QAnon is well-known enough, so I will avoid getting too much into it, but I think there has been some distinctions in how Canadian and American adherents use it that are worth noting.
In the United States, QAnon has been an authoritarian movement desiring to live under a nationalist junta headed by Trump that will purge an imaginary criminal cabal of Satanic pedophiles who rule the world and run the deep state, which just so happen to include all of Trump’s enemies. As long as Trump stays in office, they will continue to “trust the plan,” but where it goes afterward is unclear. To that extent, I would see QAnon in the United States as a hyper-partisan movement that is at least momentarily “system-loyal.” I will avoid speculating on election outcomes.
Q has only made a few “drops” that are directly related Trudeau and Canada, mainly related to the Uranium One scandal. Much of the rest is extrapolated from QAnon’s followers. The Canadian supporters’ views are all over the place, many supported the PPC (and Bernier pandered to them), but a small number supported Andrew Scheer, and some didn’t support either, and now a few support the New Constitutionalists and separatists.
Broadly, QAnon devotees have typically tried to tie Justin Trudeau into the mythical cabal, sometimes portraying him as a child molester based on a discredited story from the unreliable Buffalo Chronicle. The now-defunct QMap also had a “proof” attempting to connect Trudeau to the unsolved Sherman murders, which coincidentally has taken on a new angle in the COVID-19 pandemic with their involvement in the pharmarceutical industy and production of hydroxychloroquine.
Canadian QAnon devotees fantasize that Trudeau’s government gets overthrown. These would-be Quislings fantasize that a Trump-backed coup will launch them or those they support into power. QAnon devotees have concocted various fantasies by which Justin Trudeau will be removed; such as believing at points that he has secretly been placed under house arrest (while he was self-isolating), that a minor misinterpreted clause to fighting corruption in USMCA can be used to get US and Mexican law enforcement agencies to arrest Trudeau, or by trying to directly overpower Trudeau and place him under a citizen’s arrest (needless to say, the legal requirements for a citizen’s arrest do not allow this). Given that Q itself made posts linking to a video clip of Norman Traversy chanting “Where we go one we go all” at the July 1st rally in Ottawa one would think he has the most rights to claim being endorsed by Q.
Unlike in the US where pro-Trump partisans are seen as on the good side, in Canada QAnon is more of anti-system movement, seeing Canada’s institutions as extremely corrupt for not arresting Justin Trudeau. In this respect QAnon in Canada is similar to its supporters in countries like France and Germany, where believers oppose Merkel and Macron, and the reports I have heard share fantasies about the US Armed Forces “liberating” them. In Germany there is apparently a large overlap with the Reichsburger OPCA movement, while I suspect the number of Canadian QAnon believers who adhere to OPCAs is smaller there has been some overlap in the anti-lockdown movement.
One concerning aspect of QAnon’s application in Canada that I have yet to see addressed is how at least a few proponents have attempted to co-opt the MMIWG2S issue with their own conspiracy theories about elite child trafficking cults. In a previous section I mentioned how Norman Traversy and Suzanne Holland attempted to file an affidavit on the status of evidence for Robert Pickton’s murders, which they believed would be used as evidence against Trudeau for crimes against humanity. Many of Pickton’s victims were Indigenous, and part of what makes that case extra scandalous was that the RCMP negligent in investigating their whereabouts. I’ve seen at least a few Indigenous people supporting QAnon or related conspiracy theories, but these are also used by anti-Indigenous haters who use them to deny a societal problem and instead shift all the problem onto Trudeau and some weird cults.
QAnon people have been active in the anti-lockdown movement from the beginning. They have been organizers, speakers, and among its most vocal supporters, to the point where they were selling QAnon merchandise at last weekend’s protest in Toronto. Some anti-lockdown protesters angrily argue against this whenever mainstream media makes note of their presence, just like they do with the small number of flat earthers, but they are just upset because it shows how ridiculous they actually are. Typically whenever media mentions QAnon there is at least a small backlash against Q by other anti-lockdown activists, who will denounce it as a controlled opposition.