Episode 237: The QAnon Queen of Canada Comes To Town feat. Mack Lamoureux
QAnon is the source of many bizarre tales in the real world. But few are more bizarre than the tale of Romana Didulo, a Filipino-Canadian woman who claims to be the Queen of Canada.
Since her appearance in 2020, Didulo has convinced many people that she is the monarch of Canada and also an alien. And that further, she is leading the fight against the worldwide cabal. She issues royal decrees, calls upon health workers and politicians to be executed, and convinces people that her government is making all public utilities free.
Sometimes, it’s fine to be wary about calling a belief system or a group of people a cult. But in this case, it’s clear that this is a dangerous cult that has and continues to harm many people.
To get a real proper perspective on the state of Romana Didulo, we are joined for the third time by the world’s leading Romana Didulo expert, Mack Lamoureux. He recently published a fascinating and extensive report on the ongoing business headlined “What Happens When A QAnon Cult Leader Moves To Town” on Vice News.
Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to ongoing series like 'Manclan' and 'Trickle Down': http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous
QAA's Website: https://qanonanonymous.com
Music by Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Klotz.
REFERENCES
https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7zzn9/qanon-queen-canada-nova-scotia-moves-in
Welcome, listener, to Chapter 237 of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, the QAnon Queen of Canada comes to town episode.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rokitansky and Travis Vu.
QAnon is the source of many bizarre tales in the real world, but few are more bizarre than the tale of Romana Didalo, a middle-aged Filipino-Canadian woman who claims to be the Queen of Canada.
Since she popped onto the scene in 2020, Didalo has convinced many people that she is not only the monarch of Canada, but also an alien, and that further, she is leading the fight against the worldwide cabal.
She issues royal decrees, calls upon health workers and politicians to be executed, and convinces her followers that the government has made all public utilities free.
Now, sometimes, I mean, I personally at least try to be wary about what I call a cult because, you know, sometimes it's just a derogatory label and maybe there's some people who believe weird things or a weird group, but this is a cult.
To get a proper perspective on the state of Romana D. Lowe, we are joined by the world-leading Romana D. Lowe expert, Mack Lamoureux.
He recently published a fascinating and extensive report on the ongoing nonsense headlined, What Happens When a QAnon Cult Leader Moves to Town, for Vice News.
And we're going to put a link to that in the show notes, and I highly recommend that you check it out.
Mack, thank you again for joining us for the third time in three separate years.
Thanks for having me on, boys.
I can't believe it's been three years of me reporting on this fucking group.
I know, I know.
There's always, I mean, there's always this small thing.
It's like, well, here's this little silly nonsense, and I'm going to talk about it and tell other people about it.
And then it'll just be a weird little piece of trivia that few people will ever care about.
But then it just keeps on going, you know?
Yeah, assuredly I won't fly across the continent and write a 7,000 word article about it.
Yes!
Well, and I really do encourage everybody to read the article because it really is this sort of amazing journey.
You really take the reader, not just on what's happening, you know, in the ongoings, you know, the sort of daily happenings of Didalo's cult, But also your own feelings about covering it, which, you know, we don't get in a lot of journalistic pieces, and it made it really personal, and there's some really heartwarming stuff in there, there's some really scary and sad stuff in there, and I really appreciated how you talked about your own sort of,
of mental struggle of, is this even worth covering?
Am I doing more harm than good?
And I felt that it gave the whole piece just a really sort of like humanitarian sort of feel to it.
And yeah, I really liked it.
I think everybody should check it out.
I really appreciate that.
You always kind of struggle as a journalist whether or not you want to put yourself into a story, but it just felt like I've almost become a part of Dita's story a little bit by pretty much being the only journalist that's covering her.
So, I don't know.
If I was going to do something this long, I kind of thought maybe the reader wanted to hear what I had to say, and it turned out some of them did, so...
Yeah, as I was reading it, I was like, you know, you're talking about, you know, kind of like, you know, driving three and a half hours to this, like, you know, small province to, like, interview this town that, you know, we'll get into, who kicked Ditalo and her cult out of it.
And I was, like, just imagining you in, like, your, you know, your jujitsu hoodie and your camera slung over your shoulder.
And I'm like, this feels like a journalist in, like, a movie, you know, like a fish out of water journalist, you know, who's, like, Scrapping around this town, trying to ascertain the motives of this very secretive group.
I mean, there's a really cinematic quality to it that you don't get in a lot of pieces, and I just thought it was fantastic.
Oh man, I really appreciate that.
Especially when at the core of this, it's so stupid.
At the heart of it, it's so dumb.
But you gotta do the dumb smart.
Yeah, well, and we're no strangers to dumb stupid slash stupid smart.
I mean, that's basically the only trick that we've got.
So.
So before we get to your latest reporting, Mac, I was hoping you could help us get sort of a broad overview of the story so far, because you've done a lot of reporting prior to this that we actually have not yet talked about the show.
So how would first of all, how would you say that Ramada managed to establish herself as this cult leader?
Sure, yeah.
So long story short is that Romana Ditolo was kind of like this fringe conspiracy figure in Canada.
She had started like what could only be called like a faux Canadian political party.
And from there, she kind of wasn't getting much attention.
So she more or less pivoted to Q-posting.
And before this, she was just kind of like a failed, I don't know, con man, I guess would be the best way to put it.
Like, you know, those fake entrepreneurs you see online?
Sure.
Yeah, so she kind of pivoted to Q-posting and nothing was really working for her until she was quote-unquote confirmed by Charlie Ward.
And at this point in time, she was positing herself as the true Queen of Canada.
And so Charlie Ward, as you guys know, I'm sure you've gotten brain worms listening to him, is a pretty massive QAnon influencer.
And when he confirmed her, she immediately blew up.
And from here, she was able to build a pretty large following on Telegram that's Shrunken in the years, but at the peak was close to 100,000 followers on Telegram and more or less was able to turn that into a massive online following, which as we're going to get into slowly over the years turned into something very much offline and very much in the real world.
And just to jog some of the listeners' memories, Charlie Ward was where... Travis, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was through Charlie Ward's show that I first became aware of Tommy Numbers.
He pals around with, I think, some of the more esoteric influencers in the conspiracy QAnon sphere, so it is no surprise that he, of all people, was the first to give credence to Ditolo's claims.
Yeah, he also associates with Gregory Hallett, this weird New Zealander who claims to be the proper king of England.
And so yeah, for some reason, he is a UK man for who, for some reason, has a circle of the most fringiest and weirdest sort of elements of the QAnon universe.
Yeah, he probably tells his friends, he's like, I'm mates with kings and queens!
Look, I'm all for stealing royal valor.
It's something I personally deeply believe in.
But maybe if the person isn't talking about executing people that are giving vaccines to children and stuff like that.
Yeah.
Don't endorse her, but you know, Charlie, Charlie, go off, King.
Yeah.
