Front Burner - What happens when the QAnon ‘Queen’ comes to town?

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

The village of Richmound, Saskatchewan, is struggling to get rid a QAnon cult that moved into a former school in the community. But how do you convince Romana Didulo, the self-styled ‘Queen of the Kingdom of Canada,’ and her followers to hit the road? Mack Lamoureux, a reporter with Vice News, brings us the latest on Didulo’s group, after paying a visit to Richmound. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Damon Farrellis. I address you today as the Kingdom of Canada's Queen and Commander-in-Chief to let you know that I have placed the Kingdom of Canada under military rule. Romana Didolo, a well-known QAnon conspiracy figure, has been on the move across the country with a group of loyal followers since early last year.

The so-called Queen of Canada's road trip started when she left Victoria, B.C. to join the trucker convoy in Ottawa. And she's basically been on the road ever since, getting kicked out of towns along the way. The Queen of the Kingdom of Canada has officially planted the flag in the East Coast. Most recently, Didelo and her followers set up in a small community in Saskatchewan called Richmount. And locals there? They're not happy. Shut her up. Shut it down so that we can go back to our lives and the rest of the people in the world can go back to living a normal life.

Times are difficult enough, as it is, without this. Vice News senior reporter Mack Lamoureux went to Richmount. He's been following D-Lo across the country. So today we're going to take you on that journey and ask, how long can this go on for? Hey, Mack, thanks for coming back on. Thanks so much for having me. Always a pleasure.

I know you've been on the show a couple of times over the past couple of years to tell us about your reporting on Romana D'Lo and her Kingdom of Canada group. But for folks who haven't been following it, can you just let me know who is Romana D'Lo? How did she become the leader of a cult? Yeah, I mean, just to start, she's one of the weirder figures in Canada. So she's kind of a QAnon influencer who's kind of grown to be so much more than that. She is this leader of this little group who believes that she is the true queen of Canada. But on top of that is also somebody who talks with aliens and, um, is from a different dimension. Uh, but the way that she came to prominence is she was kind of like an online conspiracy

theorist. And she was able to organize people that way. And she was able to get a bigger group of people than you would think who believe she is, who she says she is. Right. Who does she say she is exactly? Oh, how much time do you have? Let me try and give you the quick version is essentially she is a spiritual leader that is sent to put our

timeline on the proper one um and she has a group of people who kind of were really deep into the q anon conspiracy and came down this very fringe rabbit hole with her and online. She has a telegram page that has tens of thousands of followers. Um, but I would say probably hundreds across Canada, maybe a few thousands across the greater world because her following is international. And then, you know,

10 to 20 in person. Okay. So, so this is, so she's, she's presenting this persona as the queen of Canada, the, the spiritual emissary of some kind of esoteric philosophy that's a little hard to pin down.

But what do we know about her as a person? So to paint the picture, she's a very small Filipino lady who was an immigrant who came over, I believe, in say around maybe the 70s or the 60s. But other than that, we don't know too much about her background. We know that she kind of presented herself as kind of like a fake entrepreneur. And she kind of would start these corporations and they would close down. But she kind of came on the scene during the last election. So she was threatening executions of people that were facilitating vaccines to children and that sort of thing. At the firing squad, military firing squad, you will receive not one, but two bullets.

And now it's into, it's almost indescribable and it's not coherent. Whenever I tell people what she kind of believes, and I'm sure your listeners are struggling to kind of figure out, parse my words of what it is, you can't rationalize it. It's all over the place. It doesn't make sense. And there's no point in trying because I don't even think it needs to. I think whatever she says her followers are going to believe and it don't even think it needs to. I think whatever she says, her followers are going to believe. And it doesn't matter if it's coherent. Now, she was also detained by the RCMPs.

She had a mental health checkup. Yeah. Okay. So this was the RCMPs National Security Unit, right? Yes. So it was a mental health checkup. What did it involve? Yeah. So this was actually sparked by this thing, which I just kind of touched upon in regards to the threatening violence against people that were facilitating vaccinations for children during the pandemic.

