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The Current Transcript for October 6, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

It's a nice, quiet morning, so we'll be able to see them moving in the leaves. I do a count, at least a general count in my head on how many I'm seeing. We get a rough estimate of how many birds are here.

MATT GALLOWAY: It is the most wonderful time of the year for bird watchers as the fall migration brings millions of birds through on their way to warmer places. A new report, though, suggests that fewer of our feathered friends are actually making that trek as bird populations plummet. In 30 minutes, an early morning visit with those trying to turn that trend around for the sake of the birds and for biodiversity. Also this morning, when you think of organised crime in Italy, stereotypical images of men in designer suits might come to mind. Think again.

SOUNDCLIP

So many times the story is told through the optics of of a man. But in reality, a women are very, very strong force within these organised crime syndicates.

MG: In an hour, the story of the godmother and her place in the pantheon of Mafia gangsters. We begin, though, at the rink where calls for change at the top of the organisation overseeing hockey in Canada are reaching a crescendo. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Calls for change of leadership at Hockey Canada

Guests: Brenda Andress, Katie Strang

SOUNDCLIP

I think that the decision that Hockey Quebec took shows that reform are being engaged. It also sends the message to the leaders of the organisation that are holding on to their jobs that Hockey Canada doesn't belong to them, it also belongs to their members. And they want change. They want a change of culture and they want the fight against sexual violence.

MG: That's Pascale St. Onge At home. The Federal Sports Minister speaking with reporters yesterday. Hockey Quebec says it has lost confidence in Hockey Canada and will not be transferring funds to the organisation going forward. The Ontario Hockey Federation has also told Hockey Canada it does not want those fees collected this year. This comes after months of controversy surrounding what the governing body knew and allegedly did to settle multiple sexual assault claims made against players. On Tuesday, Hockey Canada officials appeared before a parliamentary committee and the interim board chair, Andrea Skinner, had this to say.

SOUNDCLIP

Our board, frankly, does not share the view that senior leadership should be replaced on the basis of what we considered to be substantial misinformation and an unduly cynical attack. You know, I appreciate that others disagree with us, but our positions are based on the information that we have and an understanding that Hockey Canada has an excellent reputation. I do not fault senior management or the board with respect to the way the 2018 sexual assault incident was handled. I believe the appropriate steps were taken. I understand there's criticism with respect to senior management having in place a national equity fund. I'm a parent of two young kids, but I believe it's a responsible risk management practise.

MG: Katie Strang is a senior investigative writer with The Athletic. Katie, good morning.

KATIE STRANG: Good morning.

MG: Thanks for being here. What do you make of hockey? Quebec's move to suspend fees to Hockey Canada this season? It says it has a lack of confidence in the current organisation structure of Hockey Canada.

KATIE STRANG: It's a huge move. It's a really significant development when you you know, you think of Hockey Canada as this sort of cultural and sporting behemoth as a national sports organisation and an umbrella organisation that provides, you know, oversight, governance, education, training and most importantly, insurance to these member associations. For one of those member associations to essentially sever ties from its parent organisation is an incredibly significant move and one that I think was a harbinger of other things to come yesterday. We've seen some corporate sponsors follow suit in, you know, severing their relationship with Hockey Canada. And I think it shows that at this point any, you know, institutions, associations, corporate sponsors that have a relationship with Hockey Canada are really seriously reflecting on whether that association is advantageous or deleterious at this point. And I think they're finding it to be the latter.

MG: You mentioned the sponsors, Tim Hortons. Scotiabank pulled sponsorship yesterday. Tim Hortons said: "We are deeply disappointed in the lack of progress that Hockey Canada has made to date". This morning. Tell us. Followed suit. I mean, financially, this is a blow. But as you say, symbolically, this is something else. Right.

KATIE STRANG: Absolutely. I mean, some of these brands, particularly Tim Hortons, Scotiabank, you know, they're not just important financial partner, but as you said, they're sort of culturally interwoven with this organisation. And so from a symbolic point of view, I think it really shows that, you know, Canadian communities and Canadian corporations have a much different feeling about Hockey Canada and how it has handled this entire scandal than Hockey Canada itself views the issue internally.

MG: What did you make of the tone that Andrea Skinner, the interim board chair of Hockey Canada, took when she appeared in front of a parliamentary committee? She talked and we just heard that little clip there of unduly cynical attacks by the media and misinformation. What did you make of the tone that she took?

KATIE STRANG: I was absolutely baffled. I told a lot of people that I was expecting this round of hearings to be relatively sedate. So for them to approach those hearings and come out in such a defiant way. They were really aggressively deflecting questions. They were deflecting. You know, accountability and calls for transparency. And they were blaming others, you know. During that clip, you you heard her talk about misinformation and unduly cynical attacks. And there really seems to be a lack of reflection about why people are so upset about not just, you know, the 2018 allegations themselves, but the way in which Hockey Canada has responded. So I was shocked that they took such a defensive and aggressive posture and that there is such a dearth of introspection about the matter.

MG: There have been calls for months for senior leadership at Hockey Canada to be replaced and when asked by MPs if those still in those leadership positions should resign, Andrew Skinner had this to say.

SOUNDCLIP

I think that there is a significant risk to the organisation if all of the board resigns and all of senior leadership is no longer there. I think that will be very impactful in a negative way to our boys and girls who are playing hockey while the lights stay on on the rink. I don't know. We can't we can't we can't predict that. And to me, that's not a risk worth taking. And that's why I stepped into this role.

MG: Will the lights stay on in the rink? The suggestion is that hockey in Canada would stop if the senior leadership at Hockey Canada were to be dismissed. What do you make of that?

KATIE STRANG: I found that statement to be absurd, and I think it can go to a lot of people, and rightfully so, in what I think it also reveals is this level of institutional arrogance. You know, I think anyone involved in hockey will tell you. I mean, ask any hockey parent, ask any coach or official, you know, and I suppose or, you know, I'm an American. So. National governing bodies like Hockey Canada or USA hockey, they're bolstered by the tireless work of volunteers, parents, members. Those are the people at the grassroots level. And I should also say, you know, staff members at Hockey Canada that aren't in the C-suite, that aren't at the executive level, who grind day in and day out with very little pay and very little time off, but really feel committed to, you know, the purported core mission of these organisations. Those are the people who buoy these efforts, you know, to to keep hockey going in our communities. So I think for, you know, an executive, a chair, just to suggest that that could be in jeopardy because who is in power at a very remote level just really shows a level of institutional hubris that, you know, we have seen consistently from this organisation.

