facebook after 2012. That result unspeakable violence. Today, one million Rohingya in Bangladesh refugee camp, which is the largest refugee camp in the world.

MG: You started noticing comments like that in 2012?

TUN KHIN: Yeah, after 2012 that we have seen that, you know, it has been shared by in a one hour time, hundreds of thousands of people shared and comments, you know, which are encouraging to the military and, you know, puppet readers to do that.

MG: What happened when you and other members of the Rohingya community tried to contact Facebook about these comments that you were seeing online?

TUN KHIN: As far as we can see, they did not care and they ignore as negligence. We have seen through Facebook, especially until two thousand eighteen, you know, when Mark Zuckerberg was giving testimony at the Senate hearing, they have nothing done, to be honest.

MG: And so what are you looking for, what you said initially that you joined this lawsuit looking for justice? What does justice look like for you in this?

TUN KHIN: Justice is so important because, you know, we want to see whoever responsible you know, in this genocide against Rohingya. I mean, of course, military did that. Facebook been also part of that supporting, you know, we have seen recent Facebook whistleblower reveal that Facebook played a role on Rohingya genocide. You know, we want to see Facebook have to face justice. Whatever action by the lawsuit.

MG: Part of that action is, I mean, the lawsuit is looking for compensation of something like $150 billion. That's an extraordinary amount of money. Where would that money go to?

TUN KHIN: Especially, of course, as a genocide survivor, one million Rohingya in Bangladesh refugee camps, these genocide survivors, we want to see they are rebuilding lives. They lost everything, their houses, their brothers, their father being slaughtered in front of them, their husbands slaughtered, women being raped. So after they lost everything, they feel the situation, they live in squalid conditions. There is no proper humanitarian aid, no proper healthcare, not a division, 40 percent in one million, 40 percent is children. The whole generation is growing without integration, so we have to rebuild Rohingya future again.

MG: Tun Khin, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

TUN KHIN: Thank you.

MG: Tun Khin is a Rohingya activist and the president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation of the UK. This morning, he was in Washington, DC. As we mentioned, there are two class action lawsuits in progress one in the UK, the other in the United States. Awista Ayazi is one of the attorneys working on the U.S. suit. Awista, good morning to you.

AWISTA AYAZI: Good morning.

MG: What is the legal basis of this case?

AWISTA AYAZI: It's really simple. There's two causes of action, but both of them are premised in the allegation that Facebook knowingly provided a key tool for amplifying hate speech and inciting violence against the Rohingya. And they did that, you know, with the platform that has an algorithm that promotes divisive content and it does that simply for one mission, and that is to increase user engagement.

MG: Well, in the complaint you lay this out, you say "at the core of this complaint is the realisation that Facebook was willing to trade the lives of Rohingya people for better market penetration in a small country in Southeast Asia", it's that simple?

AWISTA AYAZI: It's really that simple. You know, I mean, the causes of action are housed within strict product liability and negligence, but at the core of them is exactly what you said.

MG: How and why should Facebook be held legally responsible as an online platform? The entity of Facebook, those who work for Facebook aren't actually the ones who are carrying out the violence themselves. So why should they, as an organisation, be held legally responsible here?

AWISTA AYAZI: I'm glad you asked that question because, you know, especially for the Rohingya who are listening that haven't, you know, that I think it's super important for them and for all to understand that, you know, in the perpetration of a crime. It's not just the person who holds the knife that you know is always solely responsible for the crime. I mean, there are others often involved, and we've described it exactly as that in the situation that they aided and abetted this genocide because as the complaint alleges, they knowingly provided this tool that they were aware the military was using it to amplify hate speech, misinformation and content that was inciting violence. And you know, it would be one thing if they were if they had a platform that they had, you know, absolutely hands off approach, no involvement in what kind of content is created. And you know, that's where this Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act sort of the original intent of that, this U.S. law was made for these internet platforms, internet companies that provide a space, you know, content neutral sort of, you know, approach. It's not, you know, the idea is, well, it's not our fault what people write on there. But as we're seeing more and more evidence is coming out, particularly from these whistleblowers, that Facebook absolutely was involved and what kind of content is being amplified on its platform because its algorithm is designed to promote specific content and time and time again, their own internal research has shown that divisive content increases rapidly the user engagement and that's what their bottom line and the only thing they really, you know, the complaint alleges, is the only thing that they really care about. And when you're sort of actively participating in what sort of content is being seen more on your platform, that's when you're, you know, that's where the culpability is at a different level.

MG: Can you just briefly explain what Section 230 is and the immunity that it seems to offer companies like Facebook?

AWISTA AYAZI: Yeah. Yeah. So this is a law that when originally draughted it was intended to, you know, as I said, the shield from liability, the platforms, that they're simply providing a platform and they take a neutral approach to and they're not involved with the content that is put on their platform. But you know, two things in relation to that, one is that a lot of problematic case law started coming out of that where you end up in a situation that the platform is actually not entirely neutral and there is some involvement and knowledge with how that platform is being used in a very, you know, harmful way. And so Congress has currently got a few bills on the table to make amendments to this statute. And at the same time in the context of our complaints specifically, we have made it so that Burmese law should apply in this situation, which is totally normal to, you know, to do in, you know, cases in the United States where you know, there's a injury taking place in a foreign location. And so, you know, and there is no Section 230 that we have in the U.S. So that really addresses that. But in any event, the climate is changing in the United States in terms of what, you know, major companies like Facebook should be able to get away with.

MG: We asked Facebook for an interview. They sent us a statement attributed to Meta spokesperson that, you know, now the renamed umbrella company for Facebook. The statement reads in part, "were appalled by the crimes committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar. We've built a dedicated team of Burmese speakers, banned the Tatmadaw, disrupted networks, manipulating public debate and taken action on harmful misinformation to help keep people safe". Facebook says they're addressing the issues that you've laid out. Just briefly, what do you make of that?

