Dr Donald J Netolitzky KC

I'm an independent hobbyist investigator and commentator with an “unlaw” focus. I’m not really interested in law, legal theory, etc. Methodologically, I’m a microbiologist who studies law-related things. I measure court processes and activities, and track pseudolaw phenomena. I engage in data-driven research using science-based investigation and analysis. Little is known on how Canadian courts truly operate. My studies quantify Canadian appellate litigation, including the controversial SRL phenomenon. I also investigate anti-authority false-law pseudolaw phenomena, Canadian pseudolaw groups and their beliefs, and how pseudolaw is embedded in the junkheap of information sociologists call the “cultic milieu”. I used to be an Alberta Court of King's Bench staff lawyer, the “Complex Litigant Management Counsel”, who assisted management of problem litigants and litigation. Any of my often cranky statements and publications are my own opinion and perspective, and not that of my former workplace, its personnel, and judges. Most of my published research is archived on ResearchGate, if you are curious (researchgate.net/profile/Donald…). Oh yeah, and I’m an unrepentant weirdo. It kind of leaks through, sometimes. (Fursona art courtesy of brightkarma - furaffinity.net/view/58083450/).

@billyum53 Not that I am aware of.

@DNetolitzky Are there other outstanding charges?

The Saskatchewan Crown has explained why charges against HRM Didulo were dropped: "After careful consideration, Public Prosecutions has concluded that based on the evidence gathered, there was not a reasonable likelihood of conviction." As expected. The issue was evidence. But what does that mean? Who is to say? Here are some possibilities. (1) The overall evidence had some gap that necessary prove both the illegal act and the intention to commit the illegal act. (2) Review had disclosed that some evidence which the Crown had planned to rely on would probably be excluded because of a constitutional rights defect. (3) A witness had turned out to be flakey and unreliable, or was contradicted by other evidence. (4) The Crown could not establish in law that the act(s) committed by HRM Didulo were illegal, for example that running a vigilante pseudolaw court is illegal in Canada. Or more. Or a combination of things. For us outsiders, we can only guess at what was going on. But what's important to stress is this part of the Crown's explanation: "Public Prosecutions knows the decision may be disappointing for many, but it is important to uphold the legal standards that govern prosecutions and rule of law.” The Crown has no authority to proceed unless the reasonable conviction threshold is met. None. This isn't a question of a choice, but instead a standard of conduct and duty. The Crown's not-really-a-statement is the usual boilerplate you get from the Crown when they do not proceed with a prosecution. There's no obligation on the Crown to go any further with details. So, that's it for now. The source for the quotes is here: leaderpost.com/news/sask-crow…

@Thrinworks If you were to argue that the balancing of public interest versus private rights in Canada is skewed, I'd likely not argue with you. But I'm just a cheerfully retired fiend, so what I think isn't so important.

@DNetolitzky The rule of law is important. It's frustrating at times.

@HouseOfLoredan Obviously, there is support for different conclusions concerning HRM Didulo and her activities and motivations. But I think she's a lot sneakier than a simple nutty person. We'll wait and see.

@JustMeShelleyV @met24233 My pleasure! It's an interesting scenario.

@DNetolitzky @met24233 Thank you for helping us understand the laws in Canada. We appreciate you.

