Sewage water continues to seep into a big puddle close to the doorway of a purple-coloured school-turned-compound that housed members of a cult within the southwest Saskatchewan village of Richmound for the final two years.
Though the “Kingdom of Canada” cult was pushed out earlier this month after a police raid, the village’s Mayor Brad Miller says the sewage water — overflow from the bogs and sinks contained in the constructing — stays.
“If there’s wind, folks in all probability 500 ft away can odor it,” says Miller, 64, in an interview.
“For those who get it in your arms or no matter, you’ll be able to odor it for hours. It stinks such as you wouldn’t consider.”
And Miller thinks every day about hold them out if the Kingdom of Canada returns.
“I’m fed up. My household’s fed up. For those who got here out to the southwest, persons are simply fed up. It’s sufficient. It’s scary.
“When has a cult ever turned good?”
The sewage started pooling exterior the constructing after the village minimize the compound’s water and sewage system final yr as a final resort to drive out the cult members.
The proprietor of the college, Ricky Manz, was not paying his water and utility payments, Miller says. Cult members then started dumping water overflowing from its bathroom and sinks across the constructing.
Nevertheless it wasn’t the sewage water that pressured RCMP to raid the compound on Sept. 5. Mounties say they obtained a search warrant to enter the property on the assumption somebody inside had a firearm.
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Mounties seized 13 imitation semi-automatic handguns together with ammunition and digital gadgets within the raid. Manz, and Romana Didulo, the pinnacle of the Kingdom of Canada, and others have been arrested.
Miller says he is aware of as a result of he was there. He was requested by responding RCMP officers to assist them wrestle Manz to the bottom to arrest him, a takedown that left him rolling round in sewage.
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“I’m not kidding, I threw my pants away after the struggle,” he stated. “I by no means washed them or nothing.”
Miller, who has been dwelling within the village of about 200 folks for almost 40 years, describes the late-night raid as one of many happiest moments of his life for a group that he says has been tormented for 2 years by the Kingdom of Canada, led by Didulo, the self-styled Queen of Canada.
“I used to be shaking with pleasure,” he says.
“They have been sleeping when that raid occurred.”
Manz, 61, a Richmound resident, faces a number of prices, together with breaching a courtroom order and trying to intimidate a justice system participant, together with earlier prices of assaulting two cops.
Well being officers have declared the constructing unfit for human habitation and are banning anybody from dwelling there.
Didulo is dealing with prices of breaching a courtroom order and trying to intimidate a justice system participant.
The mayor says after Didulo’s arrival, he and his council tried to get the cult out of city as a result of they seemed to be violating nuisance and business constructing bylaws however nothing labored.
“It was a business constructing and nobody was allowed to sleep in there. We knew. The RCMP knew however we couldn’t get in with out that warrant. We couldn’t show it.”
Miller says cult members barricaded the compound, arrange safety cameras and erected vivid LED lights, a few of which confronted the principle freeway that runs via the city. The members additionally harassed locals by yelling and recording them.
Kids turned too scared to go to the playground close to the compound, Miller says.
The hatred and conspiracy theories the cult unfold on-line shocked the group.
“However no person cared concerning the small city in southwest Saskatchewan,” Miller says.
The Kingdom of Canada didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark and Manz’s lawyer declined an interview.
Christine Sarteschi, a criminology professor at Chatham College in Pennsylvania, has written a e book about cults that features particulars of Didulo’s Kingdom of Canada.
“There’s in all probability no cult as weird as hers,” the professor says.
Sarteschi says Didulo, who’s in her 50s, moved to Vancouver from the Philippines at across the age of 15 to reside together with her grandparents after her dad and mom died.
She says Didulo gained prominence throughout the 2022 “freedom convoy” occupation in Ottawa, the place she tried to burn the Canadian flag.
Now she claims to be the “Queen of Canada” and characterizes herself as “the custodian of Earth and humanity,” who’s an alien from one other planet and may stroll on water, Sarteschi says.
Sarteschi says Didulo encourages 1000’s of her followers through social media to cease paying their payments, taxes and debt underneath “pure legislation.”
Miller says the final two years of his five-year mayoralty have drained him and he worries for his security generally.
“I’m only a regular exhausting employee, I labored within the fuel (trade) for 35 years, and I believed I’d assist my city out, grow to be mayor,” he says.
He says he doesn’t know whether or not he’ll proceed main the village however says the concern is whether or not the Kingdom of Canada returns.
“What’s going to occur now? They’ll nonetheless begin staying in that college and we received’t know once more?” Miller asks.
“Then will we obtained to get a warrant once more to get in there? That doesn’t even make sense.
“The entire system doesn’t make sense.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Sept. 24, 2025.
— With information from Jeremy Simes
© 2025 The Canadian Press
