To Romana Didulo’s followers, the Queen of Canada doesn’t live in a British palace – she’s in the rural village of Richmound, Sask.
Surrounded by farmland about 450 kilometres west of Regina near the Alberta border, Richmound has a population of just over 100. Since September 2023, it has also been home to Didulo and a group of her followers, leading to protests and heated confrontations with locals.
CTV W5 visited Richmound to learn more about the self-described “Queen of Canada.”
Didulo is a leading figure in the QAnon conspiracy movement, and has promoted the murder of police, politicians and those who oppose her.
“I have also said that there is no more politics and no more politicians,” Didulo decreed in one of her videos. “I said, you can blow up all of the legislature buildings in Canada.”
Didulo has also told Canadians to stop paying their taxes and bills, while promoting secret cure-all technology and threatening those who administer COVID-19 vaccines.
“For each child that you have harmed you will receive not one, but two bullets on your forehead,” Didulo said in another video. “Think very, very carefully before you touch that needle.”
The former school in Richmound, Sask. where Romana Didulo and her followers are living (CTV W5)
After an invitation from a Richmound resident who owns a former school, Didulo and about eight others started living at the property. Rolande Davis’s house is directly across the street.
“My daughter won’t come with her kids,” Davis told W5. “I would have never dreamed I would have a cult living in my backyard.”
Didulo says she immigrated to Canada from the Philippines, where her parents died when she was young. After being involved in several businesses, she emerged as a public figure during the COVID-19 pandemic when she founded her Canada1st Party to “clean up the swamp” in Ottawa.
Didulo further rose to prominence during the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa, where she railed against vaccines and pandemic mandates, called for the end of elections and burned a Canadian flag. Didulo and her group were soon travelling the country in a convoy of RVs to spread their message.
“I think she has more, amongst conspiracy theorists, if you will, more influence than anyone I can think of,” Christina Sarteschi, a criminology and social work professor at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, told W5.
Romana Didulo further rose to prominence during the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa, where she railed against vaccines and pandemic mandates (CTV W5)
Sarteschi, who studies extremist groups, has been monitoring Didulo for two years. She says the group could be considered a cult.
“She has talked about being from the planet Arcturus, so there’s an alien element to this,” Sarteschi explained. “She thinks that she has been sent here sort of in a divine way from god, master creator… and that she has been sent here to save people.”
Didulo does not shy away from claims like these in online videos.
“The Arcturians are the most advanced, like the Yoda,” she has said. “I am not a dictator. I am guided by the highest divine beings and I am here to deliver peace and prosperity.”
Richmound residents began protesting Didulo’s presence in October, which caused more of her followers and some of their children to arrive at the fenced-off former school, where they declared an oath of sovereignty to their queen.
One Richmound resident told W5 that her father even stopped paying his bills because of Didulo.
“I have watched people post videos of themselves getting taken out by the bailiff because they have lost their homes,” Sarteschi from Chatham University said. “I’ve seen court records where people are in foreclosure because they believed in her ideas and really believed that they didn’t have to pay their taxes, their mortgage, and then they’re literally on the streets or they’re living in their cars.”
A town hall in Richmound, Sask. where residents voiced concerns over the presence of Didulo and her followers (CTV W5)
‘We’re running out of ideas’: mayor
Didulo’s group has also allegedly sent threatening letters to Richmound residents and officials like Mayor Brad Miller, who fears Didulo or her supporters could run for town council.
“We keep the drapes closed now and our doors are always locked, double-checked,” Miller told W5. “Somebody’s got to help us out, we’re running out of ideas.”
The RCMP met with local residents in October 2023. Police have said that while they are monitoring the group and investigating alleged death threats, they cannot lay charges or remove people from private property unless there is harassment or an imminent threat.
W5 interviewed the RCMP’s commanding officer in Saskatchewan, Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore.
“At this point in time, we have no indication that there’s any imminent threat. We would certainly notify the public if there was an imminent threat, but we have no indication of that,” Blackmore told W5.
“We’re monitoring the situation and making sure that if there is any indication of criminal activity, that we will be there and we will investigate that thoroughly.”
W5 was also able to speak to former follower Kim Churchill.
“I didn’t recognize it as a cult until I got back,” Churchill said. “When you’re in [an] abusive relationship, you know, they want you isolated, they don’t want you talking to friends and family, they control your every move, manipulate you.”
Didulo did not respond to several requests for an interview.
You can learn more about the tensions in Richmound by watching the full W5 documentary, ‘The Cult Queen’, Saturday at 7 p.m. on CTV
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