And Damon, I'm going to need you to really go with me here because this is a bizarre little story. I want to hear it. So what she did was she set up this thing called duck hunters and what these duck hunters were were people that she was going to be bringing up from america and people in canada that were going to kind of almost be like i don't want to put words in her mouth but maybe like a special forces like this unit that were going to go out and they were going to hunt um these people that were facilitating vaccines to children during the pandemic and these were people that were posting pictures of their guns and they had created small little groups where they were kind of planning stuff. And following kind of this sort of organizing, she was picked up by the RCMP to do a wellness check.

And she was released and they didn't hold her. But now she uses this wellness check to prove to her audience she's not crazy. Her words, not mine. So then in early 2022, she sets out from Victoria. She heads to Ottawa as part of the trucker convoy and she's basically been touring the country with her followers ever since, right? Yeah.

This was actually a really significant moment for Ditalo and her following because she took this online group and made it offline. So she, seeing the success of the kind of trucker convoy in Ottawa, she rented a bunch of motorhomes and got a bunch of money from her followers

because her followers have been very, very willing to give her money. And she set out and she drove on out there. To imagine that such group of nice looking, highly educated, privileged, trained individuals could have facilitated such atrocities. So after Ottawa, they continue on this kind of epic journey. And I actually want to, I want to start Peterborough, because in the summer of 2022, her followers tried to arrest some police in Peterborough, right? Tell me how that played out.

It played out probably exactly as you think it would. Her followers all got together in a park outside of Peterborough Police Precinct. And then they walked up to it. That's what we're here for. They came to the police station looking for what they say is justice. They had some sort of grievance. I can't remember exactly what it was, but they believed that Romana had a secret army that if they arrested these people,

they would come get them and take them away. And Romana was there in one of her motorhomes, and I believe she came out and she fed everybody sardines. We don't need to get into that. But they went up and they were like pounding on the door of the police precinct who they had just locked it. And we're like calling 911 to get them to come out to be arrested. We could all start to call 911.

And it was this really bizarre scene. But what happened was they kind of went around back behind the police precinct during shift change. And a couple of them actually put hands on some cops. And then you can imagine what happens if you put hands on a police officer. And so a couple of people were arrested and they were charged with assault. And that was the first time that her group had been violent and probably the most extreme thing that they've done. Okay. So then in September 2022, so, so after Peterborough, after Hurricane Fiona sweeps the East Coast, D'Lo and her caravan show up in Cape Breton.

Yeah. And what were they doing there? Well, they were actually just going through Cape Breton. Um, they were doing this kind of weird thing where they were trying to prove that the hurricane didn't exist and that Trudeau was stealing money, um, for the recovery. Uh, but what they were doing is when they pulled into Glace Bay, which is, um, one of the most Northern towns actually in Cape Breton, I traveled there to speak to the residents, um, beautiful little town. And they found a man quite literally in front of his house, uh, kind of a decimated house with his head in his hands. I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth, but this found a man quite literally in front of his house, kind of a decimated house with his head in his hands. I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth,

but this was a man who kind of had some mental health issues and they were starting to use him to raise money, which again was really bizarre because even just like minutes before this, they were trying to prove that the hurricane didn't happen. And then they turned around being like, you need to give us money to fix his home. And I think they raised $10,000,

which none of it he saw. But what happened and what makes Glace Bay significant in this story is that the town, like the town saw what she was doing. They knew who she was and they just laid into her. And they, for lack of a better term,

were kind of torturing her. Anytime she would talk, they would lay on their horns. They would have people kind of coming and shouting to her whenever they tried to do their live stream, which is a big thing they try and do. They do these really long live streams where they get their followers who are sitting at home watching to send them money. They would be playing Slayer really loudly.

Or other kind of death metal. It was the first time that they really truly experienced pushback from the greater population for the kind of exploitation they were doing of people. So, so then after that, after, after Glace Bay, they move on to Tadamagoosh, Nova Scotia. And what happened there? Well, Tadamagoosh, they were actually staying there with one of their followers right outside of the town.