Multiple Canadian news outlets are reporting that the criminal proceedings against HRM Queen of Canada Romana Didulo were stayed (dropped). So, what does that mean? We don’t know. And we’re unlikely to know unless the Crown volunteers an explanation. Or HRM Didulo sues for wrongful prosecution or such. There are multiple possibilities. But first there is one I can eliminate with some confidence: the Crown lost interest, or was shuffling this high attention media case into a corner. The reason I say that is a few weeks ago the Crown Prosecutor carrying the Didulo prosecution was switched to Pamela Larmondin. I’ve never dealt with Ms. Larmondin before, but when I searched for cases that reported her activities, what became obvious is she is a veteran, and a “heavy hitter”. Ms. Larmondin is extremely experienced, over 20 years in crown prosecutions, having worked with the federal Public Prosecution Service of Canada, the Ontario Crown, then now Saskatchewan. I located her acting as a lecturer in legal criminal law training sessions on constitutional law and criminal proceedings. She’s a subject expert. Scanning through the matters she's been involved with, there are very large and complex matters in Ontario, serious crimes involving drugs, and most interesting of all, back in the 2000s, Ms. Larmondin was part of the historic Ernst Zundel hate speech/antisemitism proceedings. This is a “higher status” criminal prosecutor, not someone whose been slinking along in the background. You don’t assign someone like that to a jaywalking prosecution. You reserve lawyers like her for serious matters, or instances where evidence and constitutional principles are involved and complex. If you are dismayed to see HRM Didulo going free, I very much doubt that is because the RCMP and/or Saskatchewan Crown “didn’t care”. A lot of resources were committed, and the length of the scheduled preliminary inquiry, nearly a week, tells me the Crown had a lot lined up. This was a substantial effort. Been around the Crown/police side enough to be confident this choice wasn’t easy. Bringing in Ms. Larmondin suggests there was a problem. So that leaves a number of alternatives, alone or in combination. (1) This was a Resource Versus Benefit Call. The Crown’s resources are stretched, and they can only fully prosecute a fraction of the criminal activity that comes before them. This situation is a reality in Canada. Some crimes get prioritized, like violence and sexual offenses. Others don’t, like regulatory offences, economic offences, “victimless crimes”. It’s possible that the Saskatchewan Crown Prosecutors looked at this matter, said HRM Didulo isn’t likely to get more than a slap on the wrist as a sentence. A fact - Canada’s criminal sanctions fall to the low end, and for a first-time offender, HRM Didulo would likely face no more than a kind of house arrest. If that. Against that is a possibly multi-week jury trial “with antics”. Being pragmatic, putting HRM Didulo before a jury of Canadians, and her being self-represented ... well, the odds wouldn’t be good for the Arcturian Queen. But that’s a lot of public resources for a comparatively limited result. Didulo faced a “breach of undertaking” charge, which is minor, and an “intimidation of a justice system participant” charge, which is potentially quite serious. But the latter charge is also a big unknown. So was this a costs versus benefit call? Possibly, but there’s a negative public relations consequence. Staying the charges was reported in almost every major Canadian news outlet in hours. There are multiple documentaries, podcasts, political attention, all directed at HRM Didulo. To be succinct, the Queen is not popular with the public. I’m pretty confident that staying the charges was stewed upon. This was going to be a landmark precedent case in Canada, if it had proceeded. So my very strong suspicion is the choice to end the proceeding wasn’t made casually. There’s a possibility HRM Didulo agreed to some non-court settlement, too. No data on that one way or another at this point. (2) There was an Evidence Problem. Something went wrong with the searches so that one of the many, many and ever expanding “gotcha rights” in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is implicated so that some or much evidence is very likely to be excluded. This happens all the time in Canada. Our rules on searches and evidence are baroque, and getting weirder all the time. We’ll very likely never know what glitch, if any, came into play. Maybe it was the basis for a search warrant. Maybe it was taking a witness statement. Maybe HRM Didulo was not given her rights. Did she demand a “Natural Law” lawyer, and the RCMP said oh we don’t have any of those, could you give us a name? Did something like that possibly deny the Queen her right to legal information and representation? Were there nasty confrontations when the RMCP raided the not-a-school? Did someone say something rude? Was there anti-Arcturian racism? Or someone lost relevant records, or they were deleted? So many possibilities. In Canada, the scales are tilted