Facial recognition tech used to tag kids in summer camp photos worry some parents, privacy experts

Guests: Robert Burns, Katie Hurley

DM: It used to be that kids would write handwritten letters to let their parents know how they were doing at camp. That's evolved, of course, much to the relief of parents like Leigh Elliott. She scans a Facebook page daily to monitor how her son is doing at camp in central Ontario.

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LEIGH ELLIOT: You know, the first day I'm like, 'Okay, his smile looks a little tight. Do you think he's okay?' And then the next day I'm like, 'Okay that looks more like his smile.' And then there was a picture of him with his arms just completely out spread, cute smile on his face and I was like 'Okay. He's totally happy. He's totally fine. I can relax.'.

DM: It's been a staple of summer camps for years now, posting the smiling faces of young campers jumping in the lake or weaving bracelets in the craft shack. In fact, many have a full time photographer on staff for just that reason. But now some camps are taking it one step further. They're partnering with companies like Bunk1 or Waldo Photos which use facial recognition to offer parents a steady stream of personalized pics sent directly to their phones. And while that might make the separation easier for many, others - like Alice Kent - aren't sold on the idea. She turned down the offer to opt into Waldo for her kids' summer camp.

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ALICE KENT: For facial recognition to be introduced to this sort of setting feels like an assumption that the parent is sitting at home on a computer trying to catch a glimpse of their children, or that that's even a healthy idea. I would much rather the idea that it's a bit of a break for everyone and they go to nature and that's a break from technology. And this just doesn't fit with that sort of ideology.

DM: Robert Burns is the president of Bunk1, a New York-based company that offers tools to camps including photo galleries and facial recognition software. We've reached him now in New York. Hello.

ROBERT BURNS: Hi Duncan! Thanks for having me.

DM: Thanks for joining us! Tell us briefly what kind of services Bunk1 offers.

ROBERT BURNS: Yeah so we have a parent engagement platform that gives camps the ability to demonstrate all of the great things that happen at camp, and provides parents with a convenient way to kind of keep in touch with what's going on.

DM: You mentioned keeping in touch. You've got something called "Bunk Notes." What are those?

ROBERT BURNS: Yeah. So Bunk Notes are an alternative to snail mail. Parents can write messages on our platform. They're printed and delivered with the regular mail.

DM: So camp photos. I mean, that's not really new. It had been around for a while, like having a camp photographer, even. But when did you start using facial recognition technology?

ROBERT BURNS: It's been about 3 years since we introduced facial recognition for our client.

DM: And what's the advantage of of using facial recognition as opposed to just uploading pictures onto the camp's website?

ROBERT BURNS: Well Bunk1's been around for 20 years and camps have used Bunk1 to upload photos to a secure private community throughout that time. And so facial recognition really stemmed from solving a business problem. You know, we heard year after year from parents that they loved all the photos but it's time consuming to go through and, you know, really what they care about is, you know, from the 200 photos they're scrolling through, maybe, the 2 that their child is in. And also I guess in addition to that, it's like constantly having to like check the Bunk1 platform to figure out if new photos of an uploaded. So several years ago we introduced a mobile app that would send them a push notification whenever new content was available. And then the facial recognition evolved and that technological innovation was really to provide the parents with a more customized experience.

DM: Our children are surrounded by technology now every day and camp has is one of the few places that children are kind of expected to unplug. And so what do you say to those who'd argue that camp should be a place that kids are allowed to explore who they are and be independent away from their parents scrutiny, and that technology is is is undermining that?

ROBERT BURNS: Yes that's a great point. And actually we're massive advocates, of course, for summer camps. And camp, I think, is more important than ever for that very reason. You know, our society is very guilty of being constantly plugged in and at camp they're really building authentic connections. None of what Bunk1 does interferes with that experience because the... You know, nothing's changed in that sense of, like, you mentioned a photographer on staff that's taking photos -- and that's the same experience for the campers. So the parent benefit is really a one-way window into that camper's experience. The child is just having a great time. He or she is autonomous and able to kind of make their own decisions without... and really benefit from that huge learning opportunity that camp provides.

DM: You mentioned the facial recognition technology as a way to cut through the clutter. But some privacy experts are raising concerns about how that data, which companies collect, could be used down the road. I want you to listen to Christopher Parsons. He's a Senior Research Associate at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab.

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CHRISTOPHER PARSONS: There's the data protection policies that underline how these work. So if you read many of them, parents are basically assigning a perpetual license for companies to use the data collected. So that could mean that this data you're currently using to see your kids while they're camp could be used to build algorithms to improve the way that facial recognition works. And that could be used for all sorts of purposes that are deeply concerning such as tracking protesters, monitoring minorities or other socially undesirable purposes.

DM: Robert Burns, what do you make of those concerns?

ROBERT BURNS: I think they're very legitimate concerns and they come out of, you know... A lot of companies that really don't have their consumers' best interests in mind. You know, we see the scandals from Cambridge Analytica and FaceApp -- I don't know if you are familiar with the FaceApp. And I think it ultimately stems from those companies that are harnessing technological innovations for purposes that don't really benefit the consumer. Bunk1 is has been around for 20 years. We've built trust with our clients over that time for 20 years. And, you know, we have the best intentions in terms of we're only providing-- the sole reasons for this facial recognition is to enhance the parent experience. That's it. There's no other purpose or hidden agenda behind what Bank1 does.

When a parent has to sign the agreement though, that big long agreement I assume that you offer to them when they sign up for Bunk1, what terms and conditions do they have to agree to?

ROBERT BURNS: Yes. I mean, terms and conditions are important for any company to have in place but it's not possible for us to fulfill our service without them signing those kinds of agreements. So they're in place from a legal perspective to protect us and the user, and make sure we can actually fulfill the services that we provide. But-

DM: Well OK. But the contract says that "it grants the right to royalty free perpetual license to use and distribute the content worldwide." So so what does your company do with the kids' photographs?

ROBERT BURNS: So we post the photos on a secure platform that's only accessible by that camp community. And we wouldn't be able to do that without a royalty free license to provide and distribute these photos worldwide. Parents also have the opportunity to purchase photo products of their kids from their favorite memories. And those kinds of things wouldn't be possible if we didn't have that royalty free license.

DM: OK. I'd like Robert Burns I'd like you to stand by, if you could, while we hear from another perspective. Katie Hurley is a child and adolescent psychotherapist based in Los Angeles. But we've reached her in Groton Long Point, Connecticut today. Hello.

KATIE HURLEY: Hi. Good morning.

DM: Katie Hurley, would you sign up for this kind of summer camp facial recognition service if it were offered to you as a parent?

KATIE HURLEY: I would not. I'm actually the one wayward parent who often doesn't even find the social media releases for school. Just partially to test to see if they noticed but I'm not signing it, but also because I think, you know, we don't necessarily need to plaster our kids' faces all over the place. And I'm a believer that when we sign our kids up for these camps -- which are fantastic and fun and full of adventure, and kind of old-fashioned in a way compared to what kids do normally during the school year -- we do have to place some trust in those people that they're going to take care of our kids, and that they have our kids best interests in mind and that our kids are gonna have a good time. Looking at a stream of photos all day long, getting push notifications to my phone is only going to make me wonder when I should be trusting that they're having fun.