I wonder if we could talk a little bit about Ramon Adidolo's worldview and like, because it seems to be there's obviously a lot of QAnon stuff they're talking about, you know, battling the the black hats of the cabal and stuff.
There's also some like sovereign citizen beliefs.
And there's also some like weird alien stuff.
And there's, I think kind of like a touch of theosophy in there.
So like what she's just kind of like grabbing from all these weird world views to create her own personal system, right?
Yeah, it all started by her pretty much positing that at the very start that she was waging a war alongside Donald Trump to go kill the pedophilic elite.
We've all kind of heard that.
But from there it kind of morphed into something really truly like esoteric and as you said almost like a catch-all.
Now she's telling people and she has for quite a while that she's being guarded by like Aliens and an intergalactic alliance and from them she's getting med bets which I'm sure you guys have covered and these kind of fringe health conspiracies.
She's also positive that she is a interdimensional being and her followers actually really you guys are one of the few people who actually covered the I am movement and she's stolen a lot from that and a lot of her followers they say like I am so-and-so It's hard to say because it sounds like I'm saying, I am Mac, but it's a whole, like, kind of... Yeah, it's sort of coded language that to somebody who doesn't know what they're looking for can just, you know, they think nothing of it.
But if you, yeah, if you studied, you know, theosophic cults or anything, yeah, any use of this I am, especially if you see it in all caps, is kind of this sort of secret signal to other believers or other followers.
Yeah, and that has to do with, like, people that travel throughout time, these kind of all-powerful beings.
And now it's kind of almost turned into a little bit of a religion, which is why I and other—well, I wouldn't call myself an expert, but why I call it a cult and why experts that I've consulted call it a cult is because she's put herself into, like, this spiritual position where her followers kind of look to her for guidance.
Um, and one of the things that I think is why she's been able to be, I wouldn't say so popular because there's definitely a lot of influencers out there that are more popular than, but to have the staying power of some of her followers is the fact that she's a very active person in this conspiracy.
She doesn't really like look at what's going on and then read it.
She kind of puts herself into the middle of it.
She's saying this is happening because I said it.
Not like, you know, let's go and read the Q, you know, let's go decode, let's go like chase some breadcrumbs.
Yeah, so it would be very, very hard in a few short sentences to sum up what D'Lo tells her audience, but maybe the best way would be they believe that she's an interdimensional being that's here to lead them to a new and better age, who is also waging a war with Donald Trump against the deep state pedophilic elites.
Yeah, it almost it almost crosses into the realm of like David Icke or other, you know, sort of, you know, popular, popular and, you know, almost celebrities like within this sort of space.
And I just wanted to add to something you said earlier is that even though she might not be as popular as, you know, you know, say, Zach Payne or one of the, you know, sort of more like technically illiterate people in the space, you know, the in the Matrix podcast or anything like that, she is one of, I believe, A handful of QAnon influencers who has been able to translate this out of the internet and actually gain a real-life three-dimensional following.
I mean, the negative 48 cult is the only other example that really comes to my mind.
So maybe even though her online presence isn't necessarily as big as some of these other Players, the fact that she has been able to keep a dedicated group of followers consistently, you know, and as we'll talk about later, some coming in, some coming out, but you say in the article that it's a group of around 6 to 12 people at any given time.
I mean, that's really significant.
Yeah, and these aren't people that are just coming out to see her.
These are people that have given up their entire lives to live with her.
I mean, I don't want to get too far ahead of our conversation here, but these are people that have given up some well-paying jobs to go get on an RV and tour around with this tiny Filipino lady who says she's the true Queen of Canada.
Yeah, you know, we had talked about this in the previous episode, how Romana D. Lowe, she has an RV with her photo and her, you know, her royal sort of symbol, that golden purple kind of like logo that she has on all of her all of her merchandise and stuff traveling across the country.
But this is apparently expanded into multiple vehicles who like travel in a caravan.
Yeah, so she's actually been able to, I don't know, like get a little convoy going and they've been crossing the country together.
And these are vehicles that people have either donated to her or have just like kind of driven up their own.
They put like massive stickers on them and they've like, at one point, one guy just gave her an RV and they've rented them.
It's wild.
It's just this weird, they call themselves the mobile government of Canada.
And they just kind of drive around and they park in Walmart parking lots and they have people come
out and kind of hug her and cry when they see her and give her gifts. And so it's kind of like this
traveling tour of wild conspiracy bullshit. Only in this field have I now heard two instances of
a cult that believes in extraterrestrials that has you know holed up in a Walmart parking lot.
Only in this business do you hear that more than once or even once.
Look, man, they're giant parking lots and they probably aren't going to yell at you for parking there.
So got a big ups to Walmart.
Yeah.
Shout out to Walmart.
Thank you for hosting all of the best cults.
Right now they're kind of in the middle of hosting a large, well actually I'm getting too far ahead of myself so maybe I'll save it, but they're in the middle of a pretty big event at the moment.
Now for this and other stories, you have personally spoken to multiple ex-followers of Ramon Adidalo.
And for this one, you spoke to an Ontario woman named Kim Churchill, and they kind of gave you an idea of what the day-to-day life is for this traveling mobile government, the people who are like genuinely devoted to the Ramon Adilo cause.
So what are their lives like?
What's going on there?
Yeah, so maybe I'll just walk you through what she told me.
Essentially, you get up in the morning, you do a security check.
You have to remain in a certain amount of area closest to the RV because Ditalo is such a control freak, you can't really leave or else she's going to scream at you.
And then you all file into command center, which is what they call the RV that Ditalo is set up in.
And then eventually, DeeDee will come out, they'll all kind of rise like you're rising for a queen, and then she gives them their speech, and then they get their daily jobs.
And from there, then they kind of... The best way to put it is they just kind of dilly-dally the day away.
They have all these make-work projects to keep them busy but to never actively accomplish anything.
And this is something that multiple members throughout different times have told me happens is that they're constantly busy.
Sometimes they work up to 16 hours a day.
They don't get enough sleep.
They skip meals, but they're never actually accomplishing anything.
It could just be like driving around in circles. It could just be like, yeah,
driving from one place to the next place.
It could be like, they spend all day trying to find the proper place to like drop all this
shit and piss out of their vehicles. And it's, it's wild.
It's, she keeps them busy doing nothing.
That is really, really bizarre. Like even from the, from the perspective of a cult leader,
if you have all these people who are willing to give you lots of free labor and devote all
of their time to you, you know, you could, if, if you didn't care about them that much,
you could leverage that to get them to convince them to make bracelets that you could sell or
Right.
You could leverage that time and labor more productively.
But the fact that she's instead choosing to get these people to waste their time is bizarre.
I only think I, yeah, that's just, yeah, it's very, very strange.
Well, in one instance, it was kind of interesting.
It was back when I was speaking to two followers named Corey and Daisy, who were some of the first people to actually set off and travel with Ditalo.
they left from Victoria, which is where Romana originally lived on her first kind of voyage.