MG: Well, I mean, we've seen I mean, there have been internal board minutes that have revealed that hearings within Hockey Canada tried to shift the narrative that they wanted to try to, you know, present a different perspective on what's going on. They've hired crisis management firm Navigator to help do that. When you take a look at what's going on and it's not just the testimony that's been delivered, but the overall picture, how committed do you think Hockey Canada is to look inside, to look within its own organisation and find out what's wrong and figure out how to correct that?

KATIE STRANG: I don't think they are, you know, take an internal look and trying to truly assess what's wrong to me. And you mentioned, you know, this what seems to be a very aggressive push to, you know, counter to the narratives that are out there already and whether that's at the behest of navigator or senior leadership, I don't know. But when you look at that effort, I think it, you know, shows that, you know, there seems to be a lack of reflection, a lack of contrition and truly even a lack of acknowledgement of why they're in this spot in the first place. You know, I think amp Anthony her father's that advice that you know, there just really seemed to be a fundamental disconnect between how Hockey Canada views itself and its in its strength and abilities as an organisation to handle something like this in the general public's.

MG: Well, what are you hearing from those who are involved in grassroots level hockey at this point in the crisis that the hockey parents who are at the rink now and have been at the rink for the last couple of hours, the people who who play this game, who love this game. What are you hearing from them about this?

KATIE STRANG: I think there's deep disappointment. I think there's frustration and I think there's anger because I don't think that the wishes of, you know, the average everyday hockey family are really being considered and reflected in a lot of these decisions at the top. And, you know, the the will the lights stay on at the rinks comment really reverberated in a very significant way because I think for all the people who, you know, get up at five, 5:00 a.m. to drive their kids to the rink and spend a ton of money on travel and, you know, sacrifice a lot, I just think that they feel like they're being overlooked and that, you know, this is a situation where Hockey Canada seems to really be taking us against the world mentality and dropping the gloves and wanting to be seen as, you know, coming out swinging. And I think that's just I don't think that tone and I don't think that posture is being met with, you know, a lot of acceptance or happiness in hockey communities across this country.

MG: Katie, good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

KATIE STRANG: Thank you.

MG: Katie Strang, senior investigative writer with The Athletic. Brenda Andress is the president of She is Sports Network. It was established to leverage the power of women in sport for 12 years. Brenda was a commissioner of the now defunct Canadian Women's Hockey League. Brenda. Good morning to you.

BRENDA ANDRESS: Morning.

MG: In August, you wrote, It is time to, uh, for the individuals who are involved in Hockey Canada to step down. It is time for them to do the right thing for our sport. How would you? That was in August. It's now October. How would you characterise the testimony that we heard on Tuesday from Hockey Canada's leadership?

KATIE STRANG: I think that testimony now is hurting Hockey Canada and all hockey across Canada because it's doesn't make any sense, I think, to any of us out here to drag this on. You know, we've heard many people support change at the top level. And I think it's time to acknowledge that there was misappropriation or mis handling of the situation and just step down. I mean, CEOs across our world have had to step down and businesses still continue to work and boards have had to, you know, dismantle and re put everybody back together and corporations still work. So I think it's time to take responsibility and do what's right for the 90% of all the individuals involved in hockey who said nothing to do with this.

MG: So when you hear the interim CEO or chair of the board, pardon me, say that, you know, if that leadership were to be dismissed, the lights might not stay on at the rink. What goes through your mind?

KATIE STRANG: I think that if the volunteers and all the people who play hockey left, the lights wouldn't go on. But lights will go on because of the phenomenal people who currently or all the grassroots programmes that are running on our hockey at that lower level. And I think that, you know, I don't know anybody out there that has top leadership that would say, oh my God, if we lost this person, the whole place falls apart. I mean, we've seen that happen over and over again where top CEOs move on. So I think it's it's a I think it's time that they do what's right. They need a new vision. They need, you know, their house to be cleaned and to do what's right for all the young kids out there that love this game.

MG: We have heard a couple of times what the interim board chair, Andrea Skinner, said at Tuesday's hearing. I want to play one more bit of that and this is Andrea Skinner replying to MP Lisa Heffernan's question about toxic violence within Hockey. Take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

I do know and when I referred to scapegoating and in my opening statement, you know what I see when I talk about that? I talk about sexual assault and the way we treat women as being a societal problem. Just last week, there were two news stories about politicians who have been who have had allegations of sexual assault thrown at them. So I think we need to just that. I think we need to not just sit back and condemn hockey, but take a broader view of this and say, how can we fix this in every sport and everywhere?

MG: What do you make of that response?

KATIE STRANG: Well, I mean, there's no doubt about a response is correct. I mean, it's everywhere. And I think that's what part of the committee is saying. We're not going to stop at Hockey Canada. We're going to bring in, you know, gymnastics, we're going to bring in sledge bobsledding, we're going to bring in the other things. But you can't point a finger at somebody else to say, Yeah, I know we're doing it, but so is somebody else. It's like, I think the bottom line is, I think if you go back to what I have always stated from the beginning when I have my conversations, is, is that, yes, we know. And in June, Hockey Canada stood in front of the Parliament Committee and they specifically said that they settled the claim without fully investigating, and they also didn't require the players to cooperate. Well, in my opinion, no matter what they did at that particular time, they should have at that time said, hey, is these the players that we want representing Hockey Canada and are these players the ones that we want no matter what happened? Because we don't know what actually happened, but even no matter what that behaviour do, is that the type of people that we want to represent Hockey Canada, to represent Canada with wearing our flag are those those people and at that particular time that policy should have been put in place. And I don't think saying pointing the finger and saying, yes, I did it, but they did it too, it's more like, no, I'm here and I need to make a difference that that helps not just women, but helps men and boys understand what's appropriate and what's not appropriate to represent something that others would so much love to do and don't get a chance to do.

MG: It's a question as well about Andrea Skinner herself. The Federal Sports Minister, Pascal Santos, said yesterday that Andrea Skinner is being used as a scapegoat to be the face of an old boys club. Do you think that's a fair characterisation?