DM: Is there a difference in in your mind between just getting a batch of photos from the camp and opting into facial recognition technology?

KATIE HURLEY: Well I mean, I think getting photos from camp is not necessarily a new thing. There have always been camp photographers. The difference right now is that it's live time and it's constant. So it's a constant stream of photos. And then there's the added, you know, the thing we're not talking about is the white elephant in the room which is that parents are feeling really anxious. They're feeling like they need to see what their kids are doing all the time instead of just enjoying. You know, if somebody sent me a bunch of photos and I got to see what my kids were up to I'd say, 'Oh that's cool. Great. It looks like they're having fun canoeing,' but instead what's happening is that parents are really reading into it. We heard it with that mom right at the beginning of the segment where, you know, well 'it looked like his smile was not a big smile, it was a small smile' or however she phrased it. That's the worry. There's this cycle of anxiety that's being perpetuated because we're constantly looking for clues to how our kids are doing. And that's absurd because we all know that everybody, from kids to adults, have highs and lows every single day of the week. Nobody's happy every second of the day. But we're kind of looking for these Instagram-perfect images. And then when they can't come in as anything less than perfect we wonder well what's wrong and why aren't you taking care of my child?

DM: So that's the impact you argue on on parents. So what's the psychological effect on kids knowing that their parents may be keeping tabs on them through this kind of technology?

KATIE HURLEY: Well, and I hear what Bunk1 is saying that, you know, 'we're not interfering with the kids' and I believe that. I mean like I say, there's always been photographers at summer camp. That's not a new concept. So I believe that the photographers are attempting to stay out of the way and not interfere with the kids. The problem is, and what we need to account for, is that this generation of children is growing up online. They know that every photo that's taken gets sent to Instagram and Facebook, you know, and possibly somewhere else. They know that their parents are watching them and highlighting their sizzle reel every single day of the week and they're exhausted. They're anxious. They don't want their pictures taken all the time. Just the other night I watched a father of a 4-year-old take probably 30 pictures of this kid with his son. She shut her eyes. She put her head down. She started twirling in circles. She did everything a 4-year-old knows how to do to get her away from the camera. And he did not stop until he got the shot that he wanted. That's the problem we're having. It's not that these things necessarily exist, although I wouldn't want my kids to have facial recognition because of all the other possible security privacy issues down the line. I don't agree with that. But the other part of it for the kids is that they're feeling like they're always on display, and that's not a good feeling.

KATIE HURLEY: The parent that we had earlier on, Leigh Elliot, she told us that last summer she wrote to her son at camp after seeing a few pictures of him looking kind of subdued. And to be clear, this is a camp that that uploads pictures to its Facebook page -- it hasn't adopted the facial recognition technology. But have a listen.

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And so I said, 'Are you happy? Because you're not smiling in any of the pictures.' And then every picture after that he was like this giant goofball. And I thought 'Oh he's doing really great!' And then when he got home he said to me, 'Did you see that I was doing OK? Because I tried to like do big smiles in the pictures for you.' And I thought... Oh dear. He was acting for me when the photos were being taken.

DM: So when you hear that kind of thing, I mean, is it really altering the summer camp experience for kids from your perspective, Katie Hurley?

KATIE HURLEY: Is is. This is not news to me because I work with kids and teens, and so I hear from the kids before they go to camp and after they get back, and I hear from the parents while they're gone who are in a perpetual state of worry. And you know, it does alter the experience because they know "smile for Mom and Dad, show them that I'm OK, show them that I'm happy." And you know, the whole point of these camps is to help kids build autonomy, and to send them out there and say, 'Hey I know you're capable of making friends and, you know, having relationships with adults that are other than me.' You know, teachers, camp counselors, coaches. I mean all of these people play important roles in the development of children. We always want to scream "it takes a village to raise a child" but then we send the kids out into the village and we want pictures every 10 seconds to prove that our kids are happy and that the village is in fact doing their job, and that's just not how it works.

DM: It is the parents that are signing up for these services. So what if the kids don't know that they're being used. Does that raise any concerns one way or the other?

KATIE HURLEY: I believe that most kids at this point know they're on display. They don't necessarily know what facial recognition means. They don't know that the photos might go to a camp Facebook page or some other camp photo sharing site. They don't necessarily know that piece of it. But I believe they all know that they're on display and they're watched carefully. And you either see them looking glum because they're tired of having their picture taken and they're tired of proving that they're fine, or you see them grinning and goofing off because they're trying to show 'it's ok, I'm fine, you don't have to worry about me!' That's a huge emotional burden for children to take on. I have to make sure my parents are not worrying about me. That's not how it works. That's not supposed to be the way the parent-child relationship work. But that's the way it's going right now.

DM: So what role do camp directors have to play here? I mean especially if parents are saying 'I want to see more pictures my kids while they're away to see how they're doing a camp. To see the pretty vistas that they're enjoying.'

KATIE HURLEY: I think they, the camp directors, have to be able to set limits. I mean 30 years ago these technologies didn't exist. But it's not that technologies necessarily that are the problem, it's how we're responding to it. It's like anything else. I mean, we can live in a world with Instagram. We just don't have to be on it all the time. So I think they need to set limits in terms of how pictures are shared and when they're shared, and instead of getting push notifications all day long it could be that they just get shared, you know, once in the evening or once in the morning. And they have to be willing to answer the phone and say, you know, the pictures will come in at such and such a time and you can look for the pictures then. They have to be willing to set those hard limits because we've lost all boundaries right now in the digital age. That's one of the biggest problems with our technology is that our boundaries are very, very blurry.

DM: Katie Hurley, thanks for your thoughts on this. Let's go back to Robert Burns of Bunk1 -- which is a company that offers tools including facial recognition software to camps -- who has been listening in. Robert Burns, what do you make of Katie Hurley's point that that using facial recognition photo services at summer camps kind of feeds into parental anxiety, maybe child anxiety.

ROBERT BURNS: Yeah I think actually it's probably in the minority of cases rather than the majority. I think generally speaking when a child goes to camp for the first time both the child and the parent are taken a huge step outside of their comfort zone and being able to see photos actually helps parents ease their anxiety. And that first clip from the parent actually finished with a, you know, 'and then I knew he was OK.' Because you know, at the end of the day at first you're giving your child to this summer camp who- and as camp directors we'd like to believe that we're the experts, trust us. And Katie mentioned that we need to place more trust in these people, but trust is built over time. It's not earned overnight. And so, you know, the camps have this opportunity to display all the great things that happen at camp. The huge growth potential. And then actually, you know, by doing that the kids and the parents are really like into the experience, love the growth and development that they're seeing and therefore come back year, after year, after year and give the camp the opportunity to have a bigger impact on that child's life.

DM: You were a camp counselor yourself, weren't you Robert?

ROBERT BURNS: Yeah. Yeah I was a camp counselor for 9 years.

