International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation Volume 6 2023 84
2. sheltering antisocial, illegal, and criminal
activities as purportedly legally protected and/
or privileged “religious” rights
3. using principles of contract law to create
punitive schemes and
4. employing conventional Courts to enforce
these rights and to retaliate against identified
enemies.
In short, CERI legal theory is inextricably bound up
with Canadian courts, which means that: 1) Belanger
and his followers end up interacting with those courts,
and 2) when they do so, their failure is both inevitable
and total.
B. CERI Adherents
CERI’s adherents are transient. Most were previously
involved in pseudolaw of some form, experienced
setbacks and/or failures, then linked up to Belanger and
cloaked themselves with the CERI “minister” mantle.
CERI affiliation is shortly afterwards abandoned for
some other pseudolaw scheme. This pattern implies
Belanger recruits inside pseudolaw communities.
Belanger’s frequent publication of Internet videos
that explicitly criticize and challenge other gurus
and groups within the broader pseudolaw ecosystem
confirms that recruitment mechanism (e.g., owlmon,
2022a owlmon, 2022b Paraclete, 2020 Paraclete,
2021b Paraclete, 2022). This pattern traces all the
way back to the earliest appearances of pseudolaw in
Canada, where Belanger positioned himself in conflict
with Freeman-on-the-Land guru Robert Arthur
Menard, and claimed Menard’s knowledge of law was
inferior and misinformed, while what Belanger taught
was correct and far more powerful (Guest_*, 2004).
Most recently, Belanger has recorded a flurry of videos
that are obviously intended to recruit among Canadian
anti-vaccination and pandemic mitigation resister
activists who have embraced QAnon and pseudolaw
narratives (Paraclete, 2023a Paraclete, 2023b).
Beyond that, CERI adherents exhibit the usual
constellation of fringe, extremist, and conspiratorial
beliefs and affiliations typical of those who adopt
pseudolaw (Netolitzky, 2021). In that sense, CERI
adherents parallel followers of other studied pseudolaw
populations, such as the Magna Carta Lawful Rebels
(Netolitzky, 2023b) and followers of Queen Didulo
(Sarteschi, 2023).
Historically, CERI’s Edmonton-area members were
mainly persons who received social assistance,
disability and/or welfare benefits, were retired, or
who eked out a marginal existence as subsistence level
criminals (Meads v Meads, 2012 ABQB 571, para.
184). Most CERI litigants reviewed in this study also
had limited economic means. That pattern is different
from some pseudolaw movements, like the Canadian
Detaxers, who included professionals such as dentists
and chiropractors, and others with substantial
personal wealth and resources (Netolitzky, 2016, p.
624 Netolitzky, 2023d).
The ephemeral CERI rank and file can fairly be
described as Belanger’s victims. They already were
undergoing some form of stress or distress: mental
health issues (Haig, probably Williams), foreclosure
or debt collection scenarios (Volks, Knutson, Potvin,
probably Williams) criminal accused (Berg) or
engaged in family law subject disputes (Haig, CPD).
Belanger empowered these persons with imagined
authority, immunity, and money. But Belanger never
delivered on those promises.
Belanger then discarded his former “ministers.”
That step was usually public, but always hostile and
humiliating. Belanger shifted any and all blame to
his faithless flock. One word, more than any other,
captures the nature of Belanger’s collaborators and
followers: disposable.
What is intriguing is that, despite these highly negative
experiences, many of Belanger’s former followers (e.g.,
Volks, Knutson, Potvin, Williams) continued to pursue
some form of pseudolaw system or belief. That pattern
of behavior illustrates the deep appeal promised
by pseudolaw: a unique shifting of authority and
resulting empowerment (Netolitzky, 2021 Netolitzky,
2023c). Pseudolaw’s many variations share a common
conceptual skeleton, so switching to a new alternative
pseudolaw scheme does not require a large-scale
rejection and rebuilding of personal beliefs, values,
and preferred conspiratorial narratives. Pseudolaw
also shares a consistent anti-authority orientation
(Netolitzky, 2021).