AWISTA AYAZI: Well, quite frankly, you know, just this week, we saw the day after the lawsuit was filed. Facebook decided to take down accounts of companies known to be linked to the Myanmar military. But you know, we'd say a lot of people probably would have survived and not been tortured, murdered, raped, killed. If that was done nine years ago, you know, and they make reference to building a dedicated team to address these kinds of things. But I mean, the truth is if, as you'll read in the complaint, that there really wasn't monitoring done, there was no Burmese speaking people monitoring the platform as it was being used in Myanmar. They didn't even bring on three people until 2019, you know, years after the Clearance operations in 2017. And you know, there's, you know, based on information I believe those three people were anti- Rohingya or at least not sympathetic to Rohingya. And you know, these kinds of things should have also been really fully and, you know, something that Facebook could fully anticipate coming into the country around 2011 because of the very well-known digital illiteracy in Myanmar and the importance of having those kind of monitoring mechanisms. Well, and just from the beginning,

MG: Awista we'll leave it there. Thank you very much.

AWISTA AYAZI: Thank you.

MG: Awista Ayazi is a lawyer working on the lawsuit against Facebook by Rohingya refugees. Katie Harbath has been listening in. She's the founder and CEO of Anchor Group, a former Facebook public policy director. Katie, good morning to you.

KATIE HARBATH: Good morning.

MG: This is the latest bit of bad news, obviously, for Facebook. You know, from the inside how this company works when it comes to controlling violence and hate on its platform. Do you think that Facebook should be held legally responsible in this case?

KATIE HARBATH: To be honest, that's a bit of a tough question in terms of where to be legally responsible and things of that nature. I do think that based upon the current law and many things, I think that it will be challenging for the folks that brought this lawsuit. But what they're identifying and I think is where... is that central of where so many countries and policymakers want to have regulation, want to have accountability, they want to be able to hold accountable companies like Facebook for these types of things and also be pushing them and encouraging them to be building up these things and trying to anticipate these problems before they happen. And so I think while it may not end up with any legal ramifications for Facebook, I do think that the public pressure could hopefully move some of these companies in a more positive direction.

MG: You were at Facebook at the time that this is happening and this is obviously an enormous company. You weren't specifically working in this field, but how widely discussed as you understand it was the unfolding ethnic violence in Myanmar and the use of Facebook, in particular in facilitating the spread of dangerous content that might fuel that violence?

KATIE HARBATH: Yeah. My recollection is... it was really, you know, part of a New York Times story that came out, I believe somewhere around, maybe it was 2017 or 2018 when I started seeing a lot more discussion around that. That was encompassed also with, you know, the Russian Internet Research Agency advertising scandal that was announced in late 2017, Cambridge Analytica in 2018. And so it was a big period of change for the company where we were building up our integrity team and bolstering our efforts across a wide range of areas whereas we really started to enter this period of reckoning about the negative impact that technology can have on our society and our democracy.

MG: We saw recently the former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, whistleblower, revealing that Facebook has known how dangerous its platform is and has done little in her eyes to curb the flow of disinformation and hate speech specifically. And this picks up on something that Awista was talking about when it came to Burmese speakers. Francis Haugen has said that people using Facebook in languages other than English are using a raw, dangerous version of Facebook. What does she mean by that, do you think?

KATIE HARBATH: I think what she means by that is that, you know, very early on Facebook in terms of even translating its platform utilised users around the world in which to do that. And they did go into these countries without necessarily thinking about the ramifications of doing that. One of the things that strikes me about this extremely unfortunate thing that happened in Myanmar in many other places around the world is that it is the outcome of decisions that were made five, six, seven years earlier by the company to not really balance and grow safely all around the world. And I hope it's a lesson for new platforms that come on board in terms of trying to do some of these things.

MG: I just wonder what the standards are. Like, are they different for monitoring dangerous content in English versus dangerous content that might be in other languages?

KATIE HARBATH: So this is a really important thing in terms of thinking about the policies may not be different, and you will have policies that one of the things that Frances has really outlined and I think I'm glad people are talking about a bit more, is language capability on the product side of building these products and using things like machine learning and classifiers and artificial intelligence to try to proactively find this content. The language capabilities there are not as robust as they have been in English of what the company has been doing. In Myanmar too, I remember too, how difficult it was even with the Burmese script and having it in Unicode language and things of that nature from a technical perspective in order to try to do some of this. And so I think one of the things that I would like to see Facebook and many other companies be a little bit more forthcoming on is how much resources are they putting into various languages around the world and how many resources are they going to put into it. But we also have to realize, too, this is not just something that is a solution to throw more money at it. Having the specialised resources and people that know how to do this and can do these things well, this continues to be a new and emerging field. And so it can also be hard to even find the people to fill those roles.

MG: And this certainly isn't just limited to what happened in Myanmar, what is at stake from your perspective, knowing what you know about how the company operates, but also what you've been talking about more broadly, what's at stake if disinformation spread on Facebook isn't reined in?

KATIE HARBATH: I am very worried about, I think right now our democracy not only in the United States but around the world, is obviously in a very in a testing time frame. And I think the next couple years are really going to determine the future of the internet and the future of democracy all around the world.

MG: What do you mean... What do you mean determine the future of the internet?

KATIE HARBATH: I mean, are we going to be looking at an internet that can work across borders or are we going to have every country is going to have its own, essentially have its own rules and regulations that frankly make it harder for newer and smaller companies in order to emerge and build and actually entrenches the bigger companies? Do you have companies and platforms that and governments you know that Freedom House has shown there's regulations all around the world that unfortunately is actually designed to suppress opposition voices and minority voices. And so do we actually see a decline of speech due to regulation that was put out there under the guise of protecting people against mis and disinformation, but is actually being used as a political weapon by political figures to stay in power? And so I think as you see Europe coming up with regulation, as you see the United States debate this, we've already seen, you know, like I said, problematic regulation in places like India, in other places. That's something that I'm watching, along with all the tsunami of elections. That's coming our way not only next year, but particularly in 2024

MG: Elections in places like India and in France and of course in the United States?