DM: So you'd understand that, I mean, part of the camp experience -- homesickness is a big part of it. When a kid is going away for the first time or that time that they're, you know, they can't get into the canoe properly and they dump out and they're in tears. If there's photos of that and Mom and Dad are phoning and are anxious and concerned, isn't that starting to interfere with the whole purpose of camp?

ROBERT BURNS: No I didn't think so. I mean like, I'm not sure there are photos of that, first of all. And you know, it's the camp's responsibility to be able to communicate. When I had a homesick child I would call the parent and work with them to explain, 'look here's what we're doing to help your child overcome' and you know, again, you're trying to build the trust with the parent so that the parent isn't anxious and freaking out. If you're just like 'hey trust me I've got this,' then at the end of the day the parent isn't seeing the evidence of your work and, you know... we are constantly plugged in. So while, you know, our society is always used to having this instant connection -- camps a great place to disconnect -- we have to understand that parents need some kind of indication. And you know, camp is not normal... Sorry, it's not unusual for camps to post photos once a day. They're not posting them constantly. This isn't a constant stream. Most camps post them once a day and it's an opportunity for them to really market their business. You know, at the end of the day camp is still a business. One of the key measures of success that we use that our camp was retention rates. And our retention rates has developed based on the campers' experience of course and hiring the right people, but it's also about your marketing efforts and being able to articulate the true benefits of camp to the parents who are actually paying for the camp experience.

DM: Thank you for telling us about your service today.

ROBERT BURNS: Thank you Duncan.

DM: Robert Burns is president of Bunk1. He is in New York. And Katie Hurley is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and the author of The Happy Kid Handbook. She's in... Groton Long Point, Connecticut. We did reach out to Waldo Photos for an interview but didn't hear back. We want to hear from you. What do you make of facial recognition technology being used at summer camps? Would you use it? Let us know. You can e-mail us at thecurrent@cbc.ca -- or tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. CBC News is next. Then episode 3 of the CBC original podcast Finding Cleo. The search to find out what happened to the young Cree girl continues with a trip to Pennsylvania to visit the only one of Cleo's siblings who actually has memories of his sister. I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the Summer Edition of The Current.

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[Music: Theme]

Missing and Murdered: Finding Cleo – Episode 2

DM: Hi. I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the Summer Edition of The Current.

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[Music: Theme]

DM: This summer on The Current we're playing some of the best of CBC original podcasts. This week, the award-winning Finding Cleo. Host Connie Walker investigates the case of a Cree girl from Saskatchewan who went missing in the 1970s. In this episode Connie meets Cleo's older brother, Johnny, in Pennsylvania -- where he was adopted. He's haunted by the memory of saying goodbye to Cleo and longs to fulfill a promise to find her. Here's episode 3 of finding Cleo, "A Little Lie."

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CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): It's a gorgeous spring day as we pull into a farm just outside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We're here to meet Johnny Semaganis, the oldest sibling in the Semaganis family. The only one who has memories of his sister Cleo. Johnny has asked us to meet him at his friend Tom's organic farm.

CONNIE WALKER: Hello.

TOM COULTON: Nice to see you.

CONNIE WALKER: Nice to see you too. I'm Connie.

MARNIE LUKE: I'm Marnie.

TOM COULTON: Tom Coulton. Nice to meet you.

CONNIE WALKER: Nice to meet you as well.

TOM COULTON: You two [can sit] in the truck.

MARNIE LUKE: The truck? OK.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): We started on this journey to try to find Cleo. But the further we get down this road and the more we uncover, I realize that as much as I want to solve the mystery about where she is and what happened to her I also want to get to know more about her. Not just how she died, but how she lived. I'm hopeful that Johnny can help us get to know Cleo. He was four years older than her and is really the only sibling who knew her before they were adopted.

CONNIE WALKER: Hey! How are you?

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny suggests that we go to one of his favorite spots on the farm.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I used to hang out here on weekends and stuff so it's nice.

[Sound: rooster crow]

CONNIE WALKER: So these roosters are used to you?

Yeah.

[Sound: geese cawing]

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny is a big man and he has long dark hair and a beard that is flecked with gray. His almond shaped eyes are brown and so is his skin. Johnny says there aren't a lot of Indigenous people in Lancaster, and here he's known as Chief.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: You know, it's not a sign of respect. It's not a matter of disrespect to me, I don't think. I always tell people, first 8 years my life I was [mumbles] and lived on a reservation. Food was pouring water down one hole and getting a gopher on the other end, and there was lunch. You know? Snaring rabbits. In the morning, in the evening. It was food.

CONNIE WALKER: Well how did you cook a rabbit? Did you make soup?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah. Yeah.

CONNIE WALKER: I remember rabbit soup. I did not like rabbit soup. But you knew how to set a snare?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah. Everything. Yeah.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Before we got here, I asked April to describe Johnny for me. She's the only sibling who has seen him in person as an adult. April told me that Johnny looks big in gruff, but really he's like a soft teddy bear. I like Johnny as soon as I meet him.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: You're from Saskatchewan too, I heard?

CONNIE WALKER: Yeah. I'm Cree from Saskatchewan too.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: What part?

CONNIE WALKER: So, southern Saskatchewan. Near Regina.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Oh yeah?

CONNIE WALKER: Yeah, near Regina. Did you ever go back?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: No. I have no need to. Home is here, so... Everybody keeps asking me to come back. I'm like, 'OK maybe next year,' but I have no desire to. Home is here. Family's here, so.

[Sound: door creaks open]

CONNIE WALKER: Hi there!

ERIKA SEMAGANIS: Hi, nice to meet you! I'm Erika.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Almost as if on cue, a young woman walks into the barn.

ERIKA SEMAGANIS: How's it going, Johnny?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Good.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): And gives Johnny a big hug.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Do you have work?

ERIKA SEMAGANIS: Yeah.

[Sound: keys jingle]

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: The other guys will be here later... we got oysters and tuna and stuff.

ERIKA SEMAGANIS: Oooh! Cookout. It'll be fun.

CONNIE WALKER: So you guys are related?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah, she's my little sister.

ERIKA SEMAGANIS: Yep. We are both adopted, so.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I just want to paint this picture for you. Physically, Johnny and Erika couldn't look more different. He's a large Cree man in his mid-50s. She's a tiny black woman in her early 20s. They look nothing alike. But it's obvious they're close. And today Johnny has asked his little sister to be here for moral support.

CONNIE WALKER: So you've known her since she was born.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Like I said, I think it helped me because since I didn't grow up my other sister, I got to watch her grow up... which helped me out in the end.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): The other sister Johnny is talking about is the reason we're all here -- Cleo. Now remember, for decades Johnny and his other siblings thought Cleo was adopted in Arkansas. But now we've discovered she was actually adopted in New Jersey.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: [inaudible] New Jersey? That was the next state over!

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Lancaster, Pennsylvania is less than two hours from the New Jersey border. Although we don't know exactly where Cleo was adopted in New Jersey, it's not a huge state. There's a good chance that after their adoptions, Johnny and Cleo were just a few hours apart without ever knowing it.