ISSN: 2710-4028 DOI: doi.org/10.54208/1000/0006 85
C. CERI as a Community
Some pseudolaw populations are social groups. A
typical structure is an organized online or real-world
community with a center figure, surrounding acolytes,
and then a broader supporter/adherent population
(e.g. Netolitzky, 2023b Sarteschi, 2023). The Canadian
Paradigm Education Group Detaxer organization had
both a formal teacher and student educational structure
(Netolitzky, 2016, pp. 622-624), but also a broader
“Paradigm lifestyle,” where members were encouraged
to attend combination educational, dinner, and dance
social events, as a separate, superiorly informed, and
privileged group. Some pseudolaw communities
have even self-organized as formal, alternative,
vigilante governments (Netolitzky, 2021, pp. 172-173
Netolitzky, 2023c, III), with elected officials, political
and policy congresses, and an associated formal court
apparatus and officials.
CERI is different. CERI has no social organization or
community, but, instead, there is only one relationship:
the close but usually transient interaction between
conman (Belanger) and his marks (CERI affiliates).
CERI is a single entity, without alternative branches.
Participants enter by associating with Belanger,
and are subsequently ejected. To the degree CERI’s
membership can be traced, only distant actors who do
not become involved in court activities with Belanger
appear to persist.
Given that, CERI has no requirement for an apparatus
or rules to maintain control and orthodoxy. You are
either in or out. That status is determined by CERI’s
one central consistent personality: Belanger. To date
no CERI “splinter groups” have been observed. That
is no surprise, because anyone who spends time with
Belanger learns, firsthand, that Belanger is a dismal
failure. People interested in pseudolaw do not retain
CERI affiliation, but simply just move on to something
else that is also pseudolaw, but of a different kind.
That pattern also explains why Belanger and CERI have
no “copycats.” Anyone who observes Belanger knows
Belanger’s techniques do not work. Furthermore, that
information is not restricted only to “insiders,” since,
for over a decade, Belanger’s ineffective litigation antics
have been condemned by Canadian courts in published
decisions, and documented in online critic forums
such as Quatloos. “Due diligence” that targets CERI
would rapidly disclose this branch of pseudolaw, and
its promoter, are known and confirmed serial failures.
Thus, CERI is not so much a movement, or social
group. CERI, instead, is a parasitic system with a
single primary component--Belanger--surrounded by
a loosely orbiting assortment of temporary satellites,
who soon will either drift off or be ejected. Extending
that astronomical metaphor, ejection is a near
inevitable consequence of too close an encounter with
the system’s primary body: Belanger himself.
D. “minister” Belanger, a Priest Without a Flock
CERI is, in most ways, the personal expression of
one individual: Belanger. Belanger operates as the
central actor behind CERI litigation activities. That
primary role means he, personally, is to blame for
the negative consequences that follow. Nevertheless,
for decades, Belanger has never altered his pattern of
activity. Instead, Belanger projects any failure onto his
followers they are faithless.
Belanger maintains a consistent public personality and
presentation in his videos, private teleconferences, and
media and court appearances. Belanger mimics certain
Christian teaching styles: rapid-fire speech, punctuated
by repeated citation to Bible passages. His voice follows
a sing-song pattern, with dramatic pauses. While
superficially polite and formal, Belanger makes highly
offensive, sometimes racist, claims. Belanger arrogantly
addresses those who possess conventional authority--
judges, government officials, lawyers, and institutional
actors--they are inferiors with defective knowledge and
understanding. Belanger “educates” them.
Anthropologist Vanessa McCuaig personally observed
Belanger during his 2018 Edmonton criminal
proceedings. McCuaig concluded that, besides
presenting stereotypic CERI arguments, Belanger’s in-
court actions were chiefly a performance, “peculiar
for their emphasis on showmanship and spectacle”
(McCuaig, 2019, p. 99). When one moves beyond
Belanger’s quasi-religious/legal patter, Belanger is an
unsophisticated debater and communicator. McCuaig
describes in-court “gotcha”-type stratagems (McCuaig,
2019, pp. 85-99), rather than principled and/or logical
analysis and argument. That characteristic is equally