KATIE STRANG: You know, it's so funny because as a woman, I fought my whole life for women's voice, to be heard in people, to be put in the right place at the right time. And and I know Skinner in roughed with her and she's brilliant in and I'm sure she went there to make a positive change as an agent that wanted to make a difference. And I just find it funny at this particular time, to be honest with you, is, is that Andrea has been there. You've never heard of her, be the chair and then, you know, she's put in the chair right now. And, you know, as a lawyer and as a person representing it, she's in a courtroom. Did she answer the questions, you know, that like any lawyer protecting their their clients, she did. Right. She she made sure that that her answers were appropriate as a lawyer, that, you know, basically, I'm not going to say when guilty. I'm not going to say we're at fault. Well, you know, I think the unfortunate part in the world will see this is that here's a woman that they put into place. Totally, totally. I want to say this again, is knowledgeable, has the skills and everything else, but did they have to do it at this particular time to put Andrea in there so that, you know, they see a woman representing this woman kind of. And it's not just about women. This fun, was it just for women? It was you know, it was for men as well. And so I think it's it I think the timing is unfortunate because so many strong women can hold those positions and so many strong women can make a difference. And I think it's unfortunate that Andrea is in that position at this particular time.

MG: Just in the last couple of minutes that we have. What should happen now? You have politicians from the prime minister on down saying they've lost confidence in the leadership of Hockey Canada. You have major sponsors who say the same thing. You have provincial sports organisations in Quebec saying they don't have confidence in the leadership of Hockey Canada and they're going to withhold their fees. So what should happen now?

KATIE STRANG: I think two things should happen at the UN. There's a board of directors meeting in November 18th, 19th in Ottawa and new members can be nominated onto that board. We the we the people that have those opportunities to change that board at that particular time need to step up to the plate and change that board in November and make sure that the people they put on that board has what is best for hockey moving forward with a new vision. I think the second thing that has to happen is we've heard loud and clear from Hockey Canada a couple of times now going to the committee that this is their stance, this is their position. And so for me, it's like, okay, take the 14 million that you gave to them in 2020 to 2021 and distribute that money into women's programmes that are currently running hockey programmes for women, that are other programmes that are, you know, supporting women in sports and reallocate that money immediately and set of criteria that says in the future, anybody coming forward that wants money from Sport, Canada or government has to meet this criteria and no ifs, ands or buts because we as women, I myself over my 12 years apply applied over and over again and the criteria was massive for me to meet. And so I think it's time that all sports organisations, Hockey Canada being in the forefront now because they're on the hot seat, stop the money, give it to women's programmes that that can make a difference in women's programmes and instead of criteria that they have to follow like the rest of us.

MG: And that that's within the purview of the federal government to do that within sports Canada.

KATIE STRANG: [Unintelligible] If you allocate money, you get the right to see where it goes.

MG: Brenda will be watching. It's good to talk to you as always. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Brenda Andress is the president of she is sports network and the former commissioner of the now defunct Canadian Women's Hockey League. Your CBC News is next.

SOUNDCLIP

And then by monitoring every day, it gives an idea of what our population levels are doing. What species do we have to look at more in depth? What? Where are the problems? Why are they declining? What can we do to ameliorate that?

MG: Where have the birds gone? Researchers are sounding the alarm on bird population decline. Why is this happening? What can be done to save species from vanishing? That's coming up in 6 minutes. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

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Researchers warn world’s bird populations are in steep decline

Guests: Lucy Haskell, Nicky Koper

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

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MG: Still to come, the real life women who have risen to the top of the Italian mafia. But first, where have all the birds gone?

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SOUNDCLIP

That one, the duct. That there was the downy woodpecker calling. That the song Sparrow doing its thing.

MG: It's not even 7:00 a.m.. And already Brian Pomfret is walking the trails of Ruthven Park, a conservation area in southern Ontario. Brian is listening for birds and he's dressed the part with a Tilley hat and rubber boots for mornings a week. He's here banding and counting birds during the fall migration.

SOUNDCLIP

Oh, here we are. First net. We've got somebody. Yeah. This little guy is a Ruby crowned kinglet with a little olive green bird with white eye ring. So they come flying along. It's a fine nylon mesh. The birds hit it on those shelf strings, so they hit it and form a little pocket and get tangled in. So I'm just putting in one of our bags. This is a great way to carry them as we can get them instructions to go to the banding station, but they never follow them. This is our tested titmouse. This is somebody I've told you about. Okay. They've got a lot to say, particularly tech wise. They're a relative of the chickadee. They're just a bigger, louder version. You know, it's just a matter of getting it from around the foot. Well, it's critiquing my technique.

MG: Once the birds are safely in their cloth bags, Brian makes his way back to the banding shed. It is a small wooden cabin where he records the birds, weight, species and band number. And the same is being done by citizen scientists right around the world.

SOUNDCLIP

So sometimes it's a mystery as to what's in the bag. I've forgotten what we caught. But this is one of our yellow orders. It's the Myrtle Warbler race. It's a band size zero. Usually we read the last two numbers just to confirm it is the right band. Six zero.

MG: The data they gather is used to track bird populations globally, and the findings do not look good. North America has 3 billion fewer birds than just 50 years ago. 49% of bird populations globally are in decline. Brian works closely with Carolyn Bennett. She is a longtime volunteer and an avid birder.

SOUNDCLIP

Splitting up in the tree. So I thought I would. Sometimes they're very- you see them fly, but then when they actually land, they're behind leaves.

MG: She has a camera with a telephoto lens around her neck and a pair of binoculars in her hands. And she's heading onto the trails to do the daily census.

SOUNDCLIP

It's a nice, quiet morning, so we'll be able to see them moving in the leaves and then I will try and identify them. I do a count, at least a general count in my head on how many I'm seeing, so that I can we get a rough estimate of how many birds are here. Sometimes I actually don't see them, but I'll identify their call, so I'll be able to count them. So that's a nuthatch here at clicking as well. So that's a cardinal. So sometimes what will happen is you will be walking along and there'll be nothing really quiet. And then all of a sudden there would be this large flock of birds. And it'll just be overwhelming and difficult to identify them all because they're all sitting around in the trees and there's so many of them. It's very exhilarating. It's a wonderful feeling. You know, anyone who birds knows that feeling. It's just... And to see something different and unusual is always, always very exciting. Chilly. It's funny. When I hear chickadees, I often look to see where they are because they are other birds like chickadees. So they hang out with them. So the Warblers come with them. The nights come with them. The sparrows, they all like to hang with them. There's just something about the chicken. You there? You know the life of the party, I guess. There's a lot of people out there that are birding now, and I think they've taken up this hobby, which is wonderful, because they've got more of a appreciation for even just nature itself. When people start to recognise how important nature is, that's going to make a big difference in the world. And conservation people are going to think twice before they use a pesticide or before they, you know, take a tree down. These things that affect so much more than we really understand.