And she actually separated them into different motorhomes and kept them so busy that they
could never really talk.
And this is a married couple.
And they said that they thought it was so that they wouldn't kind of conspire to leave
or conspire against her because she's really, really paranoid.
And so it could be a way of just maintaining control over people.
You're not going to fight back.
You're not going to question something if you have a job to do if you're busy all the
time.
And interestingly enough, when I started reading some of these details that you lay out in
the article, it was really the first time that I started to see this as a cult.
For example, one of the tasks that you write about that they were given is like, Switching out batteries that don't need to be replaced and, you know, doing these safety checks on the RVs that nobody actually has any mechanical skill to really be able to fix.
There was this other detail about if somebody had to move out of the range of the security cameras, you know, if they were going to a shed to get a shovel, they would have to say, Hey, I'm headed towards the shed.
Okay.
I'm in the shed now.
I'm finding the shovel.
Okay.
I'm walking back out of the shed and like, It was little stuff like this as I imagine her kind of standing in front of these people saying, OK, we need to make sure all of the batteries are good.
OK, you you need to go make sure where we go dump our waste.
OK, you need to dig this hole.
I was like, I was really started to see exactly what, you know, these two people, Corey and Daisy, might have been talking about that when you're so involved in these kind of minuscule tasks that aren't even really important and they're doable.
I mean, you can have somebody go around and change out all the batteries and all of the flashlights.
That's something that you can do.
It's less time to think about, what am I doing here?
You're just thinking, hey, this is an easy task that I got.
I'm changing the batteries.
Okay, I'm good.
I'm going to be good in the eyes of the queen because this is something that I can get done.
And it was really the first time that I sort of was like, oh, interesting, like these little kind of unproductive, like busy work tasks.
Like, I don't know, there was something kind of sinister about that to me.
Yeah, the amount of control she has, like, it's almost like a psychopathic level of micromanagement.
And the one thing that Kim said when speaking to me is that she's not good at it.
They are incredibly misorganized.
They're wasting food all the time because they don't have places to store it and they buy too much.
You know, whenever they go out on big trips, they tend to break down because they didn't prepare correctly.
But if you question her, you're screamed at.
And as you kind of mentioned earlier, there's apparently lots of cameras.
I don't know while they're on the road if this is the case, but at least when they were parked, they would have cameras set up and you were supposed to stay within the range of the cameras.
And if you were going to go do anything, you had to inform her what you were going to do.
If you were going to go shower, you had to clear it with Romana that You were gonna go shower and at times she made people kind of stay filthy for weeks on end.
And like the amount of control she had over her followers, well not had, has over her followers is really rather unpleasant.
Yeah, and these details, just expanding on that further, you know, is I'm trying to imagine, you know, you walk into one of these RVs and like they've tracked in mud, they've tracked in dog shit that nobody has cleaned up, there is food rotting.
It really seems like these people are living in in pretty disgusting, you know, pretty disgusting sort of living situations.
And that also further, you know, made me feel more it felt more culty, you know, when there was the stuff about her blasting the like techno song Rasputin, you know, for eight hours a day.
I mean, all of this stuff.
you know, seems like radicalization techniques and stuff to wear your followers down to the point where
there's no real strength left to kind of rebel. And the amount of like, she has no care for
her followers from what I've heard. Two stories that really jumped out at me was...
One was the fact that right now they're kind of obsessed with two dogs that she adopted.
They call them the Royal Puppies.
Princess and Comet I believe are their names.
And in one instant she actually made one of her followers sleep on the floor so these dogs could sleep on the bed with her.
And in a completely separate instant the bathroom in our RV broke.
And this is while they were camped out over the winter, which I'm sure we'll get into.
And she made people get off a trailer that they were sleeping in and parked the trailer near her.
So she could use that trailer specifically for her washroom purposes.
And then she crammed the people that were in that trailer into another trailer that was always filled with people.
So it kind of doubled up.
And it just became, I don't know, it's just this lack of care for the people that are, you know, putting their lives in her hand, for lack of a better term.
I mean, she's lucky she hasn't killed somebody yet.
I mean, eating spoiled food or living in unsanitary conditions, you know, with seemingly, you know, no medical professionals on her quote-unquote staff, I guess.
I don't know.
It's just, yeah, the more details that you've sort of unearthed about this, the more dangerous it sounds to me, honestly.
And it doesn't necessarily need to be like malicious stuff that's going to put people in danger.
It's just like from lack of caring and lack of acknowledging and putting all your trust in this woman.
One story that I heard and has been confirmed to me through several sources is that when they were doing a drive they noticed that their power had went out and this would have been about a year ago.
And so Corey, who was the kind of the group's mechanic at the time, went and he couldn't really figure out what was going on, but he knew that if they were putting electricity into this thing and it wasn't going where it was supposed to go, it was going somewhere and that they needed to shut off the electricity and not send it there because, you know, that's dangerous if they're short or something.
And he told them, okay, well, don't do that.
Turn it off and we'll try and figure it out when we get there.
Romana told one of her most diehard followers, no, keep it on.
Maybe it'll come on while they're driving.
And when they got there, Corey found that a fuse box or something of the nature, I forget exactly what it was, had lit on fire and had almost spread.
And he found it was very charred.
And he sent me pictures of this and that there was a loose wire and motor homes aren't built out of the most flame retardant materials, especially older ones.
And this thing could have gone up and his wife was in there at the time.
He was in a different vehicle.
And that shortly after is when they left, because, you know, as he said to me,
quote unquote, she almost fucking killed my wife.
Yeah.
And you would think a good cult leader, you know, would be very careful about,
you know, not letting any of their subjects like die in some horrible accident
on the way, because that's going to bring all of the heat down onto her.
Uh, so I mean, it really sort of, it's really a good example of her lack of empathy, um, you know, towards these people who have given up their lives and their families and their jobs and their money towards her.
Like it doesn't even seem like she's even really trying to keep them healthy or happy.
It's just bonkers, bonkers to me.
And, you know, it gets worse than that because she's not just abusing and ruining the lives of the people who are actually traveling with her.
She's also doing this to the people who follow her on Telegram, who actually believe these weird bullshit royal decrees she gives.
For example, she has claimed that people don't need to pay their mortgage or their utility bills because she as Queen has taken care of this.
This, of course, has led to people getting their utilities shut off and even losing their homes.
So earlier this year, you wrote about the story of one woman by the name of Bonnie, who straight up lost her home because she believed this stuff.
So what was Bonnie's story?
Yeah, so Bonnie was somebody that was brought to my radar by a, maybe like the only other person that's following Romana as close as me, Dr. Christine Serteschi, who you all should follow if you're interested in Romana Didalo.
She's a very good criminology researcher who Uh, has similar brain worms to me that's made her follow this crazy person across Canada.