CONNIE WALKER: What did you call her as a kid? Did you call her Cleopatra or Cleo?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Cleo.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): As we talk, Johnny's fidgeting with his keys and looking down at his phone.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I see her on the phone every day.

CONNIE WALKER: She's your screensaver.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yep.

CONNIE WALKER: You want to be reminded of her?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah. I found everybody else. But this is the only one I haven't found.

CONNIE WALKER: So in Christine's story that she wrote about Cleo, that we read, it said that Cleo had been found in Arkansas and that she had been murdered. Is that something that you had heard?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: That's what we heard too. But then the mother told us something different, her aunt said some different. I don't know what to believe. So.

CONNIE WALKER: She has a lot of desire to find out what happened to Cleo and what happened. Do you have the same?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah I do. I've been searching for years but after a while I just don't know what to do. And I think us natives, they just don't, you know... They just don't care about us but [exhale] I care about it. I care about finding my sister, you know? I could've... I could've said, 'Oh well, she's dead. Big deal.' But I don't feel that way. She's family.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I know that Christine and April feel this too -- a longing to find their sister Cleo. But Johnny's quest feels a little different. Unlike his siblings, his vision of Cleo is not only based on that little photo that they all hold dear. Johnny grew up with her. He has memories of Cleo.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: She was behind a tree. Smiling. I couldn't see half her smile, but... Yeah we were family then. but then we got adopted out there and we always got taken away.

CONNIE WALKER: It must have been hard to form attachments and relationships when things were so in flux.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): The memory of Cleo that Johnny can't stop thinking about is the memory of the last time he saw her.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: It was funny. It took us... They didn't take us anywhere public. It was like a frickin field. [laughs]

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny says that he and Cleo were living at different foster homes at the time and a social worker picked him up and drove him to meet Cleo to say goodbye.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: It was like halfway between somewhere. 'Here's your sister.' This old station wagon she came in and...

CONNIE WALKER: It was in a field?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: It was funny. You'd think it would be at a house or something but it was a... It like a rest stop or something. 'There's your sister. Go say goodbye to her.'

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Cleo was about to be adopted but he didn't know where she was going or if he'd ever see her again.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I said I'll try to find her. And I'd been trying... but yeah I was '74. I would have been 13, I guess.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): So Cleo would have been 8 or 9.

CONNIE WALKER: Do you remember anything about what she said?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Not really. I think I did most of the talking.

CONNIE WALKER: Was she crying?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah. I think I was too, but I remember telling her I hoped I'd find her, but... It was a little lie to make her, but I wanted to make her feel good [sniffles].

CONNIE WALKER: Why do you say it was a lie?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I lied to her because I didn't think I'd ever do it and I didn't think I'd ever... [exhales] I mean, I was trying to strong for both of us. What do you tell her? I was a big brother.

CONNIE WALKER: It's just such a heartbreaking scene to imagine. Like, two siblings meeting in a field to say goodbye.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah. It was tough. She was driven away and I went the other way. And I've been looking for her since.

CONNIE WALKER: What do you think will happen when and if you find out about Cleo? What will that mean to you?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Closure. Fulfilled promise. I think I'm just... staying alive just so I could fulfill this promise.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Much of my work over the last few years focuses on unsolved cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls. And in our interviews, almost always, families talk about wanting closure. About how important it is to know the truth about how the wondering and unanswered questions lead to a sense of injustice. But I wonder if for Johnny and his siblings, getting closure is about more than finding Cleo but also finding some resolution about what happened to them all as children. Since being adopted in the United States, Johnny has never returned home to Saskatchewan. But the memories of his difficult childhood are never far from his mind. Memories of child welfare authorities showing up at their house, sometimes with the police, to take him and Cleo and all of their siblings into government care.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: We got picked up at the one place in South Battleford.

CONNIE WALKER: What do you mean "picked up at"?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: We got from the agency, so services. I remember I had a giant stick. They wouldn't... I was the last one to go.

CONNIE WALKER: What do you mean? You were trying to fight them or get away?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah. Yeah.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): By this point, their mother Lillian had left the reserve and moved the family to Battleford, a small city in northern Saskatchewan. Lillian was a single mom to six kids and she sometimes got her nieces who lived just a few blocks away to help look after the kids. Wilma Semaganis still lives in Saskatchewan and remembers the day more than 40 years ago when her little cousins were taken away. She and her sisters were babysitting for their aunt Lillian.

WILMA SEMAGANIS: It was after school. It was a school day and we, I went home and my mom said that you've got to go over to Auntie Lillian's and watch the kids, she's going to go to an AA meeting. So Anita came with me and most of the kids were outside, but they were coming and going in the back door, but the baby was there in a blue bouncy chair. And auntie was there, she had a skirt and I remember she had a scarf on her head. She went out the front door. It didn't seem very long and then all of a sudden, you know, the door just burst open. There's police officers there and then, and then the social workers came in. And then they just started loading up the kids. The kids were just crying. And the last one they loaded up was Crystal, the baby – Crys- Cameron, now. And they were loading her up, in fact, when Auntie came back in. She had forgotten something. She knew what was going on and she got just hysterical. She was yelling, she was crying, and the police officers handcuffed her to a door.

CONNIE WALKER: Oh my gosh.

WILMA SEMAGANIS: She was on the floor and she was crying and just screaming, and-.

CONNIE WALKER: What was she saying?

WILMA SEMAGANIS: You know like, 'don't take them, I'll take them.'

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Wilma says police left Lillian handcuffed to the front door after they took all of her children away.

WILMA SEMAGANIS: She never stopped crying. And it just seemed like it was such a long time. It got dark and my dad came in. He was quite upset and... I spent that whole time sitting beside her. I remember I got her water and I gave her some water. And the whole time she was handcuffed to the door. It was a wooden door with those old-style brass doorknobs. Then my dad left. He had to go to the police department to tell them to come in and un-handcuff them. And that was the last time we ever ever saw those children.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): How could something like this have happened? Why did Social workers take Johnny and Cleo and their siblings. Was their suspected abuse because of the blue bum birthmarks that Christine had mentioned? Something here isn't adding up. More than ever, I want to find out what led social workers to take the Semaganis kids from their mother. Johnny says that after they were apprehended he and Cleo and their siblings were taken to a group home in North Battleford.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: It was the Robinson group home in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. I remember that. And they weren't very nice, ‘cause I tried to be protective of them, but they thought I was being bossy. I use to end up in the… the padded room downstairs.

CONNIE WALKER: They had a padded room downstairs?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah in case I acted out, they'd lock me in there. I mean, that's why I like

being alone.

CONNIE WALKER: That's terrible!

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah it was.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): The group home seemed to be temporary, and eventually Johnny and his siblings were placed in foster homes living with families in rural areas near Battleford. We know that April and Annette were placed together in one foster home. And Johnny also remembers at one point being in a foster home with Cleo.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: We used to speak our language, but they wouldn't let us speak the language because we'd be talking to each other. And I've since lost lost language.