MG: Carolyn has the right idea. A new report from BirdLife International is sounding the alarm on bird health with populations in steep decline. But the report also suggests a love of nature is key to preserving those birds. Lucy Haskell is a science officer with the research group and lead author of the report. Lucy, Hello.

LUCY HASKELL: Hi, Matt. Thank you for having me.

MG: Thanks for being here. You spent the last four years going over data collected by people like Brian and Carolyn to try to figure out the health of the global bird population. What have you learnt?

LUCY HASKELL: Absolutely. So we we use our own data on all species and the most important sites for that conservation alongside the wider scientific literature. And we use that to provide insights into the conservation status of the world's birds, the pressures they face, the solutions needed to protect them. And unfortunately, these data present a deeply concerning picture. So nearly half of the world's bird species are in decline, while only six per cent are increasing. And unfortunately, these declines mean that one in eight of the world's bird species is now at risk of extinction. And the risk of extinction is gradually escalating. So more species are deteriorating in status than are improving in status. And that means that we're likely to lose many more bird species over the coming decades if we don't take action soon.

MG: I was just going to say, have those numbers increased? Are you seeing an escalation in, what, 49% of the bird species in decline? Or are you seeing that number go up year by year by year?

LUCY HASKELL: Absolutely, we are. This is you know, we publish these reports every four years, and this is the greatest proportion of species in decline that we've seen. So it's quite clear that the situation is worsening, unfortunately.

MG: Why is this the case? What is causing the decline in the bird population?

LUCY HASKELL: Yes. So birds sort of tell us about the pressures that are driving this current biodiversity crisis, which obviously is affecting not just birds, but that all other wildlife. And these drivers are many and they're diverse. But one thing that they pretty much all have in common is that they're ultimately caused by us, by humans. So the most important pressures that we identified included the expansion and intensification of agriculture — that affects about three quarters of all globally threatened bird species. Unsustainable logging and forest management. So every year we lose about 7 million hectares of forest. And that impacts about half of all globally threatened birds. Invasive species, so things like cats and rats. In Canada alone, it's estimated that up to 350 million birds are killed by cats every single year. Wow. Hunting and trapping is another big issue. So birds are hunted around the world for pets, for food, for use in traditional medicine, for sport. And of course, climate change is rapidly becoming one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity and is likely to pose even greater challenges in the future.

MG: Can I just go back to the cat thing for a second? That seems like a huge number. I mean, these are, you know, I don't have a cat, but if I had a cat and the cat was in the backyard and that's that's part of the the factors that are contributing to the decline in bird populations.

LUCY HASKELL: Yeah. I mean, these numbers are staggering when you think of these hundreds of millions of birds that are being lost. I think it should be said that Pet cats are often not the main issue. It's the feral cat population that is is the biggest issue. So something that all cat owners can do to help is have your cat neutered so we don't have this issue of feral cats, but invasive species like cats have been the biggest driver of bird extinctions to date. So they are a significant cause of bird mortality, unfortunately.

MG: Where are we seeing this? Where bird populations suffering the most?

LUCY HASKELL: The birds are in decline all over the world. Everywhere we look, the trends are negative, unfortunately. There are there are some places. So in the tropics, we often tend to see quite a high proportion of threatened birds. But these declines are happening everywhere. You know, it's it's a real global problem.

MG: Are there specific species? And again, with those huge numbers, are you talking about 49% of the bird species in decline? But when you look at that, are there one species to you that stand out?

LUCY HASKELL: Yeah, absolutely. There are there are sort of groups of species that are struggling more than others. So insect eating birds, for example, are really struggling around the world. And that's as a result of increased use of pesticides mostly. So that's really reducing the insect population in general. Birds that are associated with farmland are really struggling and that's because of this intensification of our farming practises. So things like increased mechanization, increased use of agro-chemicals and conversion of farmland to cropland that's causing drastic declines in farmland birds right around the world.

MG: This is a story about the birds being in decline. But people have said that I mean, the phrase is the canary in the coal mine. Right. I mean, that you're looking at something that's much larger than this. Why do we need to pay attention to bird health and bird populations?

LUCY HASKELL: Absolutely so. Birds can act as biodiversity indicators. So they sort of act as a barometer for the overall health of our planet. And there are several sort of characteristics that allow them to do that so that they're really widespread. They're extremely well studied and well monitored, and they're responsive to changes in their environment. So we have this wealth of information about bird populations that we can use to infer things about the health of nature more widely. And of course, we should all care about the natural world because it's essential for sustaining all life on earth, including our own. You know, functioning ecosystems are vital for providing ecosystem services without which we would really struggle to survive. So it's in all of our interests to keep our natural world healthy.

MG: And so what should we be doing now? I mean, people are alarmed by the numbers that you're saying and what is in the report. So what has to happen now?

LUCY HASKELL: So yeah, it is very alarming the situation we find ourselves in. But thankfully, birds also point the way to the solutions needed to tackle this crisis. So one of the most important solutions is to effectively conserve, manage and restore the most critical sites for birds and biodiversity. Of course, by protecting these sites, we don't only protect the species within them, but also the ecosystems they're part of and the ecosystem services they provide. We also need to tackle threats directly, for example, by controlling these invasive species, cracking down on illegal hunting of birds, things like that. For those bird species that are already on the brink of extinction, we need to really target recovery efforts. So using things like captive breeding programmes and supplementary feeding, but underpinning all of those efforts, we really need to mainstream the values of biodiversity across society. So we need to make sure that nature is fully incorporated into policy and planning processes and that everyone, young and old, is educated about the importance of conserving the natural world.

MG: One of the things that and we've talked about this on the programme that we saw over the course of the pandemic, people stuck at home, perhaps more than in past, is that there are a lot of people who got more into watching birds that that they suddenly noticed birds in a different way because life slowed down and they were able to notice things, perhaps, that otherwise might fly by. How does that change people's relationship with these species, but also then their sense of an obligation to try to protect those species.