KATIE HARBATH: Yeah. And also India or Indonesia, Ukraine, Taiwan, Mexico, the UK and European Parliament are all going to be in 2024, and that's never happened before, all in the same year. And I just worry that companies like Facebook and others and governments and civil society are not ready for that big of a global moment that is coming, coming at us and depending upon who is elected and how those elections are run, I think it could really set the tone for the last half of this decade.

MG: Katie, great to speak with you. Thank you very much.

KATIE HARBATH: Thank you.

MG: Katie Harbath, former Facebook public policy director, she's now the founder and CEO of Anchor Change. Your CBC News is next. And then: for Rosanne Casimir and other indigenous leaders, the path forward toward reconciliation includes the release of residential school documents. What the impending release of some of those records means for reconciliation coming up in six minutes. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Indigenous leaders say release of residential school records is essential to healing and reconciliation

Guests: Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir and Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, the millennial mobsters who are breaking all the unwritten rules of the underground and bringing the spectre of the Sinaloa cartel to Canada in about 30 minutes will introduce you to the Wolfpack and two men who've been studying their every move. But first residential school records are set to be released, but not all of them.

[Music: Theme]

MG: The federal government has announced it will turn over thousands of records related to residential schools to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Mark Miller made the announcement earlier this week,

MARK MILLER: [SOUNDCLIP: I guess, after the events that have all shocked the conscience over the last four months. It's led us to a rethinking of the position that we have as a Canadian government. The belief was that we were fulfilling the strict legal obligations of our duties to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. But obviously, knowing there's a lot of survivors that are looking for closure in any piece of information can provide that. We took a look internally and saw readily this group of documents that should, that should be disclosed to the NCTR.]

MG: Minister Miller said those records will be turned over within 30 to 45 days. They include about 12,000 documents related mostly to residential schools that operated in western Canada. Calls for the release of residential school records have been growing louder ever since the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation announced the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir is Chief of the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation. Good morning.

ROSANNE CASIMIR: Good morning.

MG: You had called on the federal government to release these records in July. How satisfied are you with what we have heard from Minister Mark Miller this week?

ROSANNE CASIMIR: Well, I am pleased that the news came out from Minister Mark Miller that the records that were held by the federal government are finally going to be released. You know, I agree with his statement that he made that it was a breach of moral duty to withhold those documents. You know, I firmly stand behind that, especially when it comes to finding out and confirming the truth, and especially with the many First Nations who have unanswered questions.

MG: Do you have a sense as to what specifically these documents will include?

ROSANNE CASIMIR: It's extremely important to be able to, you know, have our researchers and our community members. You know, they don't have access to the information necessary to identify and understand, you know, the full truth of the residential school experience, you know, like within our territory. And you know, we want Canada to share those documentations with us. And we know that looking at these next steps, it's so important to be able to identify, you know, those that are in the unmarked graves and collecting the information regarding the operation of the school. I think it'll help resolve some of those unanswered questions.

MG: The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, visited your community in October, and he had this to say when it came to the release of residential school records...

JUSIN TRUDEAU: [SOUNDCLIP: We are working with and indigenous leaders, are working with the Catholic Church and other organisations to get them to turn over their records as well on the federal side. It is my understanding that we have already turned over all those records to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.]

MG: But clearly, that wasn't the case. What do you make of that? What he'd said in October?

ROSANNE CASIMIR: Well, I think he made a statement without having all the facts. And for me, you know, it's really important to have all the facts before you make statements like that, especially with, you know, these truths and the documents that we've been asking for so long.

MG: You were fiercely critical of the prime minister when he didn't visit and then when he did make that visit in October, when it came to the state of the relationship. I just wonder how confident you are that this will in fact be everything that the government has.

ROSANNE CASIMIR: All I can do is hope that, you know, it's going to be moving forward in a good way and that, you know, we truly are working on those steps because, you know, reconciliation is not a one way street. You know, we're going above and beyond and you're being very generous with our asks. And you know, for me, I just want to make sure that they're doing everything they can to ensure that we really do get moving forward together.

MG: Given what your community has been through this year, what would it mean for survivors of the residential school system themselves to see these documents to have full and open access to these records?

ROSANNE CASIMIR: Well, I think having full access to these records and these documents that, you know, when we're looking at all the unmarked graves that have come forth knowing the dark history, you know, the missing children, not only from our residential school here at Tk'emlups, but, you know, across the nation as well. We also know that the missing children, buried, you know, I'm just sitting a short distance from where the unmarked graves are close to my area here. And to me, it exemplifies, you know, the Indian residential schools as a system that perpetuated mass human rights violations, you know, which looks at criminal behaviours, including suggesting violations of humanitarian law and genocide. You know, knowing all those different parameters. But, you know, going back to the basic human element, you know, it's going to be providing families answers. It's going to be, you know, traumatising in so many different levels, you know, knowing that they're going to finally know their truths and finally being able to move to that next step. And, you know, it's got to get to healing.

MG: There are these records from the Canadian government, there are also records that the Vatican holds, the Catholic Church has, and you were meant to be headed to Rome to meet with representatives of the Catholic Church and the Pope about that. This trip has been postponed because of COVID concerns, but when it's rescheduled. What are you hoping comes out of that, that meeting?

ROSANNE CASIMIR: So I'm hoping to get out of that is one of the commitment from the Holy See himself that he is going to be coming to Canada. And he expressed it publicly. But for him to actually come to Canada, being here, to actually listen to our survivors, hearing their truths, their traumas and their pain that they've experienced themselves, and to be able to make that formal apology and one that's going to be meaningful. And I know for us, you know, we were the very first to identify unmarked graves, and I know that we put out a public application to the Pope to visit Tk'emlups te Secwepemc. And so, you know, knowing that we have one of the largest residential schools in Canada that held up to anywhere 500 students at any given time, we want him to be able to come here to be able to listen and see the school for himself to witness and hear the pain that so many have suffered. And for me, I think that would be probably one of the greatest, most historical impacts that it could have. You know, as we work towards this truth and healing and reconciliation.

MG: How optimistic are you that the records that the Catholic Church holds will also be released?