CONNIE WALKER: You grew up speaking Cree?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah. We were together that one year. We were both the same school in Medstead, Saskatchewan.

CONNIE WALKER: Do you remember who the foster parents were?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: The Meshaniks.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I wonder if we can find this foster family. I really want to talk to someone who knew Cleo and Johnny at that age. We start to search for anyone with a similar name who ever lived in Medstead, Saskatchewan.

[Sound: dial tone]

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): We find a woman named Donna Miszaniec, who says yep, her parents fostered kids in the 1970s.

DONNA MISZANIEC: It’s been 45 years but we’ll see… [laughs]

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): So, we give her and her mom Yvette a call.

CONNIE WALKER: Do you happen to remember a First Nations family that might have come to your home in 1972, a girl named Cleo?

DONNA MISZANIEC: Yes!

CONNIE WALKER: You do?

DONNA MISZANIEC: Yeah. I remember Cleo and Johnny.

CONNIE WALKER: What do you remember about them?

DONNA MISZANIEC: Oh just very quiet kids. Cleo was kind of a little bit shy. Took her a few days to settle in a bit. Johnny was always hungry. That's the main thing I can remember about him. Like, their clothes were very, very limited. They didn't have much of anything, really.

CONNIE WALKER: What about Johnny and Cleo? Were they like... were they close? Were they affectionate with one another? Did you feel like they were a comfort for each other?

DONNA MISZANIEC: Oh absolutely. Yeah. I always thought they were very close. Yes. And like I said, I mean it kind of makes sense when you're brother and sister and you're shoved together into a stranger's home. Means that you're gonna you're going to bond like that anyway. But they did seem to be close. But Cleo, I mean, she was just always smiling.

CONNIE WALKER: Really?

DONNA MISZANIEC: Johnny was probably a little bit more serious than Cleo, but yeah Cleo was always smiling, enjoying life. And I just particularly remember going down to Johnny's bedroom to make his bed and whatnot and finding [laughs] fruit jars and tins open in his closet where he'd been taking food out of the storage room. And so I remember telling him he could open up the fridge anytime he wanted if he was hungry during the night just to go and eat. I guess he'd always maybe had been hungry and had been deprived of food.

CONNIE WALKER: That's heartbreaking too to feel that or to know that he was worried about food as a child.

DONNA MISZANIEC: Well that's just it, you know? We take it for granted. But yeah, lots of kids they don't know if there's going to be food in the house or when they're going to have their next meal...

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): The Miszaniecs seem like nice people. I'm glad that Johnny and Cleo ended up in a safe home. But I can't help but think of their sisters April and Annette at a foster home just a short drive away experiencing what they described later as terrible abuse. I wonder how families were chosen to become foster parents in the 1970s.

DONNA MISZANIEC: They said, 'Yeah, you would be willing to take in kids and help out.' And you know, one day they should they'll they'll show up with the kids. You don't get any notice. And then if they decide they're adopted and they're gone that day.

CONNIE WALKER: Do you do you remember saying goodbye to Johnny and Cleo?

DONNA MISZANIEC: Yes.

CONNIE WALKER: What was it like? Can you describe it?

DONNA MISZANIEC: Worrisome. Wondering what was going to happen to them, I guess. I think of what happened to Cleo and I guess I had good reason to worry.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I've been thinking about how the Semaganis kids found out about their adoptions. According to April in Annette's adoptive parents, Jeff and Kay, the girls were so excited to meet them and to be adopted. They called them Mummy and Daddy as soon as they met. But Cleo and Johnny were older. Did they want to be adopted? How did it happen? Why were they both sent to the United States instead of being adopted in Canada? I asked Johnny what he remembers.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: When I got adopted it was great. I'm like, good. I get the... It was up to me. They gave me a prize [laughs]. They sent me to hockey camp and they gave me a bicycle with a banana seat. It was like a prize, like it's up to me. 'Do you want anything?' Yeah. They sent me to hockey school with the Philadelphia Flyers 1974, when they won their first Stanley Cup.

CONNIE WALKER: Who? Who's they?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: The agency. People in the agency. It was like a... prize. At the time you don't think about it.

CONNIE WALKER: And in exchange for those prizes what happened?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I was allowed to come the United States.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I don't... I'm kind of confused. I don't quite understand.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Well, they said it was up to me. 'What do you want ifi you agree to this?'

CONNIE WALKER: If you agree to be adopted you can get a prize?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yes that's technically what it was.

CONNIE WALKER: And if you'd said you didn't want to be adopted?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: That wouldn't have gotten anything. I thought well...

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I'm shocked by what Johnny is saying. He believes that social workers essentially bribed him to agree to be adopted.

CONNIE WALKER: Like it was an incentive to be adopted?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah. And I'd wanted to go. I wanted to leave anyway, which I did.

CONNIE WALKER: Looking back on it do you think that's a fair choice to present to a kid?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: At the time it was, but right now I pay. I was glad to leave. So I'm here. I think I'm better off.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I wonder how Cleo's adoption was presented to her. Did she have any choice but to go? Johnny says he was happy to leave Saskatchewan but I can't help but think of his memory of Cleo -- a young girl crying in a field saying goodbye to her brother. It doesn't sound like she was so happy to leave. After Johnny finished the hockey school he says he was promised when he was 14-years-old, he got on a plane with a social worker to meet his new family.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Here's one I got adopted by these people...

[Sound: paper rustling]

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: ...1975.

CONNIE WALKER: Decree of adoption.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yes.

CONNIE WALKER: Where was that?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: In Pennsylvania. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They lived on a small farm, that is what it was. I always thought they were there to help us with their farm.

CONNIE WALKER: Oh.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: That's what it seemed to me [laughs].

CONNIE WALKER: You think, oh... You think that they wanted to adopt you because they wanted help?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Help on the farm and stuff like that.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Actually, this isn't the first time I've heard that story. Indigenous kids adopted in the Sixties Scoop who believed they were not only adopted to become sons and daughters in a new family, but so they could help out as farmhands. When Johnny arrived in Pennsylvania he found that the family had already adopted two other Indigenous kids from U.S. tribes.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: When I came down here, the two adoptive Natives that they had were from Yakima, Washington. They were Yakima and stuff, Indian. They were running away, planning the stuff they were going, you know. I'm like what's going- I didn't even know know what was going on. So...

CONNIE WALKER: Well it must have been just jarring, right? To be completely across the continent.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah.

CONNIE WALKER: And then in a family that... there was already stuff going on there.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Oh yeah. It was just... it was very strange.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny says that he and the other adopted kids slept outside in tents in the summer and took refuge in the barn when it rained hard. The family's biological kids slept inside the house. At some point, Johnny says his adoptive parents actually built a separate building for the adopted children to live in. But it wasn't connected to the house.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I didn't know what to do. They left. They ran away and I was like by myself. And I ran away eventually to because it just didn't work out.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny ran away. Just like his sisters April and Annette who lived on the streets of Toronto at 13. And just like his sister Cleo who tried to hitchhike back home to Saskatchewan. Johnny speaks so matter-of-factly about his experience, but it's hard to get a sense of just how much this has affected him. But I can only imagine how difficult it would have been for him and for Cleo to move all on their own, away from their families, away from everything familiar and end up in a new place, in a new family. I hope that Cleo had a better experience than her brother. Johnny expected to be welcomed into a new home. Instead, he slept outside with adopted siblings who were also miserable and that's not all...