LUCY HASKELL: Yeah, absolutely. I think the pandemic did bring us all closer to nature, and I think that's fantastic. I think one of the great things about birds is how engaging they are and also how they are just everywhere. Everyone has birds in their backyard and it doesn't matter whether you live in the middle of a city, there will still be birds in your garden. So birds are really accessible way to get people interested in nature. And I think that interest is is what we really need to spark, you know, this transformative change that is needed. The more people that care about nature, the more people will hold their governments accountable. A lot of these changes ultimately need to come from government, but we as individuals can do things as well to make that happen. And we need to hold our governments accountable to make sure that at the end of this year there will be committing to ambitious biodiversity targets for the next ten years. And it's crucial that we as individuals hold our government accountable to make sure that they stick to those targets and they turn those commitments into substantive action.

MG: Those commitments, ideally, are going to come out of a U.N. conference on biodiversity that's being held in Montreal in December. What specifically do you want to see coming out of that conference that will help protect the birds that we've been talking about?

LUCY HASKELL: So the governments will be meeting in Montreal at COP15 in December this year. They will be committing to a global biodiversity framework for the next ten years, up to 2030. And what we want to see is that those targets are ambitious. You know, we need to make really big changes there. But they've committed to ambitious targets before and nothing has happened. So I think what we need to see this time is that they have measures in place to make sure that they can track progress towards those targets. And these targets need to be very specific. They need to be achievable. They need to be time bound, and they need to make sure that they have these measures in place to track progress towards those targets. So we know whether or not each nation has actually reached the targets that they said they would.

MG: And if we don't if we don't take meaningful action, what is the thing that you worry about the most?

LUCY HASKELL: You know, we've really reached a tipping or a turning point now. I think we have to take action now. Nature is in real trouble. And I think we we are rapidly running out of time to solve this biodiversity crisis. I dread to think what will happen if if we don't manage to do it this time around. But it certainly won't be good.

MG: Lucy, thank you very much. Lucy Haskell is a science officer with BirdLife International. She was in Cambridge, England, where you may be seeing fewer king lets in warblers in your backyard, perhaps at the feeder or off the side of your patio. Because here in Canada, bird populations are facing similar threats. Nicky Koper is a professor at the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Manitoba. She also runs a lab focussed on bird conservation biology. Nicky, good morning to you.

NICKY KOPER: Good morning.

MG: How much of what we're hearing from Lucy Haskell alarming news about global bird populations is being reflected in your own research in this country.

NICKY KOPER: These results are completely consistent with our own results, but also results from many other researchers from all over the world. So in no way are they a surprise. I am very glad to see that information reflected in a report that will be read very widely and outside of conservation biologists so that hopefully we can do something significant to make changes to this.

MG: Is that important? I mean, outside of conservation biologist that this is widespread, that people the average person who, as we're saying, sees birds in their backyard, is aware of what's going on more broadly, that that's key to turning this around.

NICKY KOPER: Yeah, it can completely key. I mean, I have folks who are, you know, coming up and asking me whether there's a problem with birds and where the birds are. And I think that the declines that we're seeing, including in Canada, are so significant that we're supposed that we're actually able to see them within our lifetime.

MG: What are the birds that are most at threat here in this country?

NICKY KOPER: There are so many. We have The most at-risk species tend to be those that are in grassland habitats. So those are also areas that are heavily influenced by agriculture. And also a group of species we call aerial insectivores, which are birds that eat insects that are flying in flight. And we have tremendous declines in both both those groups, but we see declines absolutely across the board and all across Canada. So half of the species we have in our boreal forest are declining. Three quarters of the species that we have in our Arctic are declining. Three quarters of species in our grasslands are declining. So there's really no area that is free from this problem.

MG: You mentioned agriculture. What are the other stressors on those bird populations?

NICKY KOPER: Habitat loss is the most important stressor across the board in Canada, and agricultural intensification has been an ongoing issue for many species. But that also means we can do something about it and that there is solutions to be found in conserving more species. If we are able to help support and compensate producers for using biodiversity friendly practises.

MG: What does that mean?

NICKY KOPER: Yes, we do know that organic approaches to agriculture and leaving some natural habitat in agricultural landscapes are both things that can be very effective in in conserving more wildlife, which includes birds, but also includes species such as insects. And all of those are groups of species that are contributing significantly to our well-being as humans that share these landscapes.

MG: What about and this is something that Lucy raised as well, the issue of a changing climate. How is that in this country specifically affecting those bird populations?

NICKY KOPER: So I think that the changing climate will be a risk to our species in the future, and we absolutely need to deal with it in order to avoid disaster for ourselves. However, interestingly, it's actually a very small indicator or it's very lightly linked with all of the changes that we've seen out of the birds up to this point. So what that tells us is that the meat, the main cause of all of these declines we're seeing in birds is not climate change, but it will be in the future. So we are simply going to add climate change to problems that birds are facing that have already caused an ecological disaster. So what are the consequences of adding one more tremendous stressor on top of those? I, I can't even predict how serious the problems are going to be.

MG: And so just finally, as we mentioned, Montreal is going to play host to this conference looking at biodiversity. Just what specifically do you want to see from the federal government, our federal government coming out of that conference?

NICKY KOPER: The federal government, I think, has been very proactive in aiming towards protecting 30% of our land in water by 2030. And they have made a significant effort and working towards that. We are quite far behind achieving that goal and so the only option is to ramp up further in our efforts in terms of conserving, trying to conserve habitat. And an important way that we can contribute to that is by supporting Indigenous protected and conserved areas. So we know from other research that habitat managed by Indigenous communities tends to have more species and higher biodiversity than other lands. And so it can be an extremely important way to achieve the goals that we're we've set in terms of both conserving land and also conserving biodiversity.

MG: Nicky, good to talk to you about this. Thank you very much.

NICKY KOPER: Thank you.

MG: Nicky Koper, a professor at the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Manitoba.

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MG: Paul knows redwing blackbirds on the move right now as well. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. We're back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

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The mafia women who left a bloody mark on organized crime

Guest: Barbie Nadeau

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Tomorrow on the programme, my conversation with Tara McGuire. In 2015, her son Holden died from toxic drugs. He was 21 years old. And in dealing with her grief. Tara began writing a book and through that process, she started questioning her own belief systems.