ROSANNE CASIMIR: Well, I am optimistic. And you know, all I can do is hope that those documents, those records are going to be released as well. You know, I know that we've been asking the Catholic Church and its entities, yes, to implement the truth and reconciliation and recommendations and working with us, you know, but it's also to help provide the records that they may have and to have those disclosed because, you know, again, it's about the truth, it's acknowledging, and it's the role of Catholic Church and of the deaths of the children that were placed in their care. And so really, they would have to have records that we would want to have released. It's crucial to the healing path forward.

MG: Can I just ask you just finally where you find the hope that you just referenced after this year, after everything that your community has gone through and other communities across this country have gone through? Where are you finding the hope in this?

ROSANNE CASIMIR: Finding the hope in this is that, you know, so many of our survivors, you know, are aging. They deserve peace. You know, in their final resting years to be truly believed. And you know, I think looking at that, we all want to, you know, give hope for our children. And you know, for myself, you know, as a mother and a grandmother and, you know, as a leader of my community, you know, I just want to ensure that, you know. We can see that path forward and that reconciliation can be obtained. But, you know, it's following those steps of, you know, acknowledging those trees healing and coming to terms. And you know what reconciliation could look like, you know, especially for our children. I think that's what gives me hope, the biggest and the most is the children. And, you know, I know that, you know, a few things I just wanted to add. You know, and you know, some may wish, you know, for reconciliation. And when I look at the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc, you know, we're still saddled with the truth of identifying all the children and hundreds of victims of Kamloops Indian residential school here within our community. You know, so you know, for me, you know, for me, I just, you know, I honour our ancestors by breathing life into a vision of a flourishing community, unrelenting in the quest for the well-being of current and future generations. You know, as part of our vision for flourishing the community, you know, we are seeking a path forward, you know, which is justice for the missing children in the unmarked graves, you know, that are in our care and other First Nation communities. And, you know, healing for Indian residential school survivors and the intergenerational survivors. And that's so crucial. It's also about the, you know, for the reclamation of our First Nation languages and our cultures and a way of being and being able to pass those along. So that's where the hope comes from.

MG: Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir. I'm really glad to have the chance to talk to you. Thank you very much.

ROSANNE CASIMIR: Thank you.

MG: Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir is the Chief of the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond is director of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, a law professor as well with the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. She's also a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation. Mary Ellen, good morning to you.

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: Good morning.

MG: You heard Chief Casmir there, talk about the significance of these records to her community. What do you make of the federal government's announcement to release these records now?

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: Well, it is, as Kukpi7 Casmir says it's a positive step that the minister, Minister Miller, has taken a fresh opinion because these were not released. I think it's important to note that we're going to have to see exactly what will be released because the minister's words were pretty carefully crafted, talking about releasing some records to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which means to me that they'll have some sort of agreement and pass some kind of collection over to them. I'm not sure if they're talking about all the records within their control in the government of Canada or some. And I do think the minister had to carry this sort of change of heart out because, as Kukpi7 Casmir says the prime minister came to her community and misspoke and said that everything had been turned over when in fact it hadn't, and the entire issue of records in relation to residential schools is quite a significant mess in Canada.

MG: Well, I don't want to go too deep into that, but what do you make of that? The prime minister says everything's been turned over and then his minister has to come out and say, Well, actually no, and we're going to turn over to your point in very careful language, some of these records.

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: Right, so exactly that's it's always important to remember the sequence here, which is, you know, the prime minister went a little bit in a context of significant public pressure and personal humiliation to Tk'emlups after the Tofino sort of side trip on the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. And when he was there, he made statements and we all listened really carefully, you know, and I was listening carefully to his words. I was shocked when he made a statement that was so wrong, number one. And then I knew immediately someone's going to have to make something happen here to make the world turn to conform to what the prime minister has said. So. Minister Miller is, you know, I think I think he's making a sincere effort to look at this issue again. But at the same time, he has no choice. I mean, the prime minister fumbled it so badly. But more importantly, you know, all this talk about maybe doing something with records at some time. It highlights the most important point, which is we do not have an indigenous archive. That's a mandatory deposit that includes all of the records from the residential schools, especially from, you know, the largest denomination that ran them the Catholic entities and Kukpi7 Rosanne says they can't complete the work to determine what exactly is this unmarked grave that they're dealing with at Tk'emlups or at the Kamloops... former grounds of the Kamloops Indian residential schools. And we need all of those records to be held accessible to complete the work of truth, justice and accountability on school. So this isn't just sort of like, you know, you know, an irrelevant discussion, a low priority. This is urgently required. And there are many, many problems like there's a lot of very vague aspects of what has been announced so far.

MG: Can you just briefly explain what's in these records? I mean, what would they tell us?

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: Well, some of some of these records are records that Canada holds, because, again, Canada, this was the law that the residential school policy was a matter of federal law and the schools were operated by the churches, so the churches deposited some records with the government in a routine way. But moreover, the government, as the administrator of the 2006 class action settlement, remember there would never be a national centre for truth and reconciliation. There would never have been a TRC if it wasn't for the fact that the survivors had to sue the churches and Canada to get justice in the first place. And so these records are records that Canada would have that some of them they may have collected because of their role as the government working with the churches, some of them they may have because of criminal investigations with respect to alleged criminal activities at the schools. So they have individual information about kids, which could be quite important to identify the children that didn't return home or went missing. They'd also have personnel and other records about the staff. So the collections that the federal government have, you know, it's opaque. Some of them, some things were put to Library and Archives Canada. Other things are just sort of like kept, you know, like basically in that proverbial sort of locked room in the national capital. And you don't get to see them and you're not too sure, but they're very important to have a complete narrative of the residential school system. They're also very important from the purposes of accountability and accountability on residential schools is not finished. As Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir says, justice requires we find out more, and many people have said, you know, in those unmarked graves and burial site was confirmed in Tk'emlups. Like, you know, an unmarked burial isn't just a heritage property cemetery, you know, it's potentially also a crime scene. So these records are very significant.

MG: What about... You and I have spoken about this before the difficulty in getting records from Catholic Church entities, why is that so difficult? Is it because we talk about the church, but the church's many different parts?

