A London, Ont., cricket factory that produces insects used as pet food has found itself at the heart of a sweeping international conspiracy theory whose purveyors claim a cabal of shadowy elites are trying to force the population to eat insects as part of a sinister totalitarian plot.
The conspiracy theory has been circulating for months, amplified and published by hawkers of online misinformation in Canada and elsewhere in English and Chinese, often with the falsehood growing more sweeping or outrageous with each iteration.
Those spreading the myth aren’t just online bloggers and anonymous social media accounts. The falsehoods are also spread and tweaked by a number of political operators to suit their agenda, including the Alberta separatist movement and politicians like a sitting MP and a Conservative Party of Canada leadership hopeful.