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I think the wondering what if is a very common part of a grieving process and to question all of those intersections that could possibly have been different. I think anybody who's lost someone in what's called an out of sequence death, you know, like our parents should die before us if everything goes well. But with these out of sequence deaths, we really start to question. At least I did my belief system and what my role was as a parent, how I could have maybe pre-empted some of this. And then I realised that maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. Maybe if I was here, the same thing would have happened. He was an independent adult, living his own life and making his own decisions, and I honestly don't know what impact I would have had, but I, I felt I needed to explore all of those possibilities just in order to process them all for myself. And I think because that's such a common experience, perhaps other people could relate.

MG: It's an incredibly powerful book, and you can hear that full conversation with Tara McGuire tomorrow. You're listening to The Current. I'm Matt Galloway.

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MG: In the dramatic closing scene of the 1958 Italian film La Sfida, a young woman named Assunta cries over the body of her murdered husband, shot after he tried to gain control of the local mafia operation. It was a story ripped from the headlines based on the killing of a man named Pasquale Simonetti. In real life, Assunta, nicknamed Pupetta, or little doll, was six months pregnant at the time. But that did not stop her from avenging her husband's death, riddling the man responsible with dozens of bullets in broad daylight. That act of vengeance made Pupetta Maresca a legend, and she went on to become the first female boss in Italy's powerful Camorra mafia clan. Her story is the centrepiece of a new book by the American journalist Barbie Nadeau. The book is called The Godmother: Murder, Vengeance and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women. Barbie, good morning.

BARBIE NADEAU: Good morning to you.

MG: Tell me who Pupetta was. We gave you a kind of little sketch there, and you get a real sense of her from this book as a force of nature. And then some. But who was she?

BARBIE NADEAU: You know, I think Pupetta was many people over her very long life. You know, in her later years, she was a grandmother. She was a kind woman. If a murderous can be a kind woman. She was sort of sweet. She had. She was in peace. That's how she died. In the beginning of her life, though, she was absolutely a force to be reckoned with. She was a woman that in the 1950s in Italy, didn't want her her fate to be decided by by by men, essentially. You know, in the 1950s, when she killed the man who ordered the murder of her husband. She did something no other woman would have ever thought she could do at that era in Italian history.

MG: Why did you want to tell her story?

BARBIE NADEAU: Because I think her stories is fascinating. When you when you look at the whole picture of the mafia organised crime in Italy and the mafia so many times the story is told through the through the optics of a of a man. You know, there are most of the most of the people who've research the mafia and organised crime are men. Most of the main characters, even in fiction, are men. But in reality, a, women are very, very strong force within these organised crime syndicates. And I really feel, and I felt in doing this book that, that it's time that the women's stories are told as well. They're very much as important as the men are in crime.

MG: You spend most of your time in Rome. What is the place of the mafia in society, in Italian society right now?

BARBIE NADEAU: It's part of the DNA of Italian society. And a lot of people outside Italy would say that's not true. A lot of Italian say a lot of Italian Canadians are Italian. Americans will say, no, no, no, the wife doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't exist the way it existed in the 1940s, fifties and sixties, that's for sure. It's a lot less bloody, but it is. It has infiltrated almost every single sector of society, whether that's local governments, national governments, it's infiltrated construction entity, the garbage collection entity, the health care entity. We saw a great influence of organised crime during the pandemic and especially seeing it now as Italy tries to recreate its economy after the pandemic. It's very much part of society and it is very, very bad for Italian society.

MG: You say every single Italian has rubbed shoulders with somebody who is in organised crime?

BARBIE NADEAU: Absolutely. There's absolutely no doubt my kids went to a private school, English school in Rome and there were two two children of of men who were in prison for mafia crimes. And I will never forget when when the teachers were saying, oh, okay, it's important we don't talk about this. Nobody bring it up. Don't bring in newspapers as if to protect those children of the Mafiosi, as if it was somehow normal and it is normalised. In so many sectors of society, it's people will just say, well, that's the you know, that's the that's just the mafia. That's just their influence. And it begs the question, especially to an outsiders, why that a lot why is that allowed to continue as so strongly as it is?

MG: Well, you say and I want to get back to to the women in the Mafia, but you say in some ways that it exists, not in spite of the country, but because of the country's failings in some ways.

BARBIE NADEAU: That's right. You know, you look at the Italian political system, we've got a government that didn't last more than a year and a half. You know, you don't have a lot of stability in politics here when you think the government keeps changing hands. And with that, every ministry changes hands. You don't have the stability that it would take to to, you know, put laws in place and policies in place that would really work to fight organised crime. I think that is one of the main issues is just the chaos of the political system in the country. But you also have a mentality in Italy. You know, it's a beautiful place and I love it. I lived there for 25 years. It's one amazing place to work as a journalist and to live as a is. It raised my family and all of these things. But there's some aspect of Italian society that is. Is it about these things, the complacent about corruption in the government, complacent about political instability, but also complacent about organised crime?

MG: Typically, what has the idea been about the role of women in the Mafia?

BARBIE NADEAU: Well, certainly early on, I think in the patriarchal society that Italy remains, a lot of law enforcement just didn't think women were smart enough or evil enough to be part of organised crime syndicates. They didn't think they could at all be educated enough to do the money laundering or evil enough to order the murders or carry out the murders. And we've seen, especially through a number of turncoats, these are people who testify against the various clans of the organisations, just how powerful these women have been and how they've been allowed to fly under the radar because no one took them seriously. We see that in the legal society as well, but not to the extent we've seen it in organised crime syndicates. They really literally got away with murder because no one thought that they would be the ones to commit murder.

MG: And so we started by talking about, you know, Perpetua avenging her husband's death, broad daylight, shooting the man down that she held responsible. What did that do in that context that you just described to sort of establish her legend?

BARBIE NADEAU: Well, I mean, one thing and she told me this and she she just tell other people in in Italy, this as well is that she was worried because this man, the man her husband, who her newly newly married husband, was a very important up and comer within his clan. She knew that if someone would avenge his death, there would be a vendetta carried out for the murder of Pasquale. And she wanted to make sure that she wasn't the trophy, literally the trophy wife that it was awarded to, whoever it was that carried out that vendetta. She didn't want that for herself. She wanted to decide her own fate and write her own narrative. And she knew the only way she could do that is if she carried out the vendetta herself. And I think that speaks to the strength of her character, but it also speaks to the struggle of women who are involved in organised crime. She didn't want someone to be making decisions for her and in the 1950s that was very rare. But that's who she was. And that's in many ways paved the way for a lot of other women to to be empowered. I mean, I would daresay women in the organised crime syndicates are far more empowered than women in Italy's legal legal society. And I think that comes from people like Pupetta who paved the way for them.