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: Right, well, it's difficult because, first of all, they won't give them to you.

MG: And there's that.

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: Well there's seventy two separate Catholic entities, more than fifty five were part of the residential school settlement, but Canada constantly made side deals with the Catholic entities. Even when the class action was settled, they made a side deal that the Catholic entities could use their best efforts. They didn't have to like fully fulfill the obligations. And then in 2015, Canada and the church, without the survivors being present, went to court in Saskatchewan and the Catholic entities escaped their financial obligations, and Canadians have learnt more about that. And when the church... Like and I call it legal trickery that they used because they had a very powerful influence on the system. And when they got off the hook and Canada, let them off the hook at every single turn and didn't monitor them. When they got off the hook they also didn't give the records and which means, you know, and we learnt all kinds of things about, you know, this situation. We've learnt it mostly from investigative journalism. Let me just say that we haven't learnt it because Canada's opened their books. I mean, you know, even for myself, as a director of a major centre at a major university, you know, I have to file FOI requests and to get these records and put them up publicly so that they can be examined and studied and we can understand what happened here. So it remains a mystery as to why Canada, you know, let the Catholic entities off the hook and why they haven't been appropriately demanding accountability and, you know, complete deposit of all their records. We should have a mandatory archive. In Canada should have some legislation with some teeth in it to collect those records and hold them properly.

MG: Is that possible? I mean, this is what you will often hear is people will say the Canadian government should force the church to turn these records over. Can the Canadian government override canonical law? What would that legislation with teeth look like?

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: Well, of course they can. I mean, it's been done in Ireland and elsewhere. It's the only way to get it done. If they don't do it, and I mean, at this point, I think we can say they're dragging their heels. And not only are they dragging their heels, but we're also, you know, the deposit is to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which is not a government entity, but it was created under some legislation. It's an important centre, without a doubt, but it isn't the mandatory indigenous archives that holds every record. It's an important centre and you know, Canada hasn't set that up, but you're right, you know, primarily Canada makes agreements with the church, and those agreements generally respect canon law, which means church records are kept for the purposes of canon law. And the canon law was, you know, it goes back to Brosius in the 1100s. It was updated in the 1990s. But, Canon law, the imperatives there are secrecy. You know, their responsibilities to Rome, you know, the missionary project, etc. But the imperative in Canon law isn't disclosure to victims of institutional abuse so that there can be accountability. So this has been the problem all over the world where there has been institutional abuse and it's a problem in Canada with the residential school. So it's good that the Catholic entities under enormous public pressure keep saying, well, we'll turn things over. But the problem we have is, turn over what, like all records, in what form, these need to be searchable, they need to be translated, they need to be digitised. You know, we have large corporate archives in Canada, like the Hudson Bay Archives. They're absolutely essential to understand settler indigenous relations, how Canada developed. They were a private archive. They became a public archive. These are so monumentally important. And on the residential school records with the Catholic entities in particular, with the exception of the Jesuits who turned everything over and we're part of the class action because they settled everything early. We don't have this and Canada's statement, you know, Minister Miller is saying, we're going to send something to the NCTR. You know, that's something I'd like to see, I wanna see the finding aids, I want to see what they're talking about. Why don't they turn over everything that would be good, not the something. And I'm concerned they're going to turn it over under an agreement. And the agreement will stipulate terms. That means it'll have the same prohibitions on access that it has now.

MG: Let me ask you, just in the last couple of minutes that we have about something that you just referenced earlier, which was the Catholic Church being let off the hook when it comes to financial obligations to residential school survivors. Mark Miller mentioned this when it came to the government abandoning its appeal of this court ruling in 2015 that allowed the church essentially to not be responsible for those financial obligations. He says he has no idea why Ottawa abandoned that appeal. What do you make of him saying that now?

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: Well, you know, it's good that he's asking the question, but it's kind of comical, like, what do you mean you have no idea? Find out. Why is it that you... Canada was also administering the class action settlement they were supposed to be keeping an eye on the Catholic entities and whether or not they were depositing the approximately $100 million plus that they owed and doing the other things under the settlement agreement. And just the records of that, like what were the Canadian officials doing, what they were just like passive bystanders. How is it possible that they then agreed to let the entities off the hook and it's a mystery. No one knows why. No one knows who agreed or why. But one thing we all do know is that they went and did that without any survivors being present without any sense of obligation to the survivors. And that means for some survivors today, you know, they were never properly compensated. They weren't believed. They were treated fairly. And in our courtrooms, in our corridors of power. Canada made a deal with the church and they didn't... They didn't have the interest of their survivors at the forefront, and that was apparent. And so we're still fixing a problem, which has been a problem for more than 100 years, which is, Canada has primarily been there with its colleague, the church, in running the schools and not there with the survivors to actually expose and promote truth and justice. And that's why today, as Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir says, You know, this work isn't finished and Minister Miller's got to turn this over, and we're all going to be watching him very carefully because so far, he said some good things. But I've heard a lot of good things in the past, and it doesn't come... doesn't actually come to fruition.

MG: It's always great to talk to you. I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, former Saskatoon judge director of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, a law professor, as well, with the Peter A. Allard School of Law at UBC, and she's a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation. Well, coming up after your regional update:

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: This is a group of young men, millennials. This is not like Italian only or Mexicans only. This is quite diverse. They transfer a lot of the characteristics of the millennial generation into organized crime.

MG: This is not your godfathers mob will bring you the story of the Wolfpack coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

How the new generation of organized crime in Canada is thriving in the digital world

Guests: Luis Horacio Najera and Peter Edwards

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current,

REPORTER: Police still have the area outside the sidewalk cafe quartered off here in Little Italy, they're going over the evidence trying to figure out exactly what happened. They're not saying very much, but we're getting a little bit of a picture from witnesses who were here at the time of the shooting. They tell us that they were on the patio, that the patio was full and then a man wearing white gloves and a construction hat had walked in and shot at the victim.