wildly in favour of the accused when it comes to anything procedural, any right. There's a jab that we don't care about reaching the truth, than the procedural protection and process must be perfect. Eh. Thems the rules. Maybe that’s what happened. Calling in an expert Crown Prosecutor like Ms. Larmondin to do a salvage assessment makes sense. And the conclusion then was there isn’t a viable case, because of something rights or evidence related. The case against HRM Didulo goes poof. (3) Running a Pretend Vigilante Court isn’t Illegal. In Canada, things are illegal when the law says so. Specifically. I got in an interesting discussion with a non-Canadian academic/lawyer about this exact point a few weeks ago. I don’t see anything in the Canadian Criminal Code or common law that says operating a pretend court is illegal. In the US there’s an offense called “simulating legal process” which covers exactly these kind of antics. Canada doesn't have an equivalent. Let me illustrate how stupid this gets. There’s an offence in the Criminal Code called “personating a peace officer” (section 130). Here’s what’s illegal: 130 (1) Everyone commits an offence who (a) falsely represents himself to be a peace officer or a public officer; or (b) not being a peace officer or public officer, uses a badge or article of uniform or equipment in a manner that is likely to cause persons to believe that he is a peace officer or a public officer, as the case may be. Peace officer is defined in the Criminal Code very broadly to include the cops you’d expect, mayors, bailiffs, customs and border officials, fishery officers, even aircraft pilots. What it doesn’t include is people who are pretending to be members of a non-existent police force. So, there are cases in Canada where a fake pseudolaw cop who belongs to the “Territorial Marshalls” (there are no real Territorial Marshalls) was charged with personation, and acquitted. It’s illegal to pretend to be a real cop. It’s not illegal to pretend to be a fake cop. Yes, it’s stupid, and I expect the rules will change the first time some fake vigilante pseudolaw cops in Canada kill someone or something like that. It likely is in contempt of court to claim to be a duplicate of a real court in Canada. I cannot set up shop and call myself the Federal Court of Canada. But to say you are operating a wholly fictitious court, and issuing orders, arrests, sentences? I don’t think it’s illegal. There’s no offence for that. Nothing is written down that says that’s illegal. If that’s what was the basis for HRM Didulo’s intimidation of a justice system participant charges? Then that would be a new legal question. One I find very interesting, obviously. But if someone concluded that there isn't a illegal act here, I’d not argue. And now it gets worse. The section 423.1 intimidation of a justice system participant prohibited activity is: “No person shall, without lawful authority, engage in any conduct with the intent to provoke a state of fear”. Does HRM Didulo have the lawful authority to issue court decisions in a court of make-believe? It might not be illegal. In fact, this is probably protected freedom of expression. In Canada, rights to protest, to yell, publish things, that’s all very broad. Can I write the police to demand they arrest someone? Sure. And how do you differentiate between a politically sympathetic example, versus a pseudolaw one. On a conceptual basis, what’s the difference between a First Nations group claiming to set up a Court of Turtle Island and sanction a public official for “treason to Mother Earth” or whatever. Or is what HRM Didulo has been doing a religious activity? That too is a basis why Canadian government officials have to back off. Is it “intimidation” to excommunicate someone, casting them into the eternal lake of fire? “YAAAAAAAHHH!” (Bonus Jack T. Chick Reference!) No, it’s not. Then there’s the second part of the offence: “with the intent to provoke a state of fear”. Is that what HRM Didulo does? Or is she engaged in political or religious activities? Would it be reasonable to expect someone who receives a decree or order to experience “a state of fear”? I don’t have answers for these questions. In fact, I was very excited to hear a judge comment and explain their analysis and conclusions. What I can tell you is if I were sitting across a table from a Crown Prosecutor whose professional obligation is to only pursue prosecutions they believe can succeed, and that prosecutor says “I’m not sure I’ve got a hook.” I wouldn’t second guess them. They’re the dude on the line. Others like Dr. Sarteschi have commented on the probably effect of this result on HRM Didulo and her actions. They’re way better positioned than I am to make that call. So, I’ll just end with what I so often say when I speak about these people. Nothing much is going to change in Canada until there is a mass casualty scenario with pseudolaw aspects and adherents. And I very much hope I’m incorrect. Here’s some of the related reporting: theglobeandmail.com/canada/article… cbc.ca/news/canada/sa… globalnews.ca/news/11736333/…