MG: What do you mean by that?

BARBIE NADEAU: I think because because Pupetta had the courage to take care of herself instead of letting someone else make the decision for her. Other women who have risen into the top ranks of organised crime syndicates or their own families within the syndicates have all done so because they saw ahead of them. This woman prepared the Maresca and other women. There are other strong women that followed Pupetta who kind of who led the way, who made it possible to even dare think that they could do a man's job. And in Italy, in the Mafia, organised crime is really the the greatest good old boys club there is outside of the Catholic Church. I suppose one might argue in the Italian context and, and to be a woman that has power within that organisation is really something extraordinary when you look at how difficult it is for women to break through in other sectors of the legal society.

MG: I'd heard you say somewhere that if if we put mafia women in the context of banking, for example, they would be celebrated.

BARBIE NADEAU: Oh yeah, for sure. They've cracked through the glass ceiling that exists in a lot of southern Europe, but it really does exist a lot in Italy, in place more than in other places. I've certainly researchers are lived in and these women had they've been born into other circumstances would have been at the top of their field for sure, because they just have what it takes. Now that's not a celebration of organised crime and that's not a celebration of evil, it's a recognition of their courage. You know, women can and men can't leave organised crime syndicates. You leave, they say, in a police car if you turn against your family or in a coffin, if you try to leave in any other way. And so the decision is not ever to stay. The decision is how you're going to live within that world or if you're going to try to have the police take you seriously and get you out of it, which is also a very big challenge. So so the women who are there, you know, they can they can be complacent in their lives. And so many of these women decide they want to be the best. The best at the worst, I guess, is how you'd want to look at it.

MG: What was she like to be with you as you meet? You meet her. You hang out with her, interview her. What was she like?

BARBIE NADEAU: She was a very manipulative woman. She was a liar, but she was kind of sweet. And I and I, I really struggled with how much I liked her, knowing all I knew about her, knowing the lies she even told me. Every time we had an interview, I would go check the facts of what she told me. Go through the criminal dossiers and the various other other things that, you know, accounts of the press, accounts of the time she was speaking and she was lying to me half the time. And that's not forgivable. I think when whenever you interview criminals, you're going to be you know, you're faced with with people who are who are a little bit loose with the truth, let's say. And so, you know, you kind of learn to how to navigate that. But she was super smart, super manipulative, and she wanted people to understand what's what she what we don't understand about organised crime, which to her is kind of it's a Robin Hood scenario where they're helping people, where the state has failed, where they're the ones, the organised crime syndicates are the ones who, who really do the good in the society. You know, they take care of the little guy and her husband who died, he was working for the farmers. He was price fixing fine, but he was working for the farmers after World War Two and Italy was trying to rebuild itself. It's interesting now, after the pandemic and after the economic downturn, how strong these organised crime syndicates are once again helping the little guy.

MG: Why do you think she wanted to talk to you?

BARBIE NADEAU: I think she probably in the beginning didn't want to talk to me because she's talked to a lot of people. She's talked to a lot of Italian journalists. But I was telling her, you know, North Americans, Canadians, Americans don't know anything about her. You know, her legacy is really just written in Italy. And she she was kind of I don't know, she was very egotistical, I would say. And she would time and time again say, oh, make sure you tell him this. Make sure you tell him that. And so I think she she liked the idea that a whole new sector of the world would hear about her, learn about her. You know, Clare Long, who is a British journalist, interviewed her. She was the first English speaking journalist to interview her for her book on Mafia Women in 1995. And I was the last English speaking journalist to interview her right before she died. But no one else outside of the two of us had ever interviewed her other than Italians. And so the interest in this fascinating woman has been, I guess, sporadic, and she sort of liked it.

MG: There are other women that you speak about in the book. And as you mentioned, one of the angles to the stories is, is that once you're in, it's impossible to get out of the mafia. Tell us the story of Deborah Sereny and how she tried to get out.

BARBIE NADEAU: She she tried to get out of the emerging mafia capital in Rome or the Rome, the capital mafia and the powerful Cosa monica family. She had grown up. Her father was a mobster in a smaller entity of of a of a group that ran really ran drugs and things like that for for the camera and for the Cosa Nostra and for the Ndrangheta. And so she married into another crime family. You often see this where one where you grow up in a crime family you'll marry, you'll stay within the criminal sector, let's say. And she married into the Casa monica family. And the women within this family were amongst the most evil women, I think have ever existed. And they had perfected the art of dissolving people in acid in these vats of acid that they kept in the basement of homes and in suburban Rome. And she tried to get out of the family and shoot her. She left and her children stayed. And then she went back and she recalled to me, she's under witness protection. As she recalled to me, like in some of the ways they would threaten her, she remembered the smell of her own hair burning and the acid, and they would burn her hair. And so if you cross the family, it'll be your whole body. It'll be this will be that she she witnessed horrific crimes and she was terrified and she wanted to get out. So she slipped a note to a police officer, to an undercover police officer who had identified herself. And she eventually got out, but her children didn't get out right away. And so she was lured back in and threatened again, beaten sense. I mean, she had scars all over her body from the beatings by women, by the sisters and the aunts of her husband. She eventually got out and she eventually got her kids out. But I don't for one minute think she's going to survive. I think they'll find her and I think they'll probably kill her.

MG: Can I just go back to something that you said earlier, which is vats of acid, and either we're talking like actual vats of acid that are held in people's basements.

BARBIE NADEAU: There are actual vats of acid all over Italy. Surprisingly, the Camorra uses them. The drank water in Calabria uses them, the mafia capital uses them. It's a way to get rid of a body without a trace. And and, you know, I think we're all thinking of something we've seen in a mafia movie. But it's a- I mean, I've seen the police photos of these. It's they're more like bathtubs, I guess, of that of us. It makes you think it's going to be something elegant, but they're more like sort of bathtubs that drain into the the the regular sewage system. So these people, you know, it dissolves completely. A number of children have been killed by the Camorra, the Neapolitan Camorra dissolved in vats of acid. And we know this from turncoats. We know this from people who have testified against the groups because there's no trace when someone's dissolved like that. But if the mafia or organised crime syndicates want to send a message with a death, they'll leave the body if they want to just kill someone, they'll get rid of the body. I mean, there's a very big distinction. When they find a body, it's always because they want that body to be found.

MG: Because there's a reason.