MG: That news report, describing a brazen daytime killing in Toronto in June of 2012, would have unforeseen consequences for one of Canada's deadliest criminal enterprises. The story behind that killing and many others is told in a new book "The Wolfpack: the millennial mobsters who brought chaos and the cartels to the Canadian Underworld". It was written by Peter Edwards of the Toronto Star and Luis Horacio Najera, who was an investigative reporter in Mexico but had to leave that country because of death threats by the Mexican cartel members. Peter and Luis? Good morning.

BOTH: Good morning.

MG: Peter Edwards, the man who was gunned down in Toronto's Little Italy that we heard about in that clip was named Johnnie Raposo. How was he involved in Canada's underworld?

PETER EDWARDS: He wasn't a big player, but he was. He had some substance. He was connected to Eddie Melo and Eddie Melo was a Toronto associate of the Cotroni crime family, and the Cotroni's were later taken over by the Rizzuto's, who became Canada's largest mafia family. So that's a long way of saying he was established, but not huge.

MG: And he was gunned down in broad daylight while watching a soccer game at a very busy cafe in the heart of Charles, Little Italy.

PETER EDWARDS: And it was a spectacle they wanted. They could have killed him in quieter places. They wanted it to be seen, they wanted it to be talked about. They wanted it to make a splash on the internet. It was very theatrical how they did it.

MG: Tell me more about the why. I mean, we're going to speak more broadly about some of the players involved here. But why were they looking... They looking for that kind of spectacle?

PETER EDWARDS: A lot of drug shipments have maybe four different groups investing in them. And then when they get closer to Canada, closer to the destination, it's natural for people to think of, there's only three partners. We're going to make more money and so they start to turn on each other. One of the other partners turned on Raposo and started unsubstantiated rumours that he was a police informer that made him vulnerable, and that meant that everybody got paid more.

MG: Luis Najera, How would you describe the Wolfpack?

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: The Wolfpack is the present and the future of organized crime. This is amongst the many characteristics. It's an alliance which is extremely important to highlight because in the past you have these consolidated, sometimes regional groups. For instance, the mafias, the cartels, you know, they have like a distinct... it could be the area or location or a significant component. But this is an alliance, which means that this is a group of young men, millennials, the millennial generation that they are pretty much bonded by greed. They use and they rely a lot on technology and they are completely all over the country. They are not kind of... They don't gather in a specific location because they take advantage of the internet. And also, this is a generation that is multiethnic. This is not like Italian only or Mexicans only. This is quite diverse. And also they are... as the millennials they share or they transfer a lot of the characteristics of the millennial generation into organized crime.

MG: What do you mean?

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: Well, they like, for instance, they are extremely eager for attention. They rely... They like to be posting on Facebook, Twitter, social media. They have a very active social media life. They also are very aware of their bodies. They like to, you know, do CrossFit, exercises. They are extreme. They like to dress well. These are not the old crime stereotypes of people. They are well dressed, fitted. And so this is some of the characteristics that this new generation has.

MG: Peter Edwards, you've written extensively about organized crime. Why did you want to write about the Wolfpack?

PETER EDWARDS: So close to home. I mean this is... The Raposo killing was puzzling. I mean, why do it that way? Why do it in front of a crowd? And it's so different. I've covered lots of hits where they're quietly done outside of a social club, outside a stag, you know, at one in the morning type of thing. And this was something different. I heard a rumbling from someone in Quebec about a new group that wasn't territorial, that wasn't racist. A lot of organized crime is very racist. This wasn't.

MG: So explain that more because I think that's one of the intriguing elements. And Luis has talked about this, this being a multiethnic group.

PETER EDWARDS: Yeah, that really got me because there's something this is, to say, like the ugly side of wokeness. The Hells Angels it used to be they... It was very, very hard to get into if you weren't White. I mean, it was possible, but you had to... It was extremely, extremely hard. There are a lot of groups break down by racial lines, and the Wolfpack doesn't. Also that they function without having a real, real strict chain of command. With bikers, with mafia groups, you can draw a chart and put people on a chart with these guys, it's who's valuable and who's assertive at the time. And so you can invent yourself and they're dealing with people where they don't know their names. Like it's this fantasy internet life, but it translates into murder on the streets. The guy who did the killing of Jonnie Raposo, he called himself Zelda, so he called himself a fictitious female warrior. I mean mob guys trying to do that. So there's a lot of intriguing new things.

MG: The head of the Wolfpack was a pretty young guy. Tell us about him, Peter.

PETER EDWARDS: Rabih "Robby" Alkhalil, Palestinian, smart, not someone who dramatically loses his temper, but someone who takes himself extremely, extremely seriously. He turned 25 while we were writing the book, and he... At one point, someone accused one of his members of speaking to police, and he said, "My men don't do that. If they did, I'd kill their families and they know that". And he wasn't joking. He wasn't. It wasn't bravado. That's that's the way it is. And this is just a new face. The the old guys, when you would cover a mob funeral. Some of the people at the funeral would be responsible for putting the guy in the casket like there was a lot of... they tried to stay friendly with the family, even after they killed a family member with The Wolfpack guys, they just don't care. So it was a very different thing, and Alkhalil really embodies this very smart, very, very mobile and very ruthless and someone who you just don't want to get on the wrong side of. But on the other hand, if you saw him on the street, you wouldn't think all that much.

MG: And innovative, if I can put it that way in terms of the way they were able to smuggle cocaine in particular into Canada.

PETER EDWARDS: Yeah, and they... It's sort of odd, but their problem was not having enough good technicians like it... There's there is a science to creating cocaine to knowing how pure it is, to shipping it in and then if four people chip in on a load, making sure you're not getting ripped off like you can liquefy cocaine, dump fabric in it, send the fabric up and then take it out of the fabric. But you have to really know what you're doing not to be cheated on that. And so Alkhalil was definitely at the top level of brains, but the people around him... It was... some of them were... If there was a gangster version of the Keystone cops, it would be them.

MG: Want to talk more about that in a moment. Luis, you were an investigative reporter in Mexico. You saw how cartels in that country operated. We hear about that from a distance, from what, you know. How deadly are those cartels?