DM: You've been listening to Finding Cleo, the award-winning CBC original podcast by Connie Walker. Stay with us to hear the rest of Episode 3, coming up in about two minutes. I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the Summer Edition of The Current.

DM: I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the Summer Edition of The Current. For the past few weeks we've been bringing you some of the CBC is best original podcasts. This week we're hearing CBC reporter Connie Walker's investigation: Finding Cleo. Here now is the rest of episode 3. Cleo's brother, Johnny, is sharing some difficult memories of being adopted by an American family in Pennsylvania in 1975 where he was expected to work as a farmhand.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Here's the funny thing. On the farm, I think I've come to grips with it, I think I was abused on the farm. I can say this now because I told friends about it. It wasn't any kind of insertion or nothing. They played like, oh, you're the cow, we're the bull. It was a weird game. But it was like at the time, you don't think nothing of it. But it was like nothing inserted. But it was still strange. I thought about it. I was sitting one day thinking about it. Like, I think I was... I came to the revelation, I think I was abused but I wasn't really abused, does that make sense? It just seemed like a game to them. That was all it was. But I don't, was that abuse? I guess?

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny says he only thought about that experience after getting information about one of the lawsuits launched by Sixties Scoop survivors against the Canadian government.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I was taken from my mother's arms in the hospital. For a long time I was ashamed.

VOICE 2: I lost who I was. Who I was supposed to be.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): A group in Ontario representing 16,000 survivors sued the federal government for its role in the Sixties Scoop.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 3: There was an officer there who had a gun. And my mother thought she was going to get shot. So she came back from trying to grab me and save me.

VOICE 4: Our children are valued. We want them back. We have to stand up and say this can't happen anymore.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): The survivors claim they suffered a devastating loss of culture when they were taken from their homes and adopted into white families.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 5: The worst days of my life were my childhood.

VOICE 6: I grew up not even knowing that I was native.

VOICE 7: I used to lay awake at night thinking I was a little alien baby and sometime someone would come back for me.

VOICE 8: I was wondering as a child how come I was alone? Like, where did my family go?

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Many say they went through trauma and experienced abuse in their new homes. In 2017, they won. The judge sided with survivors and said that the government of Canada failed to properly consult with First Nations and failed to protect children from the loss of identity and culture.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 9: [excitedly] It is a great day in Canada when Canada's judicial system chooses to say that our children are so valuable and sacred and precious, that we will protect them by law. What a day this is. Yes!

[Sound: crowd cheers]

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Following the decision, the Federal Government announced a settlement with survivors worth 800 million dollars. The details are still being worked out but we know the settlement does not include Metis or non-status Indians.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 10: There's a lot of loss her that took place. There's going to be intergenerational affects of this. Historical traumas could take place because of this. To assume that this is over is a misconception.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): We don't know if Johnny or his siblings will be included. If they are, it could mean they'll each get a payout between 25 and 50,000 dollars. But an advocate for Indigenous kids did the math and found the settlement amounts to about three dollars and eighty cents per day of a survivor's lost childhood.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 11: I'm supposed to be grateful? That they took me and robbed me of a chance to know my family?

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): The prospect of money from a settlement isn't what motivates Johnny either.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I have nothing to gain for it. I just want to look for my sister, that's all.

CONNIE WALKER: A lot of the people who call themselves survivors of the Sixties Scoop feel like they were wronged in that they were taken away from their families and their communities and they lost their language and their culture. Do you feel regret about any of that?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: No not at all. Like I said, it's just a different part of my life. I can't, you know... For the longest time it did bother me. I mean if you want to talk to my ex-girlfriend she'll tell you stuff I did back in the... I started drinking a lot when I was with her and that's how we broke up. But it's sort of strange. I guess I've come to deal. If it wasn't for my family, I would be dead or in jail I think.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny credits his survival to the people he now calls mom and dad. Not his biological parents or his adoptive parents. Bill and Kay Henry are Johnny’s foster parents. A couple who took him in after he ran away from his adoptive home in Pennsylvania.

ERIKA SEMAGANIS: Yeah, I was just over there today.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): They’re also parents to his little sister, Erika.

ERIKA SEMAGANIS: They live like about 15 minutes from here and they're in their 70s, they're getting a little bit older, so it's just them now.

JOHNNY SEMAGAIN: Back windows don’t open, got to get air conditioning in here…

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I drive with Johnny to meet his parents. He has one of those big vans that looks like it’s from the '70s or '80s, before they invented minivans or improved mufflers. While we’re driving, Johnny says something that has stuck with me.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: What are they trying to do to you? I said, they’re trying to assimilate us to res -- to you know.... Francis Scott Duncan would be proud. I've been assimilated, I think.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny means to say that Duncan Campbell Scott would be proud because he - Johnny - has been assimilated. You may not know the name Duncan Campbell Scott, but he was deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs for the government of Canada in the early 1900s, and he’s considered the architect of the residential school system. For over 100 years, 150,000 Indigenous kids were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to residential schools to be educated --- and assimilated. Campbell Scott’s goal was to "get rid of the Indian problem" in Canada. On top of the incredible loneliness after being taken from their families and communities, the children in residential schools-- some as young as five or six years old-- were beaten and punished for speaking their language or practicing their culture. Many went through horrific physical and sexual abuse. Kids were forced to attend and live in these schools year after year. Thousands of kids tried to escape residential schools. Some were found and sent back, others died trying to find their way back home. The last school closed in 1998, but generations of Indigenous families are still dealing with the effects. It’s been described as cultural genocide and many see a direct link between the racist attitudes that led to residential schools and the child welfare policies enforced during the Sixties Scoop. Johnny grew up on the reserve, but because he was part of the Sixties Scoop, he is disconnected from his biological family, his community, and his culture. He has been assimilated. But despite everything he’s been through, Johnny doesn’t see himself as a victim.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Like I said, I don't go, like, "oh my life sucks," it doesn't. I have friends, you know. I live paycheck to paycheck and I'm happy with that.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): We arrive at Bill and Kay’s house.

Johnny: It’s funny, every time I come over I still knock.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): They have a little weathered cloth banner in the garden by the front door that says 'Welcome All'.

CONNIE WALKER: Hi, I’m Connie!

BILL HENRY: Hi, I'm Bill.

CONNIE WALKER: Nice to meet you!

KAY HENRY: Good morning-- my hands are cold and I haven't even been outside.

CONNIE WALKER: Connie, nice to meet you!

KAY HENRY: Yours are nice and warm! It's nice to meet you too.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Not only did Bill and Kay adopt nine kids on top of having three biological sons, they were also foster parents to over 130 kids over 30 years.

CONNIE WALKER” Do you remember the day that Johnny came to live with you?

