QAnon conspiracy leader and ‘Queen of Canada ‘ is booted from campsite

A self-proclaimed ‘Queen of Canada‘ and her followers have been booted from their campsite on an abandoned school ground after sparking fire risks.

The QAnon cult left the school in Richmound, Saskatchewan, where they propped up a heater on a propane tank last week two months into their stay.

Romana Didulo, 48, and her group named the ‘Kingdom of Canada,’ have been camping around Canada for the past few years, spreading QAnon ideas.

Didulo, who declared herself the ‘Queen of Canada’ and later the ‘Queen of the World,’ issued threats to execute local officials, medical workers, journalists and others in the QAnon movement.  

With more than 60,000 online followers, the ‘Queen’ drew inspiration from the sovereign citizen movement, a loose group of anti-government activists who refuse to pay taxes and only adhere to the legal systems they design themselves.  

The self-claimed ‘Queen of Canada’ moved into the old Richmound school with her 15 to 25 followers in September and had since livestreamed on the app Telegram. 

The cult followed locals around, took videos of them, and sparked large-scale protests in a village with about 150 residents in south-western Saskatchewan. 

They then went a step further by sending numerous ‘cease-and-desist’ letters, issuing threats of ‘public execution’ against community members who failed to comply with the Queen’s ‘decrees.’ 

Mayor Brad Miller said Didulo and her followers moved into the community with two motorhomes and up to ten vehicles, CKOM reported. 

‘They’re kind of hidden inside. She doesn’t come out very often and … it’s cordoned off and roped off,’ Miller said.

‘As far as we know, there’s no running water and no heat. The building is lit up at night and we can see activity there every night, but we don’t know much about the power yet. 

‘The zoning bylaw is commercial, but they’ve never went outside the bylaws yet,’ he said. ‘Our hands are tied. The RCMP’s hands are tied. We’ve got many people monitoring it.’ 

Local authorities and residents faced obstacles in their attempts to remove Didulo and her followers, as they had the explicit permission from Ricky Manz, the private owner of the building and land.

The cult received an invitation from Manz, a supporter of Didulo who was arrested and charged with assault during an altercation in October and missed his court date last week. 

Also in last week, eagle-eyed locals spotted a heater propped up on a propane tank in the background of the cult’s everyday livestream, raising concerns about a potential fire code violation. 

In response, local officials attempted an inspection visit, but they were denied entry, according to a village spokesperson. 

However, the group was seen packing up and moving within an hour after the visit. 

Miller said that they have set up camp just seven miles east of the village in the Rural Municipality of Fox Valley, on an unused farmland, where they were given permission to stay by the landowner. 

‘I’m still thinking they might come back and, if they do, it’ll be a letdown. But when I see them take off, there will be the biggest party ever,’ Miller told CBC. 

‘It gives you relief. You don’t know the feeling until you’ve lived with it. But they’re still seven miles away. We’re going to keep working, trying to keep pushing them. I don’t care where they are, or whatever. Get them out of here.’

Didulo was raised by a school teacher after her lawyer father passed away when she was 10, and her mother died when she was 11. 

She immigrated from the Philippines to Canada and, at one point, was homeless following several unsuccessful business ventures, as previously reported by The Guardian. 

A decade later, in 2021, she established her own nationalist political party, Canada1st, pledging to liberate Canadians from ‘enslavement’ and advocating for the withdrawal from international alliances.

Didulo’s popularity experienced a surge in May 2022 when leaders in the QAnon movement took notice of her speeches on Telegram. 

In her speeches, she claimed that former US President Donald Trump is secretly fighting against a group of influential individuals involved in Satan-worshipping and child exploitation. 

Her group also attempted to arrest police officers in Peterborough, Ontario, accusing them of ‘crimes against humanity,’ a charge that she alleged Queen Elizabeth II had committed and been executed for. 

‘In a way, she’s almost become like a religious figure to her supporters. She’s charismatic and has created a movement for herself,’ said Carmen Celestini, a postdoctoral fellow with the Disinformation Project at Simon Fraser University

‘A leader will articulate a problem, and then provide those solutions, even if that problem doesn’t necessarily exist,’ Celestini told the Guardian. 

‘And that is what she’s doing to a group of people who are afraid and who have complete and utter distrust in the institutions of their country.’

During the pandemic, Didulo encouraged her supporters to send fake ‘cease-and-desist’ letters to health care workers, demanding them to end public health measures and destroy vaccines. 

She threatened the healthcare workers to ‘receive not one, but two bullets on your forehead for each child that you have harmed as a result of injecting this experimental vaccine’ 

She also issued decrees – which carried no legal force – to ‘absolve’ her 34,000 followers from bills and debts, which has resulted in several followers losing their homes and vehicles after following her advice. 

After being expelled from Kamsack in September, Didulo and her cult established their camp in Richmound, where they continued to disturb residents and attract police attention. 

Despite leaving the village after more than two months, their presence has left local residents anxious, as they are believed to be residing on a farm not far from the village. 

A vilage spokesperson who asked not to be identified told BBC: ‘We’re glad they’re gone, but everyone’s still on edge in case they come back,’ 

The spokesperson is in fear of reprisals from the group, who is now believed to be residing on a farm to the west of the village. 

‘They are very secretive about what they are doing, but they still care about what’s going on in Richmound and talk about coming back,’ Christine Sarteschi, a professor at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, told the outlet. 

‘They’re unpredictable at this point… and that unpredictability makes people nervous,’ she said.