And essentially what had happened was that Didalo issues these royal decrees, if you're not familiar with her, where she's essentially saying from the, you know, my royal throne, these are the new rules in the kingdom of Canada, which you live in and her followers buy it, hook, line, and sinker.
And one of the things that she said was that essentially you don't need to pay your mortgage anymore.
And other things as Travis just alluded to, you don't need to pay your electricity bill or you know your hydro bill.
And this woman named Bonnie completely took that to heart and stopped paying her mortgage bill and got into a fight
with her bank.
And they went to take it back and it got to the point where I actually got my hands on some court documents where the
judge specifically said you can't refer to Romana DiDelo anymore.
And then one day in the chats just noticed Bonnie saying, oh there's some bailiffs here.
And she kind of really just play by play broke down her and her children and her husband getting evicted from their
house because they stopped paying their bills because of Romana.
And then I ended up speaking to, I won't say who, but to people who knew her who were able to confirm the story to
me.
They're doing okay, but they haven't gotten their home back.
And this is something that's happened multiple times.
So these are a family that was essentially kicked out onto the street.
And a lot of people are gonna say like, oh, they get what they deserve.
Oh, they're fucking stupid.
Like, make fun of them.
But like, this is another human being who has been put in a really disadvantageous position.
A position of, you know, pain because of their belief in Romana.
And in some cases, they have children.
School-aged children.
So I don't really think we should just like shit on these people or anything like that.
And you guys don't do that at all.
But like, of course, on Twitter, you see people being like, oh, you can't have empathy for these people.
You got to, you know?
Yeah.
It's the thing that I think I said last time when I was speaking to you guys, like with Romana, like on the macro level, hilarious.
Nothing but humor.
But on the micro level, nothing but tragedy.
Sure, and like, you know, I think that anybody who is willing to look at this, you know, short, middle-aged Filipino woman and believe that she is this, not only the rightful heir to the Canadian throne, if that is such a thing, but also- No, we do not, we do not have a Canadian throne.
Also this, like, interdimensional alien that's being- I mean, there is something else going on.
Look, look, I'm unqualified, obviously, to talk about anybody's, you know, anybody what's going on behind the scenes, you know, but oftentimes, you know, to believe something this out there, you have to be pretty lost.
And I think that, you know, we try to have compassion there because, you know, a lot of times people turn to these, you know, sort of false prophets or these faux, you know, faux leaders because they don't have access to systems that would help them figure this out in a realistic or healthy way.
Yeah, and I think it's no coincidence that her kind of explosion in popularity happened during the pandemic.
And that like, you know, there you guys saw a massive spike in like just QAnon belief in general and conspiratorial thinking in general.
Yeah.
Research has shown that during times of like extreme strife, People like to lean into conspiratorial thinking because it gives them a sense of control.
In a sense the world is, it's very weird because it's kind of counterintuitive when you think about it, but for some people the idea that this is a massive conspiracy meant to like, you know, genocide a population is a lot more comforting than the fact that this is completely random and can happen at any time and can happen again.
Right.
And so it's almost like people seizing back control, which is a very weird way to put it.
But it's these people that were very isolated during the pandemic that were looking for answers.
And especially if you're struggling financially, you're worried about maybe you're worried about your mortgage payments.
Maybe you're worrying about your utility bills stacking up.
Hey, you're home all the time now.
You're working from home.
You're using a lot more power.
You know, it's getting more expensive.
And somebody comes along and says, hey, by the way, Like, none of that.
You don't have to pay that anymore.
Because, like, I'm running the show.
And, like, all this stuff that you're worried about, like, you don't have to worry about it anymore as long as you stick with me, kid.
You know?
It's really dangerous and sinister to prey on people in that way.
Yeah, especially when we're kind of in a recession right now.
You have these people that even if they don't believe it for a long time, you're going to start getting behind on bill payments.
And if you're leaving paycheck to paycheck and you get behind on bill payments, it's incredibly hard to catch up.
Yeah.
I mean, you can think they're ridiculous while still having empathy for them.
That's just kind of what I want.
If people can take anything away from this conversation we're having, it's like, sure, think they're ridiculous, make fun of them, but they're human.
I think, you know, I read the article and came away with newfound compassion for the folks who are being strung along by this woman.
So, you know, I mean, you did a good job in that regard, for sure.
Thanks man.
Ramona D. Lowe, like I suppose any proper head of state, has started issuing her own currency, which she calls
loyalty money.
And this is just like really like oversized cartoon play money that has the Queen Romana symbol on it.
So what can you tell me about this loyalty money and like how it's supposed to work?
Yeah, so this was actually one of the Make Work projects that we kind of spoke about earlier.
What it is, as you said, like it's this cartoonish large purple money that has her face on it.
How it's supposed to work in real life, I don't really know.
She's kind of given mixed messages.
She said it was similar to Canadian Tire money, which for the Americans out there, which I assume is the majority of you guys, Canadian Tire Money is this very weird Canadian thing at like this large like very popular store that I would say it's kind of like Lowe's or like home hardware for you guys.
Right.
And after every purchase you get some money that you can only spend in the store.
And so she's kind of hinted that it's like that.
But then she's also said that it's just going to take the place of normal currency.
And it's like You know it's in the amounts that only a cult leader is going to put out like it's in like millions and it's in like hundreds of thousands.
As far as I know I haven't seen any of her followers try to spend it but a lot of people are like signing up onto spreadsheets and giving them her personal information to get this money and what she's doing right now is she's driving around and she's hosting little events where people will come in and they'll show her Her passport and they'll have this little ceremony where she'll read out something.
They'll give kind of an oath to being sovereign which kind of brings in that sovereign ideology beliefs or the sovereign citizen beliefs that Travis alluded to earlier and then she gives them the money and currently she's like as we speak she's in Quebec doing this right now with a group of followers in a secret location where one person told me they have it on pretty good authority that She's so paranoid that in order to get into this kind of event you need to go and wait at a gas station and then her followers will come and meet you at the gas station pick you up from there and drive you.
I don't know if they're putting like blindfolds on them or anything but they're keeping it pretty low-key.
They probably don't love that a journalist found them recently so maybe I'm to blame for this but this is kind of like the big thing right now that's going on in Romana's world is Distributing these loyalty bucks to her followers across the nation.
Whether they're going to pool their money and buy something, I don't know.
But this is only happening in the last couple months, so it'll be interesting to see where this heads.
It almost sounds to me like camp bucks.
You know, you go to like sleepaway camp and you know, you win kickball.
And so you get, you know, a handful of camp bucks.
And at the end, you know, at the end of the summer, you can like buy something from the like snack store with the camp bucks or something like that.
It seems almost to me that it's essentially, you know, loyalty money is a great name for it because the people who receive it are vying to do loyal acts to Romana, you know, insofar that they can, you know, amass, I don't know, fat stacks of, you know, a soprano's roll of like, you know, Monopoly dough.