Ok, there was a second letter that terminate the Criminal Code s 423.1 charge. The proceedings against HRM Didulo are over.

@DrSarteschi The poor Crown Prosecutor is probably going to come into work tomorrow morning to a stack of "WFT?!?!?" and "idiot reporter" emails. Or if she saw those already, she just turned off her laptop. I wouldn't blame her in the slightest. "F'ing media cases."

@DNetolitzky Interesting. Hopefully they do, if for no other reason, to correct the reporting

Dr. Sarteschi published this letter which stays proceedings against HRM Didulo. From my reading of the letter, this does not terminate the more serious Criminal Code s 423.1 Intimidation of Justice System Participant charge. Media reporting on this proceeding may be inaccurate.

If there has been a misunderstanding? I'd imagine so. Plus, it's kind of embarrassing that the media outlets didn't pick up that there still is a remaining charge - and the more serious one. It's pretty usual that the Crown cuts down a case to the serious stuff. Less evidence and argument you'd need to present. So it's not unexpected that occurred just prior to a preliminary inquiry. Clearing the deck, so to speak.

@DNetolitzky Do you think the Crown will comment?

@SMetharp I've commented here: x.com/DNetolitzky/st…

@DNetolitzky can you comment on this? Thanks! Charges against self-proclaimed ‘Queen of Canada’ stayed - SwiftCurrentOnline.com - Local news, Weather, Sports, Free Classifieds and Job Listings

@nutraxfornerves @redwoodser @DrSarteschi I am not anti-Soviet. In fact, I'm darned emphatically nostalgic for the Warsaw Pact! My favourite job ever was responding to them. (I know, I know, spellcheckers. Just couldn't resist.)

@redwoodser @DrSarteschi The sub is for mocking SovCits, not promoting SovCittery. But lost SovCits do occasionally show up there. The second anti-Soviet sub is r/AmIBeingDetained @DNetolitzky posts there.

@DrSarteschi BJW is shocked! He sent the IRS authorization to pay his bills by transferring money out of his strawman account. Instead, they sent another bill. reddit.com/r/Sovereigncit…?

The Supreme Court of Canada has released its 2025 annual report. I homed in on the statistics, which are as usual thin. 10 years of data. No startling changes. The SCC reports 37% of new appeals were by SRLs. It doesn't mention that none of those appeals were granted leave. Nor have any SRL leave applications been granted since 2017. That too isn't mentioned. If you're interested in the SCC's report, it's here: scc-csc.ca/about-apropos/… If you're interested in knowing about what happens to SRLs who appeal to the SCC, I've conducted a long-duration review here: researchgate.net/publication/37… Spoiler: there's very little evidence SRL participation at the SCC has any value to anyone. Including the SRLs.

Academic piece by Amy Cohen and Ilana Gershon that in part discusses parallels between President Donald Trump's approach to agreements and contracts, and pseudolaw contract theory: lawreview.uchicago.edu/sites/default/… It's neat. Worth a look.

English translation of a 2024 French law enforcement briefing on "Sovereign Citizens". Concludes: The threat posed by "sovereign citizens" in France remains minor compared to that of the jihadist movement, which remains the most significant terrorist risk on national soil. Full document is here: hal.science/hal-05491714/d…

@CJ_Feher You'd be amazed (or not) at how much no-content content there is out there on pseudolaw subjects. I'm not even going to start on the amazing 300K "Sovereign Citizens" figure.

@DNetolitzky Sounds like they stretched very little useful information into three and half hours.