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: Extremely deadly. Just days ago, 9 well, 10 people were killed and 9 of them were hanging from a bridge in a busy road in Mexico. And one of the bodies was dismembered. So that can give you an idea of the level of cruelty that the war on drugs in Mexico is having to now.

MG: Well, that cruelty can be extended to journalists as well? There are a number of journalists who've been murdered in Mexico by gangsters, journalists who have been covering and exposing their ties, perhaps to police or to government. That's why you left Mexico. How close did it get to you?

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: Pretty close. And I can tell you that 12 journalists that I met with, work with or have some sort of relationship, professional relationship have been murdered. So that can give you an idea of the level of danger or the level of violence I was facing. And in my case, I was exposing corruption on one side, from the government, from the military and the police, and also operations from the drug cartels and the war between them in [inaudible], which is a border... a city right at the border. And they... Basically I got the warnings and my wife was threatened outside of the house, and that's when we decided to leave.

MG: And you had to get out of Mexico.

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: Yes. Yes, we have to. We came to Canada.

MG: Peter, what is it that made Canada so attractive to those Mexican cartels?

PETER EDWARDS: Because I would say Montreal's 385 miles from New York City. So it's an easy way into the big markets. We've got some pretty big markets up here on our own. But in the 80s/90s, Florida and the southern states became harder and harder to bring drugs through. There was a lot of corruption. There was a lot... there are a lot of other gangs, and so Canada seemed like easier to bring them up here and drop them back down or else work the market here. In Chicago it’s almost like a warehouse district for drugs like there's a lot of cartel drugs go to Chicago and then shipments are brought up through Buffalo, Niagara Region in trucks, and they'd be trucks doing normal loads. That would be things we buy day to day. There’ll just be little compartments and those trucks.

MG: And that was a connection that Alkhalil was able to make with the cartel to figure out how those cartels, the Sinaloa cartel in particular, could have some sort of presence here in Canada.

PETER EDWARDS: Yeah, and there were a lot of them doing that. There's a lot of these guys involved in trucking. There was a guy who was murdered in Toronto in a very, very nice district. And he was, I think, 34 and a multi-millionaire involved in trucking. They build little compartments that are X-ray proof and so they can be hauling legitimate goods for a legitimate buyer. But there'll be a little compartment with pure cocaine that's worth a huge amount and that you just can't get it on the x-ray.

MG: How sizable of a presence do those cartels have in Canada?

PETER EDWARDS: They don't have the... They have the boots on the ground. I mean, there's an apartment complex I drive by in Mississauga fairly regularly and cartel guys lived there. There's... If I drive down the QEW towards Buffalo I can see cartel spots where they have warehouse drugs, but they don't have a whole bunch of people and they don't they don't do big, stupid things where they get arrested. On Saturday nights, they buy nice watches, go to steakhouses and keep an eye on business. They're smart accountants, smart people, smart with chemistry and not the thugs that you'd imagine.

MG: And is that in part, why the Wolfpack is such an intriguing story? In some ways, the cartels were able to outsource some of their activity here to this other group.

PETER EDWARDS: Yeah, I think that what the Wolfpack was, was a way for the cartels to test out Canada. I mean, they had these extremely ambitious, ruthless, internet savvy people who were connected to all different gangs and so was a good primer into the Canadian underworld. You got to look at the Mob, you got to look at the Hells Angels. I mean, there's a full bench Hells Angel who's in there. You got a look at a whole bunch of other groups and you could sort of weigh your options. I mean, the cartel guys are always, always have a Plan B, Plan C, Plan D.

MG: Luis, you flee Mexico because of threats from the drug lords. What was it like for you to see these same criminal organizations suddenly expand in Canada, the country that you took refuge in?

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: It was surprising because even before I fled to Canada, I had no idea. And basically, in Mexico in general, we don't know pretty much anything about Canada. We know Canada, yeah, up north, polar bears and that's it, right? Snow and winter. And that's it. Because when we came here and we landed in Vancouver and we lived there for three years, that was the place where I suddenly found that or realized that there was organized crime activity happening here in my new country. And years later, now with the book, I was able to realize, OK, this is now how this connection between the Mexicans and the Canadians is stronger and the as Peter mentioned cartels found a way to get into the Canadian market and to settle here in a different way. It's not like, as Peter mentioned, they don't have boots on the ground. They don't have like these caravans of armoured trucks and guns and all these.

MG: That's what you would see their operations unfolding like in Mexico?

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: Yes. And you don't see that here, but they are here, they are operating and they have a hand in the game, for sure.

MG: Peter, there are a number of wild characters in this story that you write, and one of them is someone named Nick Nero.

PETER EDWARDS: Yeah. And I heard about him for quite a while, and he, someone who knew him quite well, said that he's about as smart as a bag of hair.

MG: [Laughter] It's a remarkable turn of phrase.

PETER EDWARDS: Yeah. And it's funny because nobody's disputed it. One of his friends, after the book came out, got quite upset with me, and then we stayed on the phone. And then in the end, he was telling Nick Nero jokes like he was agreeing and telling me stronger stuff.

MG: Who was he in the Wolfpack?

PETER EDWARDS: He wanted to be a professional wrestler. He became a financier and a driver. He took part in an armoured car robbery that got him quite a bit of money and that became seed money to invest in drugs. And then he really got caught up in the power of being in the Wolfpack. And he at one point was trying to have three people murdered, trying to get Alkhalil to kill three people. And Alkahlil was running an exclusive women's clothing shop, and he was trying to find $10,000 belts for women while Nero was trying to get three people killed, it was kind of surreal because at some point Nero got interested in the belts and forgot the murders. Some of the stuff is kind of cartoonish.

MG: And all of this, you know, in part because of texts from inside the Wolfpack Association. How did you get access to the texts that lay out what the members of this organization were doing?

PETER EDWARDS: Nick Nero left a sticky note with his passwords in his apartment in Niagara on the Lake and that allowed Niagara regional police investigators to get into the encrypted messages, and that gave us just a goldmine of information. We got some of these pretty good privacy communications between members about murders, about drug shipments, about rumours, about their love lives, all sorts of things.

