Despite claims made by Press Progress and CTV News, protesters at the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick border have no connection to podcaster Jeremy Mackenzie’s fictitious meme country Diagolon.
Justin Trudeau and some media corporations made the sensational claim after Pierre Poilievre visited a carbon tax protest while in between events in Atlantic Canada.
Poilievre denounced the “group” and Mackenzie after the podcaster and veteran made remarks about raping Poilievre’s wife, Anaida Poilievre, in September 2022. Mackenzie later claimed that he was joking. However, the Conservative leader asked the RCMP to investigate the incident.
The protesters have been camped at Fort Lawrence, Nova Scotia, since Justin Trudeau hiked the carbon tax by 23% on April 1.
Poilievre called for Canadians to protest the carbon tax hike in March.
According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report, the carbon tax hike will cost the average Nova Scotian household $537 more than they get back in carbon tax rebates this year.
Protest organizer Tommy Everett told True North in an interview that none of the approximately ten people who protest overnight at the camp support Mackenzie or have any connection to his fictitious country.
“Us being with Diagolon is just, grasping at soggy paper straws,” Everett said. “Because they seen a drawing that somebody drew two or three years ago on the inside of a camper with numerous other signatures from people all over Canada.”
He said the drawing of the flag, which has some politicians and media making the connection between Poilievre and Diagolon, was done in Ottawa during the Freedom Convoy.
“The person that owns the trailer was a mechanic at the Freedom Convoy. He had a diesel heater inside. So everybody (protesters) used that space to get warm while they were strolling up and down the streets,” he said.“It was kind of a pop-in, you know, warm yourself up, get a cup of coffee, have a cookie, and then after you’re warm, continue on your way.”
At the Freedom Convoy, it was popular for people to sign each other’s trucks, trailers, cars and flags. There was rarely oversight and for the most part, protesters would trust others not to draw something inappropriate.
“That was the only time that (the person who drew the flag) stepped foot in the camper,” Everett said. “They haven’t been in the camper since, nor have they been down here at any time. since this protest has happened, they haven’t even stepped foot on the property nor the highway we’re protesting on.”
Tommy said he was familiar with Mackenzie but hasn’t wanted “anything to do with him” since he “joked” about raping Poilievre’s wife.
“We don’t support the sexual assault of women. We support women being our equal counterparts. Anything that involves any kind of violence against anybody, we do not support,” he said. “To reiterate, nobody here supports Jeremy. nobody at all.”
The NDP aligned, Broadbent Institute funded, Press Progress’s report quoted from the Emergencies Act Inquiry which noted that law enforcement viewed Diagolon as a “potentially dangerous organization.”
The reporting did not include information from an 85-page investigative report co-authored by journalists Caryma Sa’d and Elisa Hategan, which found the Trudeau government and the legacy media reports overly relied on the same source of flawed information from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, which receives funding from the Liberal government.
Internal communications between Canadian officials showed they did not view Diagolon as an extremist threat or even an organized group were included in their report.
The RCMP said Diagolon “does not pose a criminal or national security threat.” other officials found Diagolon “no criminality,”
A Canadian national security official Matthew Dejardins said “Diagolon does not meet dictionary definitions of a group,” on March 16, 2022.
When asked at the Public Order Emergency Commission, Tom Marazzo said Diagalon is a “meme.”
“The vice president of Diagolon, being a time-travelling cocaine-addicted goat, that’s just an internet meme that has no meaning at all,” Marazzo said.
At the inquiry, Mackenzie testified that the “demonic goat figurine” is named Philip.
The imaginary nation is a hypothetical utopia that the founder joked would emerge if one drew a diagonal line from Alaska to Florida.