The CBC has released a six-part podcast relating to HRM Didulo and her times in Richmound Saskatchewan. I have projects that involve Didulo underway, so I thought I’d better review the content. What follows is my review on whether to bother with the podcasts. First, I want to be honest. I do NOT like podcasts. I’m biased. I find they are an inefficient way to convey information, and often self-indulgent and ill-focused. They are a miserable source for data (from an academic/legal context) because of the way information is not indexed and almost never sourced. The total length of this series is nearly 3.5 hours. Fortunately, YouTube provides shabby machine-generated transcripts that I was able to review in something around an hour. I frankly have better things to do than commit my time to listening to this podcast in its raw form. And I don’t like listening to people speak unless they are professional lecturers. Staring at talking heads is even worse. You might feel the same way. If you are someone who has been monitoring HRM Didulo and her antics you can probably skip this resource. Here are the major points that are not documented elsewhere, as far as I am aware: (1) HRM Didulo’s arrival in Richmound resulted in a range of responses from the locals to the Diduloids. Some Richmoundians responded very negatively. (Shocking.) Others were neutral. Another faction was sympathetic. (2) The different responses to the Diduloids to at least some degree matched up with pre-existing divisions in Richmound’s population. A little unsurprisingly, not everyone in Richmound sees things the same ways. (3) There are two, to my knowledge, hitherto undescribed incidents where locals (or somebody) took negative steps with the Diduloids. The podcasts describe a purported incident where Didulo’s RV convoy was confronted on an empty field by several truckloads of locals who fired flares. The podcasts also describe an Internet video where several persons in sinister clown costumes burned a Diduloid flag. The information about HRM Didulo, herself, is sparse, and has been published in more detail by other commentators, including Dr. Christine Sarteschi (@DrSarteschi) and Camden MacKenzie. Instead, the podcasts are almost exclusively derived from interactions and interviews with Richmoundians. So, if you have an interest in how the internal politics of a small comparatively isolated rural community would evolve as exposed to an unusual external stress – the arrival of a cult-like group – then you might find the podcasts of interest. The podcasts had practically no value to me. Well, admittedly, the podcasts do a pretty damned good job of illustrating why I avoid this medium. Rather than dispensing information about a particular subject, these podcasts are a combination of character study, a longitudinal narrative, with a lot of emphasis on the chief reporter, Rachel Browne, and her personal interactions with the Richmoundians. She never really obtains much data on HRM Didulo and her core followers, because they wouldn’t talk to Browne. Browne at points sources information from outside sources in a summary form. So, the main drama is the internal division inside Richmound, culminating in an election vote between the strongly anti-Diduloid faction and others who are Diduloid-friendly or more neutral. There is almost nothing about HRM’s legal troubles and court proceedings. None of the subject experts on pseudolaw (me being one) or the academics who have studied Didulo are interviewed or mentioned. The higher political disputes are not investigated, nor the disturbing gap in non-municipal community authority versus provincial authority examined. HRM Didulo’s current criminal prosecution is not reviewed in much detail - but we’re still at the preliminary inquiry phase, so that’s fair. That story has just begun. So, it’s a kind of curious piece of work. Frankly, pretty self-indulgent. (And yes, that’s coming from me.) I wondered why make this production, let alone 3.5 hours of stuff. Then it struck me. This is a salvage effort. The CBC and Browne committed time and resources to a drama where the main player refused to take the stage. So, what results is a typical unfocused narrative thing that is low on content, and even events. All very “human interest”. The weirdness courtesy of HRM Didulo is subdued, too. To those new to the subject the initial overview of Diduloid rise might be interesting, but, again, others have done that better in a more concise, data-grounded, sourced method. (I’m not citing myself. See Sarteschi and MacKenzie.) So a couple broader observation. The first is the plague of summary sources on the Internet versus original investigation. There are a lot of people who simply repackage others’ work in a summary form, and blargh it out in a YouTube video. You know. The ones who take a written source like social media posts, and then read that aloud while highlighting the text - and that’s the video content! To be fair to Browne, she does provide some new information in the form of character studies of the Richmoundians, and first-person observation of the events during the Diduloid incurson. But, bluntly, I don’t really care about those. Your appetite may be different. The omissions are interesting. Romana is the “Cult Queen” but there’s no expert analysis from cultic or new religion studies types. That creates interesting gaps. For example, there’s a pretty obvious instance of the well-characterized cultic “Love Bombing” process that doesn’t get called out. The attempt to take over Richmound (if it was a takeover attempt) is compared to the Rajneeshpuram vs Antelope Oregon scenario. Scientology versus Clearwater, Florida to me would have been a more valid comparison, particularly since I’m pretty sure HRM Didulo is stealing parts of her script from the Scientology playbook. There’s mention of earlier reports of abusive and ritualized behaviour among the Diduloid inner core, but that isn’t followed up with cultic professionals. Dancing and singing along with repeated music/chants has mental control/shaping implications. That's the kind of context I would have valued. The second general observation is the state of the CBC. The degraded, politicized state. I usually don’t talk about my political beliefs because why the hell would any of you give a damn about those? They’re weird, ok? I’m weird. Worse than you think. Anyways, I grew up as a kid in a household where CBC AM Radio was on from practically breakfast through to bed. CBC News was the primary conduit, radio and television. Still is, for my parents. What I remember was concise, focused, and comparatively neutral. Now, I can hardly watch or listen to the CBC. Y’see, there are times when I know something about what is being reported. That was particularly true while I was a court worker. CBC news was terribly slanted, strained through and shaped by obvious filters. The local CBC court reporter was not at all respected by insiders, oddly it was the Sun Media reporter who did the better job. Why? Obvious agendas. Considering the mass disinterest in the CBC across Canada, I’m pretty sure I’m far from alone. Don’t get me started on the mandatory court trial interviews with victims and their families. “How did you feel about X getting Y for murdering your child?” [Angry exclamations, no justice!] Now, the Diduloid Saga podcasts are not particularly politicized, though there are a few observations about how rural areas may host more conspiratorial, individualistic perspectives. That’s fine. But I really am not interested in the human interest aspect of modern media reporting. That’s not saying I dislike the people interviewed and profiled in the Diduloid Saga podcasts. I just don’t care. Those datapoints are irrelevant to me. That’s a matter of style, of course. But if CBC/Browne were to come knocking on my door, I’m not sure I’d be interested in speaking to them. Because what’s important about me, if anything at all is of any value/relevance, that my ideas and observations. Not how I dress, my body shape, how I speak. Not the quirky art in my office. That I self-identify as a neutral evil furry fiend. I am irrelevant as an individual. Though it might be amusing to have a reporter going on with a personal interest narrative of how I refuse to appear in video, instead insisting on no photographs, or to use my avatar/fursona images. Hell, that’d probably be worth five minutes of discussion on a podcast! What a weirdo! What a character! Bleh. Here’s the podcasts. The Cult Queen of Canada from Uncover: youtube.com/playlist?list=… It’s “True Crime". Enjoy?