MG: I mean, all of the very basic details of what's going on, and you were able to access those BlackBerry messages because his password was left on a sticky note next to his phone.

PETER EDWARDS: And was left there for three months. They went in. Three months later, they went in again and it was still there.

MG: We've talked a bit about how extensive their operations were, I mean, when you take a look at the presence of cocaine in this country, how involved were they in expanding their presence? How involved were they in being a key distribution point for cocaine in Canada?

PETER EDWARDS: They rose up when the Hell's Angels in Quebec were at a really rough patch. Pardon the pun, most of the members in Quebec were in prison at the time when the Wolfpack was coming up. Also, the Rizzuto crime family was at a really rough edge. Peter Rizzuto, had just died and so they kept things going and there would have been drugs anyway. But they helped a lot with getting shipping, trucking, making it very, very diverse, making it extremely tough for police to sort out and getting encryption as part of the game. I mean, now GPS and encryption are just part of the underworld.

MG: How much money was at play in terms of their activities?

PETER EDWARDS: Tens of millions.

MG: In 2017, members of the Wolfpack, including Nick Nero and Robby Alkhalil, went on trial for the killing of Jonnie Raposo. That's the man we started out talking about, who was gunned down in the ice cream parlour in Toronto. What did that trial and ultimately the verdict that came out of the trial due to the leadership of the Wolfpack?

PETER EDWARDS: It sort of stirred the pot. I mean, it didn't... It took away five people who were very significant. But like Luis said earlier, the model is what matters, not the personalities like the idea of an association. That's one thing I really learnt from Luis that was fantastic for me was that these are people moulded by the internet. They're not changing things. The internet is changing them. And so the internet's still the vehicle. Luis, besides being an extremely brave, confident reporter, also knows a lot about internet theory, and he really helped me understand all the old Marshall McLuhan stuff about a global village. That's what we're looking at now in organized crime, and it was a real, kind of an odd treat to learn the stuff I should have learned a long time ago about the effect of the internet on people, I learned that from Luis.

MG: Luis, tell me more about that, about the global village of organized crime that is emerging through an association like the Wolfpack.

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: One of the many things that the internet is doing, or... because we usually think of the internet, as the marvelous things that we can accomplish through the internet, right? The information. Now with the fake news and misinformation that we are getting to know the ugly side of the internet. But this is an uglier side, which is how could you connect with people? You can be sitting in a restaurant with your enemy and your enemy is just, you know, now is very usual that you are having a meal or something and you check your phone, right? So maybe one of these phone check-ins is to give it the green light to the assassin to kill you once you were out. Or you can be in a birthday party and you can be arranging shipments of the drug, you can be arranging killings or you can be arranging alliances so that's one of the many benefits that the internet this is giving to these organized crime groups. Of course, you have encrypted communications. It is... There's a guy in Vancouver who was arrested because he was found in the states and in Canada to be a significant provider of encrypted phones to members of organized crime in Canada and in the states. So those phones are pretty much untraceable because communications... And that's the other interesting thing about the internet that you don't need, like in the past, like extremely complex, expensive technology to accomplish this kind of encryption. No, now you have WhatsApp, you have Telegram, you have Signal, you have a lot of the technology...

MG: That you can be anywhere and you can be anyone and you can do this work.

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: Exactly, exactly. And also, you don't need to invest a lot of money on it. Basically, you need a cell phone, a VPN, virtual private network that can hide your identity and any regular communications app like messaging, you know, or whatever.

MG: And that's what you mean. You said earlier that in some ways, the Wolfpack represents the present, but also the future of organized crime. That's what you mean when you talk about the future of organized crime?

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: Yes. Yes. Because there's... Technology is evolving every single day and organized crime... One of the things that the... at least Mexican organized crime groups learnt and they are very effective on that is they adapt and they adopt. So they adapt to whatever technologies and they adopt, whatever it is, is new. So they, for instance, you will imagine that, for instance, when YouTube came out in 2004, you would never expected that YouTube will be a propaganda because they, in the beginning, in the early stages of YouTube, they used YouTube to publish videos, to send messages, to expose violence...

MG: The cartels would use YouTube?

LUIS HORACIO NAJERA: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been following this since 2003 and 2004, when the internet became... And thanks to my association with the Citizen Lab here in Toronto, I expanded that knowledge even more. So, yeah, they started to use... Every single app technology that we use, regular people we use to share, to communicate, to entertain. They are using it again... They are adapting and adopting.

MG: It's a harrowing story that you tell in this book. I'm glad to talk to you both about it. Thank you very much.

PETER EDWARDS: Thanks for the opportunity.

MG: Peter Edwards is the Toronto star's organized crime reporter, Luis Horacio Najera is a journalist and expert on Mexico's drug cartels. Their new book is "The Wolfpack, the millennial mobsters who brought chaos and the cartels to the Canadian underworld". That is The Current for this Friday and for this week. Coming up next on CBC Radio One. Q, David Alvarez, Tony Award winning actor from Montreal. His latest project is a big one. He is in West Side Story, the new Steven Spielberg adaptation of the classic musical. David Alvarez will talk to Tom Power about playing Bernardo, leader of the Sharks, and of the expectations that come with this iconic story. The film is getting great, great reviews meant apparently to be seen on a big screen and meant to be directed by Steven Spielberg. We will take a listen to Tom's interview with David Alvarez coming up in just a few moments on CBC Radio One. Speaking of iconic, If you like your correspondent came of age in the 1980s, you will remember the British brand Bronski Beat, synth pop legends, gay icons. They infused their music with politics, made dance hits for clubs and music halls all around the world, but also tried to change the world with their music. The co-founder and keyboardist of Bronski beat, Steve Bronski died this week. He was just 61 years old. This is a story of a gay teen who grew up in a small town and left the prejudice of that town for life in the big city. We're going to send you into your weekend in the time machine. It's Bronski Beat and Small Town Boy. I'm Matt Galloway, thanks for listening to The Current, we'll see you on Monday.

[MUSIC: Small Town Boy by Bronski Beat]

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