When Romana Didulo, Canada’s so-called QAnon Queen, rolled through a small town in Saskatchewan, she didn’t exactly receive a royal welcome.
When Romana Didulo, Canada’s so-called QAnon Queen, rolled through a small town in Saskatchewan, she didn’t exactly receive a royal welcome.
Riding in a large RV with her face plastered on the side, and about seven other vehicles traveling behind her, the cult leader and her crew pulled into Kamsack, a town of about 2,000 souls in southeast Saskatchewan, last Tuesday night. News travels fast in the Prairies, so by morning a sizable amount of people knew the cult leader was in town.
They decided to come out and say hi.
Locals not just from the town, but also from a nearby Indigenous community, were waiting for the QAnon convoy in downtown Kamsack and told Didulo to, as it was put by one protestor, "get the fuck out of town.”
According to reports from local media, Didulo was in the town for about six hours. Tensions grew as the day went on. The Qanon group parked in front of an Indigenous Centre where they got into it with locals who they told they were going to “educate.” Soon after a group began to form to protest, local police were called in to keep the situation calm. As is often the case, Didulo sat on her bus while her followers got off and milled about. At one point, Didulo’s followers ran into Kamsack’s mayor and informed her that Didulo was now in charge—they quickly found out the hard way that wasn’t true.
"You can't come into a town and tell the mayor, the community safety officer and the RCMP—and people of town—that you're in charge," Mayor Nancy Brunt told CBC News afterward.
"They were told, 'No, you're not in charge.' I am the mayor. This is my town, I'm in charge. First Nations people said, 'You are not our chief. You are not the chief of Canada. We do not recognize you in any way, shape or form.'"
A video of the protest shows a group of people with signs yelling at Didulo to “get out of Kamsack” and “go home to wherever you come from.” Other precautions were taken by the locals as well, including the hospital locking their doors and bringing in extra security.
Eventually, Didulo and her crew were escorted out of town by the RCMP and hit the road.
"They're pretty secretive about where they go,” said Christine Sarteschi, a criminology professor at Chatham University who follows Didulo closely. “They kind of just show up in places where they have some type of person that allows them to stay on their private property. Every couple of weeks they hold a meet and greet and the sovereignty ceremony, which usually attracts anywhere from 25 to 50 people”
It seems that Didulo’s travels are starting to raise some eyebrows as she moves about the Great White North. Just this week, a concerned citizen of Richmound, Saskatchewan, reached out to local media to report that Didulo limped into their community following their time in Kamsack. CTV Regina wrote that the conspiracy leader has set up on the property of a follower who owns a former school. The Richmound resident said locals are “very disturbed” by their new neighbors.
The school can be seen in the group's latest livestreams as they’re now being filmed in front of a chalkboard. In a video filmed on September 15, one of the higher-ranking members of Didulo’s followers called their new home their “new command center.” A livestream by an independent journalist shows the group has parked numerous vehicles, RVs, and trailers around an old elementary school and put up an orange wire around the perimeter of the property. The journalist filmed for a short while before being asked to leave by a man who stated he owned the land.
Following the man’s time near the school, Didulo took to her social media pages to tell her followers that Canada is under martial law and “ remains in DEFCON1.” It is unknown exactly what “DEFCON1” means.
Didulo leads a group of people that she has convinced she’s the real Queen of Canada—among many, many other eccentric beliefs including she’s the National Indigenous Chief of Canada—who is waging a war against a pedophilic deep state alongside Donald Trump.
She grew out of the QAnon movement on Telegram, but unlike many other QAnon leaders, Didulo took her online following into the real world in early 2022 in the form of essentially a never-ending convoy across Canada. Accompanied by an extremely dedicated group of followers who have left their previous lives to do her bidding she now travels from town to town. Several former followers told VICE News Didulo is abusive towards the people who travel with her. To pay for her seemingly never-ending road trip, Didulo constantly pleads for her followers to send her money.
Didulo has yet to hold a “sovereignty ceremony” in Richmound, nor indicate if she is planning on doing so. The ceremony, which doesn’t happen in public, is a bizarre affair. It sees the group inviting the local followers, Didulo giving a speech, her followers swearing fealty to her, and at times receiving her fake currency. She’s held it in numerous towns across the country.
It was initially rare for Didulo to experience the level of pushback she got in Kamsack—typically, she’s largely ignored by most in the town she rolls through—but it wasn’t the first time. Last fall, Didulo and her convoy pulled into Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and attempted to fundraise off the devastation that a recent hurricane wrought on the town. She was not treated with a light touch and just like in Kamsack, she was chased out.
"She's seen as somebody they don't want around who's not a good figure, not somebody who's helpful or positive,” said Sarteschi. “Somebody they see in a very negative way.”
Typically, Didulo ignores these sorts of incidents but the stories about what happened in Kamsack must have gotten to her. Over the weekend, Didulo declared that the CBC, Canada’s national broadcaster, was to be shut down (it wasn’t) and then she asked her followers what kind of “criminal charges be for individuals and entities creating preposterous narratives” about her. Her followers enthusiastically came up with multiple ideas such as imprisonment, caging all journalists in the public square, making them all wear a T-shirt declaring Didulo is queen, and, of course, public executions.
“Public hanging! We need rule of law,” one wrote. “These criminals have created such horror for humanity!!!!”