@ericvan74374932 It's a weird style of reporting - unless the mission is just to take up space?

@DNetolitzky Thankyou for slogging through it rather than I. I also agree with your analysis of the current state of CBC news reporting - why do they take so long to say anything meaningful. I guess I will skip listening to the series.

@nutraxfornerves @ElizabethF8217 I can't stop giggling... In a former job I occasionally had to read transcripts of telephone discussions between criminals in organized gangs. It was a comparative rarity when they used a word that wasn't an obscenity. I kinda miss that.

@DNetolitzky @ElizabethF8217 I recently verified a speech-to-text transcript of an official interview for which I was the notetaker. One innocuous word the speaker used was rendered as an obscenity every single time. It did give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.

I am defective... The CBC has a podcast series on HRM Didulo and her antics. Here: cbc.ca/listen/cbc-pod… Can't make myself listen to it. I've tried starting a few times, but I simply loath podcasts and video programming thingies. I want to read. READ. It's faster. It permits me to rapidly scan back and forward through content. I can acquire and process data at least five fold the pace. And then I can also listen to music that's pure hate and rage. I accept this means I'm old, obsolete, and defective. Fucking hate podcasts. Don't get me started on trying to survive listening to Glenn "Spirit Warrior" Bogue babble about Anunnaki or Mary Magdalene.

@ElizabethF8217 @nutraxfornerves You have to go to the YouTube version of the podcast, and there's a machine generated transcript. Which means it's somewhere between semi-coherent, and annoyingly filled with typos and homonyms.

@DNetolitzky @nutraxfornerves I can’t seem to locate the transcript.