Um, once again, I swear to God, I'm not a stalker, but I did travel there to go see what was up. So they just kind of set up shop, um, in the front yard of one of her followers and turned it into a kind of

temporary compound, I suppose you could say. And they will just, Tatamagouche is a lovely little town, but it didn't push back on her quite as hard as Glace Bay. Okay. But, but then, but they, they did leave there. Yeah.

Eventually because this, this last summer she's back on the road with her caravan. She's heading west. Yeah. And, uh, we'll get to Richmond where she is now, but before that she's run out of a place called Camsec, right? She did.

It was a small town in Saskatchewan where once again, the town realized she was coming through and maybe did a little bit of reading, found out what she was about. And they just, you know, they had a little protest and they, they chased her out of town. And I believe she actually got a police escort out of town.

You go home, wherever you came from, get out of here. And then on to Richmond. And then on to Rich Mound. Rich Mound, I'm sorry. I'm saying it wrong. Rich Mound, yeah, they will come for you. Their saying is actually Rich Mound with a U in it.

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Before I get into the scene in Rich Mound with you, I want to ask you about, you mentioned the live streams, right? Yeah. I kind of went down a rabbit hole. I spent a whole train ride watching. Oh, I'm so sorry. Super plays of these. But for those who haven't seen them, can you kind of give me a sense of how these live streams play out? Yeah. So it's one of her, probably her second in command, a woman named Darlene Ondi. And she's kind of sitting in front of, it depends where they are nowadays.

They're in an abandoned school, which we will get to. Nowadays, they're in an abandoned school, which we will get to. And she kind of sit there and she reads off these kind of really bizarre sovereign citizen pseudo legal kind of I don't know what you would call them decrees. And then they kind of ask their followers for money and then they kind of tell a few stories. It's remarkably boring. And in the end, they kind of give you a little bit of a summation of what's happening. But then they also do these live streams of their rituals that they hold. And so when they were traveling across Canada, they were having these meet and greets. But they're also hosting these rituals where people would come in and they would kind of swear fealty to Romana and swear, declare that they were sovereign.

kind of swear fealty to Romana and swear, declare that they were sovereign. And then they would get her fake currency. She created something I've been calling Romana bucks. Yeah. It's this really bizarre scene where they all kind of get together. It almost looks like they're like being a choir

and they, she reads something out and they all read it back to her. And it's really unpleasant. The last one I watched, there was several small children there that were doing it and it's more people than you would expect. Like in the, what, dozens? Yeah. Yeah.

In Quebec, she brought out 60 people to do it. Wow. The other thing that kind of became apparent with some of these live streams is she's got this obsession with a Boney M song, right? Oh, my God. What's the deal with that? That's another thing where I wish I knew the, the, the beginning of it, but yeah, she's obsessed with Rasputin, uh, the, the Bonnie M

song, which is like a banger. I love that song. It's a good tune. But like nine hours on repeat. Oh yeah. Um, I was speaking, I've spoken to many of her followers, um, who have come out to kind of speak to me about the abuse they suffered while

they were with her. And one of the most bizarre things that i was told was they were doing a 10-hour road trip where for the entirety of the 10 hours with no breaks she played rasputin um by bonnie ham that one that's like ra ra rasputin lover of the russian dream but now her followers have made a romana stystyled Rasputin cover, which is just... I think I've heard it, actually. It's not great. It's not good at all.

You've spoken to former followers. I'm captivated by what they're experiencing. Like, can you, can you tell me what they've told you about the so-called queen of Canada? Yeah. Um, this is where it moves from like, this is like a pretty funny story, but like at its heart is like tragedy. Um, these people are being treated really, really poorly. Um, not just financially, which of course she's having them pull out credit cards, max them out, empty their, their, um, savings account.