Yeah, and her fanbase is something that's always surprised me, but they're extremely active.
Like, if she says something, the reason she came onto my radar too, however long ago, was that she was getting all these people to hand out cease and desist letters.
And so whenever she kind of does something, her audience really takes it upon themselves to organize themselves.
And right now what they're doing is they're organizing themselves into regional and city
coordinators for Romana who are people that are going to essentially, you know, do her
bidding in this city and like more or less in my, like they're not doing anything nefarious.
They're more or less organizing for when she comes to visit or, or organizing local chapters.
But like what that's doing is that's setting up these people to network in real life.
And it's kind of building these kinds of, I don't want to call themselves or anything,
but it's building these groups in like little locations.
And so she does these things and whether knowingly or not, she's kind of activating her audience
to organize themselves.
And that's currently what they're doing is they're all kind of like self organizing and
waiting for her to get to their location so they can all go line up and swear this, you
know, this oath of fealty to her and then, you know, get their sweet, sweet purple dollar
One more thing I want to talk about before we get to your most recent reporting.
So like any good cult leader, Ramana Deedlo, she's built kind of like an inner circle of loyalists who do her bidding or even act as her agents.
Most notably, this includes two people.
There's a young man named Kevin, and he is D'Lo's driver, security guard, and French translator.
And there's a woman named Darlene, and she has become her quote-unquote chief of staff and is essentially D'Lo's personal assistant.
So what can you tell me about Kevin and Darlene?
These are two of her most loyal subjects, I would say.
Cavan's been with her for the longest, and Darlene might be like the most technologically literate and maybe the most organized, and she's essentially her, yeah, as you said, her like her right hand and One person I talked to, Kim Churchill, who I spoke to, really had empathy for Darlene.
She thinks out of everybody within this group, Darlene has it the worst because she's so incredibly micromanaged by Romana that it's to the point of abuse.
She's controlling when she can shower.
She's making her food.
She's sleeping in the same vehicle as her Anything that Romana needs done, Darlene's doing.
And for Kevin, Kevin is kind of this meek, slender man who is like their security and their driver and their French translator, but he's also kind of their bank account.
And by that I mean that they solicit money every day from their audience.
They wouldn't be able to do this without their audience giving them money.
But they're getting that sent directly to Cavan's bank account which he's then giving fully over to Romana.
I've spoken to some financial experts who believe that like This is some sort of financial crime, and she formerly used Daisy, one of the people I talked to about this, and this actually got Daisy's bank account shut down, and they actually lost some of their savings because of this.
And the two of them are also two of the more public-facing loyalists.
What they do is they host the group's daily live streams, which is called like, it originally was Queen Romana Television.
But they made a sign that was incorrect and it said like QTRTV and then they didn't want to admit that they got it wrong and they just changed it to Queen Romana tell Real Vision News.
And so that's what it's called now?
They didn't want to get the sign reprinted, of course.
They were like, oh, we spent all this money on these big stickers.
We can't have them reprinted.
Yeah.
So they just changed the name of it.
And they host this every day.
And Darlene does it in English.
And Cavan does it in French.
Because, you know, Roman is the Queen of Canada.
Like every good Queen of Canada, she's got to be bilingual.
And they just, they're so integral to her kind of getting around.
I truly feel for these two people, but yeah, they're her core.
Well, and it also sounds like from your piece that, you know, that there is almost this comical level of, like, paranoia and, like, shit rolling downhill, like, within the power structure of the group.
You know, that Romana will get upset at Darlene for something, and in turn Darlene will, you know, Throw, you know, somebody beneath her under the bus and that there is this constant vi- I mean, it's a true monarchy, you know, everybody wants to please the Queen, you know, the, you know, somebody is constantly, you know, getting blamed because, you know, the higher-up doesn't want to get their head chopped off by the, you know, sort of paranoid, uh, you know, fickle ruler.
And, you know, you had mentioned there was one woman who was, like, at the very bottom of the totem pole who oftentimes had to do, like, the most sort of egregious tasks.
Yeah, and she would just get screamed at and was just treated like shit.
And when Kim actually left the group, she tried to bring this woman with her, but she just wasn't able to convince her to leave.
She stayed in a nearby town and told her, she was like, just text me.
I'll come pick you up and you can come with me.
I'll drive you wherever you need to go.
But she never like received this text.
And like another thing that they're doing and it almost like reminds me of like I don't know prison or like even just like a junior high school where they're always trying to get dirt on the other people or to like tattle on the other people so they could get in Romana's good books so they could kind of like go around like the backs of like their people and be like oh Oh, like Romana, did you hear that?
Like, Gavin went and had a shower?
And it's just, this, as you said, like, this, like, level of, like, shit rolling down hills and, like, this constant infighting.
And I think that has to just go back to, like, control.
Like, if you're snipping at each other, you're not snipping at the leader.
If you're always busy, you're not snipping at the leader.
You're not overthinking it.
And it's, God, it just sounds like a truly a fucking terrible place to be.
I have to wonder, is Romana doing all of this by accident in a weird way, like based on what she watched on TV or something?
Or is there a level of intelligence there where she knows, I gotta keep these people busy because as soon as they start asking questions or as soon as they band together and have camaraderie as a group, they can overthrow me.
I mean, it's just insane to see somebody that has so many crazy ideas about their own That's a question I've had for like ages of covering this, is like, is this like a mental health issue?
Is this a grift?
Is this just something out for power?
And like, I can't answer that.
the real world apparatus that has sort of, you know, gathered around them.
That's a question I've had for like ages of covering this is like, is this like a mental
health issue?
Is this a grift?
Is this just something out for power?
And like, I can't answer that.
I wish I could, but it's it feels like, is this just like, you know, the where a narcissistic
personality naturally goes?
Or is this like, she's actively, knowingly exerting this control over these people?
Because if she is, it's, you know, she's doing a good job of it.
There's this one, that one crazy detail where, where I think it was Darlene who chimed in on Romana's radio and said, you know, can I have an extra 10 minutes for a shower?
And Romana answers and she says, 10 minutes granted.
You know, that level of control, to me, is bigger than a lot of what we see in the space and the people we cover.
And the fact that it comes from this woman is, like, even crazier.
I think that's why, you know, you and us and other people that have been following the story are so fascinated by it, because there's so much that doesn't add up, and yet the consequences are so very real.
Yeah, and like, it's hard to explain to somebody who doesn't really follow the story exactly what we're saying, but these are people who have given up their normal lives to live in an RV for months at a time, years now in Cavan and Darlene's case, and travel around with this cult leader and just talk to people and do nothing.
And this is their existence now.
And the amount of control that they've allowed this woman to have on them is incredible.
It's horrifying.
Yeah.
I suppose that's why I cover it.
I think I opened my story by saying like, only my therapist and my editor know why I cover this for the last two years.
But I suppose that would be the reason is that like, it's one of a kind, I would say.