KAY HENRY: Almost vividly. He had his hair really, really short. Mmhm. I just remember them telling me that they had a child that had put himself on the streets because he was in a bad situation and so he was coming to our house. So there he came. And he's been one of the best. Believe me, I wouldn't trade him for the world. And I'm not saying that just to you. I mean it.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Kay looks exactly like she sounds, like a sweet little old grandma. Her white hair is parted in the middle and pulled back into a low ponytail. She's wearing a faded floral smock that she made herself, and next to her on her couch is a little embroidered pillow that says "the heart that loves is always young."

CONNIE WALKER: So what what did you know about John and about his experience before coming here?

KAY HENRY: I knew it was bad. I knew the adoption was very, very bad. I knew that they were abused and I knew that it didn't go well.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): When we were back at the farm, Johnny told me that a few years after he moved in with Bill and Kay he wrote a letter to Saskatchewan's Social Services asking about Cleo.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I got a letter saying she died in '74. And that was it.

CONNIE WALKER: I know it was a long time ago but do you remember what it said in that letter back from Social Services?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah, well, when she died that was it. They just said she died in 1974 and that was it. That would have been the same year she was adopted before me. And that's all it said.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): 1974? The letter April showed me from Social Services said plans were underway for Cleo's adoption in 1974. Did that mean that she died in the same year she was adopted?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I wrote a letter back to them and they didn't really respond. They didn't want to give me any information anyway.

CONNIE WALKER: What was your reaction? That must've been awful.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah it was... I was 15 at the time. Started doing drugs and drinking and...

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I asked Kay and Bill what they remember about when Johnny found out about Cleo's death.

KAY HENRY: I remember when he said that, yes. Okay. Where? How? Was she with a family? ... Was she murdered? Did she just die from being sick? I mean, these are the questions that you have! What is the big secret? They are just acting so secretive and so strange. To not know anything, not be told anything. And then this child just disappear into thin air - no. Something's amuck. A little answer goes a long way.

BILLY HENRY: Which means that there's unanswered questions out there that something's not right.

KAY HENRY: And if she was killed, why not tell him? How? What?

BILLY HENRY: That's what I mean.

KAY HENRY: What- if they knew that much, they had more information.

BILLY HENRY: Yeah. Even if they didn't want to tell him how the situation happened they could at least tell him that, and they don't even want to tell him that!

CONNIE WALKER: What would it mean, do you think, to get answers to some of those questions?

KAY HENRY: They could have closure! This way he has nothing. He took care of all of these babies until he was placed down here and now he just can't account for this one.

CONNIE WALKER: What like, having that responsibility as a child. That must be hard for him.

KAY HENRY: It must have made him the man he is today. And it was hard for him. Sometimes return our good because of hardships. Sometimes we don't. But he did.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Meeting Kay, and listening to Johnny talk about her, I can't help but notice that he doesn't talk about his biological mother Lillian in the same way. He only ever calls her by her first name. Never "Mom." To Johnny, Kay is his mom.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: And you know, I didn't have anybody down here and she kept me. If it wasn't for her, I said I'd be dead or in jail. She was always there for me anyway, so. Unlike my other- unlike Lillian.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Back in the barn, Johnny's looking at a picture of Lillian that April gave us to give to him.

CONNIE WALKER: Is that what she looked like when you were a kid?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah. Yeah.

CONNIE WALKER: Did she wear her hair in braids like that a lot?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Lillian looks really young in this photo. Maybe in her late teens or early 20s. She's really pretty. She has long, dark hair that she wears in two braids and the ends are tied with strips of leather.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: It's like looking at a stranger, I'd say. I don't mean to sound like I'm... It's like here, there's somebody's mother. Yeah. Now I just, I know it's my mother, but to me it's Lillian. Nice picture of her though.

CONNIE WALKER: So you don't, you don't feel any kind of attachment to her?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Not really. I hate to say it, but...

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny seems angry with Lilian. As the oldest he spent the most time with her and he remembers all of the times she let him down.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: See this one here, the other day sort of... broke me up here. What was that? I think, didn't Ishow you that picture?

CONNIE WALKER: Which one?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Got to look here. I gotta find it.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Jonny wants to show me a different picture. Something he saw online that triggered memories of his childhood.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: It's a picture of Mounties and priests and nuns taking kids away from the house. It just reminded me of what happened, but it was...

[Music: solemn instrumental music]

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: It was taking kids away but the parents were there and everything. Kids running away. Except I didn't run, I was there trying to save us. I tried... But in my mind I remember thinking, 'Lillian's going to come save us.' But she never did.

CONNIE WALKER: Was it a painting?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah.

CONNIE WALKER: Was it the Kent Monkman painting?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah I think so.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I know the painting he's talking about. It's by Cree artist Kent Monkman and it's called "The Scream." Honestly, I have a hard time looking at it. I mean it's beautifully done - Kent is an amazing artist - but it's a horrific scene. It's basically a depiction of an apprehension of Indigenous kids. It looks like it's in front of a house on a reserve. There are priests, nuns and several Mounties - Royal Canadian Police officers in their red surges - ripping Indigenous kids and babies from their mothers arms. The children in the painting are crying, their arms are outstretched reaching for their siblings or their mothers, some are running away trying to escape the arms of the white men and women who are there to take them away. My eye keeps going back to the faces of the mothers. They're screaming, crying out in anguish, desperate to hang on to their children. But then you notice the Mountie's gun and you know who is going to win this battle. It's a scene you can imagine has played out hundreds of times in Indigenous communities over generations. First in residential schools and then again in the Sixties Scoop. As if Kent is trying to make that exact point, on the bottom right edge of the painting a Mountie looks like he's literally about to scoop up a small child who is trying to run away.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: It just brought back memories. But she was never- my mother wasn't there to rescue me, though. They didn't... She wouldn't like.... There was a lady there. But that wasn't, our mother wasn't there.

CONNIE WALKER: You mean because the woman in that photo is reaching for her kids and the police are holding her back.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah. But that didn't happen with me. Us. So...

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): The scene in the painting actually reminds me of the memory that Johnny's cousins have about their apprehension in Battleford. I don't know if Johnny remembers it differently or if they were apprehended more than onc. But either way, I think that if I find this picture hard to look at I can only imagine how difficult it is for Johnny who has memories of Cleo and the rest of his siblings being taken away.

CONNIE WALKER: When... when they came to take you guys away, that must have been scary.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah it was. I was the only one that was there resisting because I didn't know any better.

CONNIE WALKER: What do you mean you resisted?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Well I had a stick. Big stick. Kept looking around for Lillian but she never came, so.

CONNIE WALKER: Were you trying to prevent them from taking you or from taking your siblings?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah.

