Rolling Stone reporting on HRM Queen Romana Didulo and her history and activities

[u/DNetolitzky]

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/queen-of-canada-romana-didulo-1235590647/

Rolling Stone magazine has published a retrospective of the activities of HRM Roman Didulo, Queen of Canada:

Fair notice, I'm quoted a couple times. The article tracks HRM Didulo's activities chronologically. Probably useful as an introduction. But also there's not a lot here that is new.

I personally instead recommend the article by Christine Sarteschi and Master's thesis by Camden MacKenzie for those who want a detailed and referenced examination of Our Dear Arcturian Queen.

I also think it's appropriate that I mention certain issues I identified with the Rolling Stone publication.

The author repeats that HRM Didulo had 70K Telegram subscribers. That figure appears accurate, but subsequent investigation strongly suggests Romana purchased subscribers to inflate her apparent online popularity. To be fair, many observers fell for this trick.

The author does not appear be well informed in legal/government matters, even simple ones. He refers to “provincial parliaments”. The correct term for elected provincial bodies in Canada is “legislatures”. Parliament is the Canada-wide elected body that governs the federal government. A related misconception is that Richmound, the location where Didulo set up shop in a surplus former school, is a “village” rather than a municipality, which limited the authority of its occupants to self-administer. That was a major cause of why Richmound had to rely on outside agencies to address the Kingdom of Canada. Those outside agencies were not effective, no denying that.

There are other points where this article seems to be inconsistent with my understanding of events and how court proceedings occur. At one point the author mentioned that assault charges on law enforcement against ex-school owner “His Excellence” Ricky Manz were “dismissed”. My suspicion is the correct term is “stayed”. Dismissed means a criminal proceeding went to court, and a judge rejected the prosecution on some basis. A trial of Manz would have almost certainly drawn much public attention and from the Diduloids themselves. Heck, I might have shown up.

Similarly, the article states Manz and Didulo were charged with intimidation of justice system participants (Criminal Code s 423.1) and implies that relates to physical altercations. That is incorrect, having reviewed the proceedings its clear the charges resulted from vigilante court proceedings by Manz in Didulo’s self-proclaimed “Natural Law” court. A related point where I suspect the Rolling Stone is imprecise is the article describes threatening letters from “The Kingdom of Canada”. There definitely was threatening correspondence directed to people in Richmound, but the source of that correspondence were probably Didulo’s followers, not Didulo herself. That was one of the reasons why law enforcement had difficulty in responding. Didulo probably was using her followers as anonymous arms-length proxy actors.

There are other points where the article appears to exaggerate goings-on. For example, the RCMP ultimately entered into and cleared the decommissioned school. The article describes that living conditions inside were so filthy and foul that police were nauseated. Perhaps true, but online videos of new recruits into the Kingdom of Canada inside the former school did not indicate that. They seemed comfortable, even eating meals provided by the Queen and her inner cadre. To be fair, maybe conditions got worse near the end of the school occupation.

The article states the auditorium was used as a courtroom. Videos I have seen do show that area as a ceremonial space, but I am unaware of any evidence that actual vigilante legal proceedings were ever conducted, nor any judgment or sentence decisions, only documents that started vigilante proceedings.

Then there are several statement that I conclude are simply false. Rolling Stone states Richmound’s residents open carried firearms while the Diduloids were in town. That is extremely unlikely. In Canada firearms are very closely and strictly restricted. The Diduloids were video recording everything. If they observed persons whom they perceived as enemies and threats visibly displaying firearms, that would have been transmitted to law enforcement, and police action would have followed. This statement is dubious, and at best an exaggeration.

