QAnon Queen of Canada in the Spotlight
CTV W5 episode gives long overdue attention to the bizarre and frightening conspiracy theory cult that some worry is trying to take over their town
In October of last year I wrote two short pieces asking “Why is the QAnon Queen of Canada allowed to terrorize our towns?” and “How would you respond if a cult with violent fantasies tried to make your town their HQ?” as a caravan of RVs and trucks converged on an abandoned school turned failed weed grow-op in rural Saskatchewan, in the hope of making it the headquarters for what could be reasonably described as a New Age-Sovereign Citizen- Stochastic Terrorism-UFO Cult and Medical Misinformation Grift. At the head of this cult/grift is the self proclaimed Queen of Canada (Or maybe we should spell it Qanada) Romana Didulo. A woman who claims to be an alien light- worker-being from Arcturus, Arcturians being one of the constituent races that make up a Galactic Federation of advanced races with advanced technologies — and clearly advanced scamming and grifting abilities.
Aside from Mack Lamoureux of Vice, few journalists in Canada paid attention to this dark and absurd story until the conflict with the town emerged. Similarly, few academics have paid attention to this fascinating case study involving cult dynamics, conspiracism, social media, medical misinformation and sovereign citizen ideology. The one exception being Dr. Christine Sarteschi, Professor of Social Work and Criminology at Chatham University in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania who is featured in the W5 piece providing her expert opinion. I don’t think they could have chosen anyone more appropriate for the task.
The Didulo saga sits on the fringes of my own PhD dissertation research, which examines how and why people turn to conspiracy theories to oppose government policies relating to land use and planning (So things like the backlash to 15-Minute Cities, paranoias about Smart Cities, UN Agenda21 and Agenda2030 etc.) but I first became aware of Didulo during the height of the covid-19 pandemic as I’m also a public health professional. Her videos threatening to publicly execute me and my public health colleagues grabbed my attention. Now, a few years later I’m grateful to see one of Canada’s largest legacy media institutions, CTV News, devote 45 minutes of in-depth examination to Didulo and her followers which they justifiably describe in the W5 Investigation as a cult. With local residents in Richmound Saskatchewan feeling under siege by the group’s stochastic terrorism threats, creepy cell phone video surveillance, and otherwise erratic and inexplicable actions, one interviewee drew a comparison to David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, who barricaded themselves in a Waco Texas compound and perished in a violent standoff with law enforcement.
Didulo’s arrival has cast a pall over the town, traumatizing residents like an unforeseen crop failure, wildfire, or flood. Interviews in the W5 Episode show people effectively living in a state of shock that what has transpired could happen in their community or to their family members. I remain in shock that it is allowed to continue.
Watching the episode one can’t help but feel it begs further questions about whether our current legal frameworks and law enforcement practices have been able to keep up with the rise of digital misinformation driving populist conspiracy theories behind such phenomena as QAnon or Romana Didulo. Recent court cases in the United States suggest that conspiracist content creators like Alex Jones are starting to be held accountable for the wild and outlandish accusations they make involving families and individuals. Jones’ persistent refrain that children who died in American mass shootings were actually “crisis actors” used to stage “false flag” operations aimed at taking away gun rights caused prolonged mental aguish to the parents and friends who survived them. Yet Romana Didulo continues to cause mental anguish to the 120 or so residents of Richmound Saksatchewn every day as people now draw their curtains and lock their doors with their small town feeling of safety gone. Their children no longer play outside as they are creeped out by Didulo’s devotees taking videos of people non-stop. The Mayor and other residents have received “cease and desist” orders which include threats to execute them and torment their families.
But Didulo’s damage extends far beyond just Richmound.
The trail of ruined lives and estranged families has continued to grow longer as Didulo and her devotees have criss-crossed the country sucking up money (i.e. defrauding people) and adulation from people who think they are going to be cured of serious diseases with her miracle “med beds” or freed of debts and other financial obligations through her various decrees and orders. All of this is detailed in the W5 episode, including accounts from family members breaking down in tears on camera as those they love have turned into strangers, enveloped into the egregore of Didulo’s cult.
The other question the W5 episode raised for me is the connection Didulo has to the Ottawa Trucker Convoy — or “Siege” of Ottawa as the city’s mayor and premier of the province described it — the threads of which connect back to extreme right-wing political networks in Canada and the United States.
Didulo should not be seen as some flash in the pan oddity. She is symptomatic, if not emblematic, of the new forms of political community that also confound typical left-right dichotomies which historically have provided our frames of reference for public discourse. Sometimes engaged in what is described as “diagonalism” or “post-truth politics” or “affective politics” these new political communities are often fundamentally antagonistic towards the institutions of society (For example, Didulo’s followers literally tried to arrest the police in Peterborough Ontario) and unencumbered by any commitments to empirical evidence or societal norms. A more apt description for Didulo, part-spiritual leader, part authoritarian strong-man, comes by way Charlotte Ward and David Voas who in a 2011 paper introduced the term “Conspirituality” to the world — also the name of a popular podcast examining the links between new age, natural wellness, yoga communities, and political extremism, cults, and conspiracist culture which blossomed during the covid-19 pandemic.
As the rhetoric of high profile politicians like Donald Trump, RFK Junior, and even Canada’s own Pierre Poillievre, have come to incorporate conspiracist narratives, Didulo should not be seen as too far removed from those with access to people in power or with influence in government and public discourse. Nor should her extreme claims be seen as anything particularly original, as she draws on long-established tropes and archetypes and narratives found across decades of conspiracy theory and new age literature from figures like David Icke, Räel, Erich von Däniken, Christiane Northrup and more recently the violent and twisted narratives emerging from the dark corners of the internet through 4Chan, 8Chan, and Telegram. Her success is arguably thanks to her ability to package pre-existing content together through the performative and affective qualities of a cult.
I hope W5 devotes a follow-up episode that considers how Didulo sits in this broader network of political actors, agitators, and sovereign citizen dissidents who are straining and abusing American and Canadian institutions while influencing political narratives and agendas. I can’t help but feel that it’s the even bigger story which the examination of Didulo offers an entry point into. We have Richmound Saskatchewan to thank, and to empathize with, in putting Didulo’s sovereign citizen cult and medical misinformation grift along with her clear history of public nuisance and stochastic terrorism under the spotlight.
The question is, as Richmound Saksatchewan residents have exasperatingly asked in the W5 episode, can, or will Canadian law enforcement do anything about it?