CONNIE WALKER: Did you wish that you could have stayed with relatives?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I don't think they... They didn't have a choice. Lillian didn't tell them about choice they could have had.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny is so calm when he talks about this but clearly it's an incredibly painful memory he'll always have. I feel like with each interview with Cleo's siblings we're learning snippets about their mother, Lillian. I cannot fathom the pain she must have experienced as a mother having her children taken away. But we know that she may have also experienced that same scene years earlier as a child because the one thing we do know about Lillian is that when she was 7-years-old, she too was taken from her home and sent to a residential school. Johnny didn't know this about his mother until right before she died.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: And hopefully with a story like this, it'll make someone want to help. Not just about me missing my sister or my family missing such... People don't realize- I just told my girlfriend last night, she didn't know! About residential schools, Sixties Scoop, and missing and murdered Indigenous children. She didn't know. Because some people just don't care. But. I mean if someone's missing, you know, you want to know.

CONNIE WALKER: You mentioned Residential schools, The Sixties Scoop and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Do you think those issues are all connected?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I think so. I could've had a better relation with a mother if she would've told me what happened. I make a joke out of it. I think I hit the trifecta. Got all three things going for me. Mother, me and my sister. I know it sounds bad, but you gotta...sometimes you gotta laugh about it because what're you gonna do?

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Johnny suggests that one of Lillian's sisters might have more information. He shows me one of his messages with a woman named Marlene Semaganis, Lillian's sister who still lives on Little Pine.

CONNIE WALKER: She says, 'I remember all of you. I have pictures of all of you just happy and always smiling.'

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: It says, 'My sister loved you. She loved all her kids. What's happened back there was part of Sixties Scoop.'

CONNIE WALKER: I mean, do you mind going up just a little bit because- does she talk about getting a letter from Cleo?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Well... apparently. Oh here.

CONNIE WALKER: What's that one?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Says 'Cleo wrote me a letter telling me she had a good life, then begged me to get her somewhere in Vermont.' I didn't know who to believe.

CONNIE WALKER: So Marlene, who's your mom's sister, said that Cleo wrote her a letter.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah... But I never, I didn't believe her either because I didn't know what to believe.

CONNIE WALKER: She said 'telling me she had a good life and then begging me to get her. I want to go and get her. Then shortly after that I was told she had left for the spirit world. It was devastating.'.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yeah.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): So there aunt Marlene got a letter from Cleo after she was adopted. Did she know where Cleo was living when she sent it? Does she still have the letter? Maybe it has a return address that could help narrow our search.

CONNIE WALKER: Did she give you advice about how to get information about Cleo?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: No she didn't.

CONNIE WALKER: What did she say are in containers in... just below this?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Photographs.

CONNIE WALKER: Ohhh.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): I put Marlene on our list of people to talk to. But first, Johnny wants to call the government of New Jersey again. He's hoping he'll have more luck than Christine.

[Sound: dial tone]

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yes, I was wondering if you could help me out.

WOMAN: OK.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: I'm calling about- I'm trying to find out information about deceased relatives back in 1975. And I was given information from Saskatchewan that she was adopted New Jersey, and I was wondering what information...

[Sound: dial tone]

AUTOMATED VOICE: Your party is not answering. Please try your call later.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Voicemail, huh?

AUTOMATED VOICE: We're sorry but your call will now be disconnected.

[Sound: call failed error beeps]

MAN: I just want to clarify that you're looking for your birth sister's original birth certificate?

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: Yes.

MAN: Technically, we were explained that we can only look for that record based on their current legal birth certificate. So if you knew what her name was post-adoption, we could find it very readily that way. However with only a birth name we have no way of checking for that record.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: OK. So like I said, I guess I've got to call Saskatchewan to try again?

MAN: Yes.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Another dead end. Without knowing Cleo's adoptive name we're no closer to getting answers from New Jersey Social Services. Johnny plans to ask the government of Saskatchewan for a copy of his Word File. A Word File is a record kept by social services and is supposed to contain information about every interaction a child has with child welfare. Apparently they're not easy to access. But if Johnny gets his, it could shed some more light on why social services became involved with his family and maybe even information about his mother Lillian, and Cleo.

[Sound: Johnny says goodbye to Connie and team - they enter their vehicle and drive away]

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): We say goodbye to Johnny.

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS: You have a safe trip.

MARNIE LUKE: Take care.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): And head back to Toronto. I leave feeling unsettled. With each interview I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to uncovering Cleo's story. But there are still so many questions, and the more I learn about what I don't know the more I want to find the answers. But the reality is I'm not sure exactly where to go next. We're trying every official channel that we can think of and we've hit so many brick walls. Everybody we've talked to says they've never encountered a situation like this before. Is finding Cleo even possible? I thought it would be a more straightforward process. I thought it would be easier. I didn't realize that if we were going to find Cleo what we really need is a little luck. That very same night, my producer Marnie is up late on her computer.

MARNIE LUKE: So I was just going through a bunch of different databases within New Jersey that you could search.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): Obituaries, newspaper clippings, any kind of public record she can access.

CONNIE WALKER: What were you searching? Like were you searching "Cleo"? Were you searching "girl"?

MARNIE LUKE: So I used "first name: Cleo" and "birth year 1965".

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): 1965, the year that Cleo was born. That crucial bit of information from April's Social Services file.

MARNIE LUKE: It was getting late - it was like midnight at this point - and up came this hit.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): With a click of a button she finds a needle in a haystack.

MARNIE LUKE: And there was this headstone. A picture came up and it just looks like someone snapped it in the cemetery and with gray, sort of two-toned stone. And it looked a little bit old but it's... It had the name Cleo and the birth year 1965.

CONNIE WALKER: What was the reaction when you saw a headstone with the first name Cleo?

MARNIE LUKE: My heart skipped a beat for sure. And I looked closer and it said "1965 to 1978."

CONNIE WALKER: So if this was Cleo, she died when she was 13. Not 11 like Christine thought in her story.

MARNIE LUKE: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

CONNIE WALKER (NARRATOR): A girl named Cleo died in a small town in New Jersey in 1978. Is this Cleo? Did we find her? We need to go to New Jersey to find out.

DM: That was episode three of Finding Cleo, hosted by CBC reporter Connie Walker. Cleo's story continues on tomorrow's Summer Edition of The Current. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for Q. Earlier in the show we were talking about summer camp and the way parents are using technology to keep tabs on their kids. But there's one part of summer camp that parents can't really do anything about - the mosquitoes! They're a staple of Canadian summers but few people have thought about these little critters as deeply as Timothy Winegard. His latest book is called 'The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator.' He'll be my guest on Friday's show. Here's why he says mosquitoes should be viewed as more than just a pest. I'm Duncan McCue. Thanks for listening to the Summer Edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: The mosquito - or more accurately, mosquito-borne diseases - have killed roughly half of all human beings that have ever lived across our relatively brief human existence. Sharks kill about 10 people a year in the last 20 years and mosquitoes are upwards of almost 2 million a year. By far, in a way, the deadliest animal to humans, including other humans which come in somewhere around 500 to 530,000 people a year. So the mosquito is far and away our deadliest hunter and she has been across our existence in that disease, suffering and death has shaped our history far more than we appreciate.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: Theme]

The Current Transcript for August 14, 2019

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Facial recognition tech used to tag kids in summer camp photos worry some parents, privacy experts

Missing and Murdered: Finding Cleo – Episode 2

Aug. 14, 2019 episode transcript

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