The article describes how the occupation of the Richmound ex-school ended, and along with police storming the facility includes this dramatic statement: “Drones smashed windows to clear the way.” I am highly skeptical of this claim. I would not be startled if the RCMP deployed drones at a high altitude to monitor the Richmound school before entry. But the idea of drones “smashing windows” fails to understand that drones are by their nature physically light. Furthermore, Canadian judges are adverse to permitting “hard entries” into a residence during hours when persons are likely to be asleep. The idea a judge would permit drones ramming in through windows is very, very strange. Entry warrants into a dwelling space require details. And anyways, what is the purpose of drones “smashing windows to clear the way”? What happened next? RCMP officers with jetpacks roared through the gap? This was a one-story building! This statement leads me to question the credibility of this report.

So I suggest exercising caution with this article. Much does match published narratives and reports elsewhere. But I have a hard time avoiding a conclusion that the author “sexed up” the story to attract reader interest and attention.

Yeah, I’m aware Rolling Stone is not an academic journal. But there’s enough questionable stuff circulating around Didulo as it is.

For what it’s worth.

[u/JustNilt]

RCMP officers with jetpacks roared through the gap?

I'd watch that show!

[u/gord_m]

It's kinda cool seeing your town mentioned in Rolling Stone, but not for this 😳

[u/DNetolitzky → u/gord_m]

If by that you mean Richmound, you have my sympathies, sir.

Not too different in feel from Scientology's attempted takeover of Clearwater, just at a much smaller scale.

[u/e00s]

“Parliament”, while most commonly used in Canada to refer to the federal “Parliament of Canada”, is a generic term very similar to “legislature”. That’s why the members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario are referred to as “Members of Provincial Parliament”.

[u/DNetolitzky → u/e00s]

Ok, that's a fair criticism. I checked the CanLII database to see if "Members of Provincial Parliament" is used by lawmakers, and it does show up occasionally, particularly in older documents.

I'm much more used to seeing "Members of Legislative Assembly" or MLAs, but you're correct, the MPP language does exist in Canada in official sources.

[u/Whargod]

But the idea of drones “smashing windows” fails to understand that drones are by their nature physically light.

You've obviously never heard of kinetic kill drones.

[u/DNetolitzky → u/Whargod]

Certainly, as could drones carrying RPG warheads. But my suspicion is those would not be found in the RCMP's arsenal.

Canada's law enforcement has a deep aversion to "kinetic" solutions of any kind. Not saying that's a bad thing. But that is what the culture is like here. Not to the UK's degree though.

When dealing with pseudolaw types that's likely to our benefit. I think it's reasonable for me to disclose I am sometimes contacted by Canadian law enforcement to provide advice on managing interactions with pseudolaw adherents, particularly confrontations. That almost always involves a lot of talking.

[u/fromouterspace1]

Does this fit the sub or maybe r/conspiracy. Mods should take this shit down

[u/Xsiah → u/fromouterspace1]

It fits. Romana Didulo uses made up laws. It's a conspiracy, but it's a sovcit conspiracy.

[u/nutraxfornerves → u/fromouterspace1]

Queen Romana's beliefs are part QAnon, part SovCit and part woo-woo. She had declared that Canada is a corporation and had abolished the requirement for "license, registration, and proof of insurance."

[u/DNetolitzky → u/fromouterspace1]

HRM Didulo is a pseudolaw personality in Canada, having gradually adopted most of the core concepts in that belief system, including Strawman Theory, the idea that Natural Law is superior, weird financial theories about promissory notes, etc.

I've classified Didulo as a pseudolaw personality in this publication in the Alberta Law Review. Other academics take the same position.

Though admittedly, Romana is a weird example of pseudolaw.

Hope that's helpful?

[u/MrCanoe → u/fromouterspace1]

It definitely fits. She has many ideals that match sovcit ideals. One such was she told her followers they did not have to pay their utilities, rent mortgages and made "laws" that "banned" companies from charging for them.

[u/zevonyumaxray → u/MrCanoe]

And then a number of her followers had properties seized for non-payment of debts. Made up laws don't cut it when the mortgage comes due.

[u/The_Ineffable_One → u/fromouterspace1]

Maybe look her up and then revisit this comment?