On 22 July 1990, Domenico Sergi (Little Domenic, from Griffith, remember him?) – representative for Australia; Vincenzo Trento and Anthony Cipriani – representatives for Canada; and Eliseo Lazzarino for Belgium, met in Ardore (Reggio Calabria province). It’s defined as a ‘ndrangheta meeting.

10 August 2009, Apegreen Laundromat, Siderno.

Giuseppe Commisso: Here is a friend who came from Australia, he is from Nardodipace … please come in … compare! He is a friend of mine …

Domenico Antonio Vallelonga: Pleased to meet you, Tony Vallelonga.

Carmelo Muià: Pleasure is mine, Carmelo Muià…

Churches and funerals

‘Are you going to go there just to see a church?’

‘I have to start somewhere, that’s one of the addresses in the arrest warrant at the very least!’

A friend of mine in Toronto was genuinely questioning the rationale of that trip. But … I have to see the places, I need to see the spaces.

It was April 2017 and I was staying in Toronto. It took me pretty much two hours to travel to the site of the church on public transport; I hadn’t rented a car. I wish I had. I wouldn’t have had parking issues anyway, as in front of the St Clare of Assisi Catholic Church, on 150 St Francis Avenue, in Woodbridge, a large suburban community in the city of Vaughan, just north of Toronto, there is no scarcity of parking space. It was windy, just a few days earlier it had snowed in Montreal, and Toronto was ice cold, or at least it was for me, in April … one should feel spring, right? Right. Anyway, I had bought a new pair of snow boots, insulated and furry inside, so I was ready to face what to me was definitely still winter.

Being in Woodbridge at the time was somewhat strange. In fact, I didn’t really know what I was expecting to see. I arrived at a scenic bridge, crossed it and found shopping malls and a variety of commercial venues. The roads became larger the farther behind I left the shopping area. St Clare was a massive, white and brown building that looked very polished and very new. A lot of Woodbridge looks very polished and very new.