Yeah, so in sort of you're tracing the sort of the route that Romana Deedlo has traveled going from town to town, you discover that last year, she went to an island called Cape Breton, and she was eventually chased off.
So how did that go down?
Yeah, so for this story, I kind of flew across the continent
to province of Nova Scotia, where she spent a lot of her time.
And while I was there visiting the area where she was living, I was kind of hearing this story
about these kind of like island marauders who had chased her off to the north
in this island called Cape Breton, which is well known in Canada
as being like one of the most beautiful places.
And the people there are hilarious and they're like some of the most fun people to drink with.
Like go listen to the Rankin family if you don't know the Rankin family.
And so I decided to like, you know, when in God's country, I turned my rental car north
and I went up to the town of Glace Bay, which was very far away, did the drive extremely hung over
'cause the people in Nova Scotia love to drink.
Then I met this man named Robert Nolan, who she described as the red-eyed demon of the north.
This is a man who had lived in Glace Bay for his entire life.
And if you rewind several months from when I get there, Hurricane Fiona smashed into this area.
It's the most costly hurricane in, I believe, Canadian history.
It caused massive amounts of damage, and it caused massive amounts of damage to this town of Glace Bay, including Robert's home.
He was living in the neighborhood he grew up in.
he had only known Glace Bay.
It ripped the roof off his home that he and his wife were hiding in
during this hurricane, filled it with rain and his home had to be demolished.
This was a home he raised his kids in.
And so Romana for some reason was driving through this area, trying to convince people the hurricane wasn't real
in a way to, I don't know, attack Justin Trudeau.
As I said, like she says so much shit and she goes back on it
that it's like really hard to follow because like then they found a new mark
They found this man quite literally with his heads in his hand outside of this dilapidated home and they pulled over and immediately started using him to fundraise.
But in order to fundraise they had to act like the hurricane happened and her followers were able to just like have this cognitive dissonance of like just like hours before she was talking about how the hurricane didn't happen.
And now all of a sudden the hurricane happened and they need to raise all this money for this man.
This man happened to be the neighbor of Robert's.
And they weren't very pleased.
Emotions were high, you could say.
Like, he had just lost his home.
They were rolling through here to leech off their friend, their neighbor.
And he knew who she was from my prior coverage.
And they weren't gonna take her shit.
And there was questions about this neighbor, you know, who they came across with his head in their hands, that he was out of it in more ways than one.
I mean, it wasn't just taking advantage, it was really, really taking advantage of somebody who maybe, you know, wasn't in the proper mindset to be used to fundraise.
100%.
Like, I don't want to get too into the details of it because it's not my story, but this was a man that was not well.
And this is a man that several people told me was not well.
And they were just completely taking advantage of him.
They walked off, they put him on the camera, they promised him they were going to raise all this money for him.
Then they immediately got her followers to start giving them money, to start sending money to Cavan's bank account.
Of course, this man would never see a penny of it.
But while they were doing this, Robert immediately saw what was happening, pulled up in his truck and just fucking unloaded.
He dropped all of his air horns and just like cut into him.
And then he like, he rolled down the window and I'm sure we're gonna play a clip of him and you'll hear his very strong accent and just started yelling at him.
And then they kind of ran back into their vehicles, but they kind of stayed put.
And then he, he just kind of spent the next week making their lives a living hell as they tried to do this, as they tried to leech money off his neighbor.
So I drove up and I met Robert, uh, who is one of the, one of my favorite people I've ever got to spend time with.
Yeah, he seems awesome.
Oh, he's unbelievable.
He is pretty awesome.
But yeah, like you mentioned, there's this there's this video of Robert basically encouraging one of Romano Di Dillo's loyal lieutenants to abandon Di Dillo and go back home.
Buddy up there.
Hey, you, buddy.
Now's your chance.
I will buy your ticket for you to go home to go back with your family to get you out of this cult.
I will buy your ticket to get home right now.
Your family will help you.
Would you like my help?
I actually am willing to help.
I mean, you're right.
That is a really funny, amazingly passive-aggressive way to berate a cult follower.
It's this like level of passive-aggressiveness you can only find in Canada and the Midwest.
Yeah.
It's like our like, oh, we're so good at it.
I love my nation for this bullshit.
And I actually, when I was speaking with Robert, I was like, do you have any regrets?
And he was like, I just wish that my accent wasn't so strong.
No, that's what makes it, that's what makes it even better.
What you heard was just a small snippet, but they did this for three days.
Three or four days.
While they would kind of park outside of his house, they would go in, they would livestream, and they would kind of, they'd almost do like a, like a telethon to raise money for this.
And in the end, they actually raised $10,000.
Which they gave none of to the guy who they said they were raising money for.
He didn't get any of it, right?
No, he got left, they gave him a broken TV that they think came from one of the RVs that they were renting.
That's a fucking piece of shit, that's a piece of shit move.
Yeah.
But yeah, and you know, there was just before we move on from this, there was a part in the piece where Robert basically said he showed the guy the money that he was like willing to, you know, he was like, I got it right here.
This brought tears.
I mean, I'm emotional now just talking about it, but there was something about this that was so human
of these people have showed up, they're parking on your street, they're disrupting it,
they're taking advantage of the people in your town, you've just been devastated by a hurricane,
and yet this guy is standing out there being like, "Hey, buddy, I'll buy your ticket home."
There was also the great story of the guy who was blasting Slayer out of his car
any time that they were trying to livestream because he knew, I mean, ah,
we love a peaceful protest like this, and just, yeah, for the citizens of this town,
or for the occupants of this town to respond in the way they did is like this level of compassion even
that Romana couldn't even come close to having for her followers.
And I just thought this was such like an interesting and wonderful part of the piece is the reaction that these folks have.
And it worked.
I mean, they eventually chased her out, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, he said at one point he became a little bit of a town crier, where he would sit by them and he would kind of like wave vehicles in and be like, tell them what you think, tell them what you think.
And I remember he was like, another time that he apologized to me, where he was calling her Queen Dildo.
And I remember him telling me, he was like, look, I know it's wrong, but I was very upset.
And I was like, that's fine.
I think you're fully allowed to call her Queen Dildo there.
Yeah, you get a pass from us.
You get a pass from the Dildo community.
Big Dildo.
Oh man, I'm glad Julien's not on that one.
You have had a field day with you, Jake, identifying yourself as a member of the Dildo community.
Yes, of course.
So, listeners, you can only imagine what jokes would have been made at my expense, but luckily I get to move on from this.
You know, armor unbroken.
So the big dildo community came for her.
Well, it's just reminding me that like in this area, there's a town called Dildo, Newfoundland, and it's like the best Canadian town.
And I don't know, that just, we should all go to Dildo.
Only in Newfoundland, of course.
Oh, Newfoundland's the best.
I love the Maritimes.
Someone out there is going to get very mad at me for calling Newfoundland in the Maritimes, but whatever.
