by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

From her earliest memories, Paméla Desrosiers has been categorized as a plump girl. "I'm from the countryside, out in Farnham, and they gave me a hard time," she says. "It's not as easy when you're growing up and people aren't telling you every day that you're beautiful. You have to go out and earn that title."

So the 26-year-old Web designer, who "escaped" to Ahuntsic six years back, entered and won the Miss Ronde Québec 2004 competition. "Ever since then I get a lot of e-mails from guys wanting to meet me," she says. "And not ugly guys - there are some nice-looking ones."

Last weekend José Breton, the tireless mastermind of the campaign to glorify Quebec's plus-sized queens, came downriver from Quebec to protest the MétroStar Gala TV award ceremony. For the ninth straight year he paced outside the Monument-National while the gala went on inside, waving a picket protesting the show, which he believes symbolizes Quebec's tendencies to disrespect overweight women.

"Two-thirds of Quebec women are large-sized," he says. "But they're ostracized. The media pressures these girls with an unhealthy, anti-obesity trip. I find it completely absurd. I say women are beautiful in their natural round shape."

The 42-year-old, who weighs in at 200 pounds on a 5'8" frame, says he developed a taste for the plight of the round-shaped women 15 years ago while in a relationship with a plump woman (he's single now, girls).

"There's a life for round women on the Internet, but not [beyond that]," says Breton, whose world is found at www3.sympatico.ca/rondes.

But he rejects the notion that he's driven by fetish. "Everything that's not socially validated is considered a fetish," he says. "If you like girls other than the Hawaiian Tropic types, that taste is considered a fetish. But those girls do nothing for me. Some of these stars look like they came out of a Nazi concentration camp, like they haven't eaten in six months."

Breton, a separated father of one, is looking for contestants for his Internet-based Miss Ronde 2005 until April 5. On May 6, the new Miss Ronde Internet will be crowned and go on to international competition.

Breton also bears the scars from his battles with Quebec's medical industry. His campaign against doctors who peddle slimming powder on the side has cost him $250,000, the amount a judge ordered him to pay in May 2003 after defaming certain doctors for the practice. "I'm insolvent, they won't get a cent," says Breton. He unrepentantly denounces the Collèges des médecins for "turning a blind eye to doctors selling these products in their office."

Breton also bristles at such policies as government-paid bariatric surgery. "They present it as a solution but never mention that it's a controversial operation," he says. "It's useless for health. These normal women have their ribcage opened and stomach tied. I consider it ridiculous and absurd."

As Breton's lonely battle continues, Miss Ronde 2004 is lonely no more. The soon-to-be-mother has no immediate plans to get on the exercise bike, and her African boyfriend isn't pushing her to do so. "He thinks he wouldn't find me as hot if I was skinny," she says.