BARBIE NADEAU: Always without exception, there's a reason or a threat or or a payback. Many times it's a payback.

MG: You use the word evil a number of times to describe these women. Why would you, in some ways, it's explained when you're talking about vats of acid and people being dissolved in acid. But why that word in particular?

BARBIE NADEAU: I think because, you know, if you look at male and female criminals as a whole, you've got maybe someone that commits a murder will shoot someone in the chest, see at their heart, shoot them once, shoot them twice, shoot them in the head, make sure they're dead. Why I think these women are so evil is the is the lengths they go to before the murders are carried out or before the threats are made. The sort of vindictive we know how to affect a family. We know that if you threaten a child or hurt a child or or remove the child or kill the child, that's going to have a greater impact on the mother. And the mother's pain is going to have a greater impact on the the family as a whole and so on and so forth. And I think the word evil is the only word I can think of that even begins to touch the level of of horrific detail in which these women plot out their crimes and their murders especially, and the tortures and things like that. There was a woman whose story I tell in the book who was running a drug syndicate, and they were not cutting the they were cutting the drugs. They were giving sort of heroin that was too strong. And she wanted to make sure that they didn't kill their clientele off. And so the her runners or drug runners were not following the rules. They were just selling as much as they could. And she made them all take the drug and overdosed. The people who betrayed her, she watched them overdose on the bad drugs they were selling to clients. Now, you know, there are other ways to to teach a lesson, but to watch someone die that way and take some sort of joy out of it, I think can only be described as evil.

MG: Tell us about the woman, Nikita.

BARBIE NADEAU: Nikita. She was she was quite a character. And, you know, she had spent years and years as a leader of a bodyguard of a motorcycle gang that was a bodyguard for a Klansman in the camera. And she spent 23 years, I think it was in prison for crimes that she committed on his behalf. Now, she was an interesting woman. Now she's a fisherman, and she works on the docks north of Naples. And I met her there and she wouldn't let me interview her because she doesn't like to give interviews. But I could help her with the fishing nets, which made sure I couldn't take any notes or anything like that. So she's very difficult to quote firsthand because I was working on the fishing nets with her. And she kept saying to me, you know, when I got out of prison, I got out of the group. But, you know, I was disappointed in the way the Camorra was going, so on and so forth. But at the end of the day I came to the realisation that she actually didn't leave. If she would have left, she'd be dead or she'd be under police protection. The fact that she was able to just live and work in the outskirts of one of the most notorious mafia towns in Italy certainly meant that she still had her hands in it. You know, she she was a ruthless she is a ruthless woman who's the number of murders that she committed on the behalf. The men she protected are you know, she has no idea. She can't count that many. The vendetta she carried out on his behalf and the women that she led and that she trained and she was a skilled marksman. And and she you know, she was sort of someone I was thinking, I wish I could have interviewed to the extent I interviewed Cleopatra, because I think her life is really complicated. She was abused as a child. She she was sort of abandoned. And that's how she fell into this this job as a as a heading the motorcycle bodyguards, women, bodyguards for this man.

MG: It's as though I mean, you said when you're talking to Pupetta that she's evil, but she's also a liar. But she's kind of sweet as well. I mean, sort of like some of these people that you're profiling. Is that fair to say?

BARBIE NADEAU: I think. I see. Well, yeah, I suppose that's fair to say. I appreciated more than I liked them. I appreciated the fact that they had no choice but to be treated to be who they were. They didn't. They couldn't just leave. If I had been born into an organised crime syndicate, I often wondered would I, would I be really good at it like they are, or would I be really bad at it, or would I try to leave or you know, their struggle is something that we outside that world can't possibly understand. And so when you get a glimpse of it, it's very difficult not to see them as human beings, not just as monsters. You know, we see that glamorisation of organised crime and in cinema and television and, and we look at these people as characters and caricatures of some, you know, stereotype. But the reality is there are people who are just stuck in a situation they can't get out of it, make the most of it. And while I don't I don't discount the damage, the untold damage they do to the Italian society and the greater society through the infiltration, through the drug business, to the arms trading, through the corruption. And, you know, you just look at you just look at every earthquake in Italy. Why all the buildings fall is because of the infiltration of organised crime in the construction entity that has allowed them to skirt the regulations that would have made sure that the building didn't fall down. You see all those sorts of things that damage the thousands of people whose lives have been taken and whose livelihoods have been ruined at the hands of the organised crime syndicates cannot be underestimated. But at the same time when you look inside those groups, it's really, really fascinating to see who's making all that trouble.

MG: Just finally, do you in telling a story like this, do you worry about your own safety, anybody? And you talk about this in the book, people who come into contact with the Mafia, if you're a prosecutor, if you're a judge, if you're a journalist, you end up perhaps living in witness protection, armed guards around you or something terrible can happen. Did you worry about your own safety in telling these stories?

BARBIE NADEAU: I worried a couple of times that I had put myself into situations that were probably a little bit dangerous, especially when I was going around with these women who had just come out of prison in Naples. But I didn't name anyone who didn't have a criminal dossier, let's say. And I made very sure that I didn't didn't write about anyone who no one else had known about. And I think a journalist like Roberto Saviano, whose book Gomorrah got him a life sentence essentially, and he lives under witness protection bodyguards and has to move every three nights. He named names. It hadn't been named before, and I didn't do that. And I suppose I wasn't brave enough to do that. But also the people whose who's who have criminal records are interesting as well. And it's also easier to tell their stories because you know for sure there's some level of truth to it because it has been vetted by the judicial system. And so I tried to stay on that side of it. I think as an investigative journalist, the minute you're afraid of what you're doing, you're not going to do a good job. And so it's just, I suppose, naive maybe to not be afraid, but I think there are far more brave people out there telling dangerous stories. I think, you know, these are about women who's who stories have been whose stories are already on the record.

MG: It's a fascinating story. I'm glad to talk to you about it. Thank you very much.

BARBIE NADEAU: Thank you.

MG: Take care. Bye bye.

BARBIE NADEAU: Bye.

MG: Barbie Nadeau's new book is called The Godmother Murder, Vengeance and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women. That is The Current for this Thursday accused. Up next on CBC Radio One, Maya Hawke, actor and musician, daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman will be on the programme in just a moment. Before we go, we'll leave you with some music. In keeping with the theme of powerful and deadly women who have reached the top of the Mafia. This is a cover of a James Brown song by the Italian group Camaleonti. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

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