Anyways, back to the topic at hand.
Yeah, and so even when they would go and try and have like secret conversations, he would launch his drone and just go fly it over top of them to record what they were saying.
Just like being the most annoying fucking little brother.
Ah, shit.
I loved it.
It was such a good way to protest.
And yeah, eventually they just like, I think they called him a demon.
They said that like the police were corrupt because no one got arrested.
And one of my favorite quotes that Robert told me was like, yeah, I knew nothing was going wrong because Trevor, our local cop, would have just arrested me.
Who's obviously a buddy with him because this is a town of like, I don't know, maybe a little over a thousand people.
He's like, if I was doing anything wrong, you know, Corey and Trevor, you know, they would just come over and haul me away.
Yeah, and Robert, if you're listening, we are not making fun of your accent.
It is glorious.
No, dude, Robert, if you're listening, man, your actions in the face of this, like, very demoralizing sort of cult to watch and to see people involved with, you are, you know who's the true royalty of Canada?
You are, sir.
I couldn't agree with you more.
And yeah, so one of the- and eventually it just ended with them leaving.
Robert thinks that they left because it was- it would have cost them about that to get across the ferry to Newfoundland, as we just mentioned.
It would have cost $10,000?
It's pretty expensive if you want to bring a whole bunch of vehicles onto the ferry, both ways.
Oh yeah, that makes sense, yeah.
And I don't know if that would be the exact price but he thinks that they were trying to make enough money to raise and so they raised ten thousand dollars and then they just fucked off and yeah they left his neighbor with a broken tv after rolling through there pretending the hurricane wasn't real which you know to this community which at this point in time the roofs were still on the ground that had been blown off these houses it was a complete slap in the face they just roll in they manipulate they they fundraise off this man and then they leave but They would have been able to raise more if they didn't push back and were as annoying and petty to them.
So, this is kind of the way to do it, I think.
Like, I think they set up an action, like, this is how, if you're gonna push back, get fucking annoying with it.
This has the energy of, like, an 80s Zemeckis movie, or, like, Spielberg, where, like, the neighborhood kids, like, get together and, like, figure out a, like, non-violent way to, like, drive the evil out that's, like, threatening their small town.
This is so heartwarming and, like, classically awesome that, like, yeah, I mean, I don't know.
I'm just, I'm just so impressed.
I'm so impressed at the poise that they had.
There was no violent confrontations.
You know, this didn't devolve into picket lines of people shouting at each other or people coming to blows.
This was well thought out.
It was innocent.
It was effective.
I mean, Jesus, like, this is, it's amazing.
It's some of the most beautiful townie shit I've ever seen.
I just, I love it.
Agreed, agreed.
But then she, you know, not every place pushed back as hard on Ditalo as Glace Bay did, as I'm sure we're going to get into.
So they chased out there and eventually Romana Ditalo made her residence at Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia.
This is a town that has a long and storied history, but also a very sleepy little village, just about 2000 people.
First of all, what can you tell us about this town?
How did you first discover that she was holed up there?
Sure, so Tatamagouche is one of those really classic like cute little towns that blow up in the summer and then are really small in the winter.
It's got like a really cute little brewery, just a couple streets.
It has a hotel where you can sleep in train cars.
It has a nice little downtown that's one street long and it's just on the water.
So it's like a little tourist town, more or less.
And one of the people there was a local naturopath who was a follower of Romanus.
And so how did, I mean, you spoke to a lot of the colorful residents of this town.
So how do they feel about her living there?
It was it was weird a lot there was a few people that were just like well you know no harm no foul but for many it was a little bit of worry that they were going to look like country bumpkins because this is a tourist town and they rely a lot on their reputation and the fact that that this woman had set up shop just outside of town and was just you know loving it there and One day, out of the blue, I got this email from a woman who wants to remain off the record saying that, hey, I know you've written about Romana and I know you know she's in Nova Scotia, but she's essentially my neighbor and I drive by her every day on my way to work.
Do you want to know the address?
And I said, I would love to know the address.
And I somehow convinced my editors that this was worth buying me a plane ticket to cross the continent and flew on out there and decided to go say hi.
Yeah, that's it.
Because yeah, you've been covering her for many years.
And you were you're trying to make this your opportunity to speak to the woman in person.
So how did that go?
Uh, it kind of sucks.
It's a little anticlimactic.
I was there with a large co-worker because our vice security team was essentially worried about me going there on my own just because they didn't want me there without somebody to watch my back in case something happened.
And there was also a lot of dogs on the property that they We're kind of worried might be less well behaved than dogs you would normally encounter in say the city.
And we pulled by there and we saw Romana on the roof of this motorhome strapping in cameras with duct tape.
And I remember like giddily saying to this guy next to me, I think I was like, she's on the roof!
She's on the roof!
And we kind of pulled over and we got ready and he was filming.
I just had my recorder out and we just kind of trudged up there.
By the time we got there, Sadly, Romana had gotten off the roof and she wasn't anywhere to be seen, but there were two women that I knew were members of this cult, uh, were kind of strapping things into the back of this truck in the middle of one of these make work projects that we kind of talked about frequently, and I walked up and I said, hey, hello, I'm
Journalists love to speak to the Queen and immediately they didn't want anything to do with us.
Very curtly were like, no, we don't want to talk to you.
I was like, can I speak to Romano?
Like, absolutely not.
Do not come on this property.
And then they stopped talking to us and that was about it.
And we walked back and I was like, shit, what am I going to tell my boss?
I spent a lot of money flying out here.
Right.
But then I looked over and Cavan had put on his little security hat and he was leaning at us staring at us and to me that was good enough invitation to go speak to him and so me and this man walked back and he was out there and the owner of the home was out there who as I mentioned earlier was a local naturopath who was putting them up and I started trying to talk to him and the homeowner had a little quibble with the last like a previous story of mine and she was kind of starting to talk to me but then I heard like the screen door slam and this woman just kind of march up to us and just scream like no comment no comment no comment screaming over top of everybody
And that was Darlene marching over and just like taking control of the situation and then over her shoulder I kind of see this figure in the motorhome like just leaned up so close that her face was almost smeared on the windshield and it was Romana just like looking at us and I could see she was yelling into a walkie-talkie and it was a walkie-talkie on Cavan's waist and I could hear her yelling like ignore them, ignore them, don't speak to them, don't speak to them.
Wow.
Yeah, that was kind of it.
That was the closest interaction we had with Romana, and we had to leave.
But at least, you know, I got to hear my white whale's voice.
I got to hear this woman I've been chasing across the country for two years now, see how she treated people in person, at least a small bit.
But I really wish she would have spoken to us.
We didn't go there aggressive.
We didn't go there over the top.
We left pretty quickly when we were like, hey, if you don't want to talk, we're not here to start a situation.
But yeah, that's essentially what happened.
A good bar story, but I really wanted to actually speak to her.