Cause what they're doing driving around, uh, in motorhomes all day, every day is not cheap. They're spending thousands of dollars in fuel a week and the food for all these people. But on top of that, she kind of rules with an iron fist. These people aren't really allowed to do anything without her say. Um, I was told she micromanages to a abusive degree. Uh, you're not really allowed to go anywhere without her knowing you're always on walkie talkies. I spoke to somebody who lived on the Tatamagouche compound with her. Uh, they had cameras set up. If you had to walk outside of where the camera was and go to a shed, they kind of had to be

like, okay, I'm leaving. Okay, here's where I am. I have the shovel. I'm coming back, back. They're not allowed to shower for weeks on end. And another one, she forced somebody apparently to sleep on the floor so her dogs could sleep on the bed.

And so the people that are there with her are treated very poorly. And it's why a lot of them who have left have started groups to try and take down, um, Dito Lo and to try and help others that are leaving. Um, a lot of them are very, very angry at what happened to them. And I know you've been trying to get a, an interview with Dito Lo for a while. Any luck? No. Uh, I've been, I've been told no by person. Um,

I've been yelled at. I was yelled out in Richmound recently. One time while she was walking to her RV, I kind of did that thing where you just walk up next to her and match the pace and like had my phone going and be like, Hey, I'm a journalist. Do you have anything to say? And she's like, all answers will be on telegram. So no, I I've sent a million emails. I've flown places to try and get interviews with her, but they're very, very insular. So let's talk about Richemont now. So after their run out of Camp SAC, as you mentioned earlier, they moved on to Richmond, also in Saskatchewan. Why are they there? What's the setup there?

Yeah. So to kind of set the scene, Richmond is a tiny little town. It's about 130 people. One of those towns, very classic prairie town if you've ever been. Doors are all unlocked. You know everybody. By the time I was there, within like three hours, I was having a beer at the mayor's house. They have a hockey rink and there's a decommissioned school on the property. And one of their locals, a man named Rick Manns, who grew up there,

he bought it promising to set it up into a cannabis, um, grow up. Um, and the school is by far the biggest piece of infrastructure in, in. But from speaking to people who knew this man, he fell down the Romana-Dedalo rabbit hole and recently saw they were in Saskatchewan and they were on hard times and he gifted the school to them as a compound. And so now this town of 130 people have about 15 to 20 very paranoid cult members living inside their decommissioned school on their property. And so how are the residents of Richemount feeling? Well, it's very much like, God damn it, Rick, what did you do? Feeling over there. And they're not stoked. The people we spoke with who live here in Richemount say they don't want to share their opinions publicly because they're afraid of facing individual threats. Now, some say this is no big deal because they're on private land,

so leave them be, while others say their presence is intimidating and it's causing anxiety. There's a lot of anger. There's a lot of tension. And, you know, people aren't very happy right now. When I was there, what was happening was Romana was bringing in a lot of her followers to have one of those meet and greets and rituals that I spoke about earlier. And the town had a really big barbecue.

Then they all got in their vehicles and they kind of circled the school honking their horns and telling them to get out. And it was quite a scene. They were honking their horns, making noise and showing signs that said things like, get out, the queen is dead and mental health crisis, among many other signs. And they were all kind of, they brought up semis to the ballpark as close as they could to the fence. And they had the semis just rail on the horns for hours and hours and hours. But the cult is not breaking any laws. They're there. They're crossing their T's and dotting their I's.

But didn't the group threaten to hold public executions at some point? Or maybe, like, who made those threats? So Romana is very hard on the town because the town obviously wants her gone.

And so she's calling them Nazis and you should see the amount of cops that were in there when I got there. There was cops on every street corner there. You couldn't get in and out of the town with going through a check stop. People were very, very paranoid. And one of the things that kind of started this paranoia was that a Romana follower,

not one of the people that she was directly that was living with her and not her, um, wrote this cease and desist letter, which is a thing that they kind of tend to do. Um, because they're very, very into kind of pseudo legalese, dextrous litigation kind of stuff. And they sent that off to a lot of people within Richemount threatening a public execution if they don't kind of change their tone about Romana. It's not it's not fun. It's not fair. Like who starts putting cease and desist orders and execution lists out? How is that a thing that can happen? With the cease and desist orders, they'd be kept on coming. I got one yesterday that's more personal that came to me. But like I said, we have to take them with a grain of salt for some of us. So while it didn't come directly from Diedelo or the people in the compound, it came from one of her followers.

Okay. So hard to pin down. Hard to pin down, but they wouldn't have been getting these if she wouldn't have shown up. So you've been talking to the mayor, too, of Richmond, right? Brad Miller. Brad Miller. What's he saying? He's quite a guy.

Him and actually his wife, Arlene. Arlene's somebody who definitely shouldn't be written out of this story because she's working very, very hard. They're waging what I could only call like a multi-pronged war against this group. People are just staying in their houses more and their heads are on 360. They're swiveling, whatever. And that's what it should be. But it shouldn't be for the kids. Shouldn't be for families.

It's just something that our small community in Richmond, our great community, should not have this. Obviously, Brad's a politician, so he's trying to, you know, be as neutral as he can. But he's trying to, you know, be as neutral as he can, but he's trying to get these people out. Um, and so what they're doing is they're obviously having these kinds of protests and everything like that,

but they know like that can only take you so far. But another thing they're doing is they're trying to call up all the trades people around town and be like, don't go and do free plumbing work for them. Don't go and do anything for them. Then they're also trying to find a legal way to get these people out. One of the biggest ones is that the school

is actually zoned commercially, meaning you can't sleep in there. So they're trying to get evidence that people are sleeping in there. So he's waging this multi-pronged kind of war against Didolo. So, I mean, it's interesting because you've got the town who's super suspicious of this group

of people, but Romana's group is also super suspicious of the town, right? Like that this is a tense situation. So what's, what's the suspicion on the part of the kingdom of Canada folks? Yeah, it's a really tense situation out there. And that's where I'm worried that if there's any sort of violence, it's going to become from this like immense amount of paranoia on both sides. it's going to become from this like immense amount of paranoia on both sides. As I said, like this group is,

isn't speaking to outsiders. Um, and then within their live streams and their internal communications, they're talking about how they think that there's a plot to burn down the school with them inside of it. Um, and they have these dogs, which they call the Royal puppies, which they believe,

um, followers are trying to poison. And so on both sides, there's this level of paranoia, uh, and it's creating a little bit of a toxic cocktail. At the moment, things are tense. So from what you've seen there in Richmond, how much longer do you think D-Lo and the Kingdom of Canada will be able to keep going? I guess both in Richmond, but also like on this kind of epic road trip they're doing. Well, that's the thing is,

speaking to people who are following it and then like myself who's been following it for so long, is I always wondered what the end goal was because I knew that they weren't going to be able to drive around forever. I knew the money would kind of dry up and I was worried it would kind of end in like a compound situation

because I know Romana doesn't want to go back to Victoria. Why would she? She was living in a small room in a boarding house. Now she's got people that are waiting on her hand and feet and giving up their lives to please her. So they have a good thing going right now. They've never had this before. This is the best thing that's ever happened to the group. So the best chance I think the town has is that the group's abusive and people turn on them all the time. Uh, and Romana by all accounts is a very unpleasant woman is that Rick man's the man who owns the school. Maybe he'll come to his senses and kick them out that way. But I think if they're

not able to find a legal way to get them out, it's going to be a long time. And you're going to keep following this, I guess. Oh, man. I guess so. Okay. This is my burden, I suppose. I would love front burner listeners to know I write about other stuff. But, yeah, it's a fascinating story. It's a sad story.

It's a funny story in some senses. But it's a very unique one, and it's been a pleasure to cover it and to be on here so many times to talk about it. Listen, Mac, thanks so much for coming on and talking about this today. Thanks so much for having me. It's always a pleasure. Appreciate it. That's it for today. I'm Damon Fairless. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. I'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.