I didn't want to go and embarrass her or anything like that.
I just wanted to go and ask her questions.
But, you know, the chances of her ever speaking to us were always slim.
Yeah.
You gotta wonder if she is aware of you as, you know, you said yourself the woman who was hosting them had a quibble with, you know, a previous article that you had written.
So it seems like the network might be generally aware of You, I mean, she might not have been able to put a name with a face, but, you know, I imagine that any outsider that comes in, you know, Romana is smart enough to just, you know, sort of sick her followers on you and, and clearly, you know, whoever you had run into initially wasn't good enough as she then sent her, you know, sort of head lieutenant out to, you know, give you the final no.
And it sounds like from your story that Darlene herself was kind of the most aggressive and sort of pointed, you know, denial of any kind of, you know, any kind of interaction.
Yeah, they certainly know I exist, like Romana is putting out claims.
Recently, very funny, right before this story came out, she posted that Vice declared bankruptcy because of her.
And she was like, no more stories from Vice.
And then I was like, oh, there's, there's at least one more story from Vice coming your way.
Yeah, there's at least one.
And then we published this and all of her followers were like, what, what's going on?
I thought that they were bankrupt.
I thought they, they were, you know, dead in the water, but nope.
But again, it just has to do with like, she's constantly saying this shit.
None of it comes true.
It's the whole thing in the QAnon ecosystem, right?
Like that's a tale as old as time for you guys.
People say shit, it doesn't come true.
It doesn't matter.
What would have been the first question that you would have asked her?
Had she agreed?
Did you have a first question lined up or were you just sort of in the moment?
I mean, I have to imagine for you, Mac, as somebody who has been following this so closely and is so personally involved, You know, there is almost this weird, you know, sense of celebrity, uh, as you're approaching this compound, as you see her on the roof, and she's duct taping these, you know, security, I mean, and, which, we didn't even get into all of the crazy shit that they set up at their camp, like these giant security lights that go on all night, I mean, it's insane, but did you, did you have a first thing that, like, a break the ice kind of question, or?
Yeah, I was just going to ask her to show me around.
That was going to be my first thing.
I was going to be like, why don't you show me where you're staying?
And then try through small talk to make my way up to it.
I had a million questions.
The big one being, do you feel bad for what's happening to your followers?
People are losing their homes.
Do you have any sort of empathy for them?
Or what happens if you run out of money?
Those are some of the largest questions I have.
Because like one of the things I constantly, I wouldn't say I worry about, but I'm constantly thinking about when it comes to coverage of this, is that where does this all end?
Romana started very powerless in Victoria from a boarding home.
She lived in the attic of a boarding home and now she has people that are giving her tens of thousands of dollars.
She has people that are willing to, you know, take out credit cards and then max them out to keep her
power going, that live with her, that she can command. What happens when all of that runs
out? What happens when the money dries up because it's going to eventually? I don't think she
wants to go back to this boarding home.
I don't even know if she can.
I don't even know if she has a place to live anymore.
I don't think she just wants to park the motorhome and live there.
So, that's one thing that I really wanted to get out of the interview, if I ever got it, was like, where does this end?
Where is this going?
Well, and even the small-scale stuff, like somebody that cooks her meals for her, somebody that brings her her coffee, you know?
I mean, from the article, it's clear that she is weighted on hand and foot, and really is treated like royalty.
Everybody waits for her to get out of her bedroom, and they wait in the RV, and she comes in.
They all stand up, you know, as if a president is entering, you know, the press conference.
I mean, there are these little things besides money that ooze power and control, and I too am worried of what happens if this new lifestyle is threatened.
Yeah, where does it lead?
Where does it go?
I don't have the answer to it.
And sadly, all I can really do is sit back and watch.
But I don't think it leads anywhere good.
I don't think it leads to her being like, ah, shit.
Well, I'm a fraud.
Time to go back to my little place in Victoria.
I don't know where it goes, but I don't think it ends anywhere nice.
You know, I think that's a good place to end it on.
No, no, no, no.
I like it.
It hits hard.
Unless there's something, are there any other like anecdotes or something you'd like to share about your experiences?
Oh man, there's like a million.
Like one of the things, I spent so much time covering her and I also wrote just a 7,000 word piece, which is a long, long piece.
And there's millions of things I didn't get to put into there.
Like the fact That the woman that she was staying with, the local naturopath, I tracked her journey of radicalization, which was throughout the COVID pandemic.
She was always kind of like a little bit on the conspiratorial edge, but she really fell down the rabbit hole during COVID.
But there's a million anecdotes around this story, because like at the heart of it, it's just people, and it's people suffering.
So I don't know.
Have empathy, I guess, would be the thing I want to say.
I don't know if there's too much to add, but yeah.
We've been talking to Mack Lamoureux.
His recent report for Vice News is headlined, What Happens When a QAnon Cult Leader Moves into Town?
It is super fascinating.
Go check it out.
And Mack, thanks for joining us again.
And where can people learn more about your work?
Yeah, so you can follow me on Twitter at my name, which is just Matt Glamouroux.
I write for Vice.
Hopefully that's still a website when you're listening to this.
And I'm about.
If you want to learn more about my work, I'm pretty easy to find.
Mac, hopefully we have you on one more time to tell the story of the end of the story of Robonda D. Lowe and how she returned to a more respectable way to make a living in order for followers to return to their families and start paying their utility bills again.
That'd be nice.
Knowing our luck, Mac's gonna come back with, like, Roman Adidolo has, like, established a new political party in Canada and is polling at 67%.
It's gonna be something awful, like... Yeah.
Roman Adidolo is somehow the premier of Manitoba.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
You can go to patreon.com slash QAnonAnonymous and subscribe for $5 a month to get a whole second episode every week, plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes.
If you're already a subscriber, thanks.
It helps us stay advertising free and editorially independent.
For everything else, there's a website, QAnonAnonymous.com.
Listener, until next week, may the deep dish bless you and keep you.
It's not a conspiracy, it's a fact.
And now, today's Auto-Tune.
Hello everyone, long time no see.
I wanted to create this video to address the unlawful federal elections in Canada.
Unlawful because number one, I did not give my royal consent to the call for elections in Canada.
That means I did not give my prior informed written consent for this elections to be held that only the Queen of Canada can authorize.
I also did not appoint any Governor General to act on my behalf.
Now that that's out of the way, to the politicians.
Especially those who have served previously with the corporation governments who masqueraded as Government of We the People of Canada, headed by the fake Queen Elizabeth II of England, who has been dethroned, stripped of all her royal privileges, power, authority, and military ranks, and finally executed for crimes against humanity.
Know this, I'm fully aware that you have the full knowledge of her demise and participating in the current elections you are willfully committing high treason against we the people of Canada.
What you're doing is in reality preserving the old It's a corrupt, criminal, and evil system that has oppressed men, women, and children for thousands of years on planet Earth.
