CBC Lite Sections News • Canada • Calgary Ex-UCP candidate who says she was branded a racist hopes 'truth can be aired in full' at trial Mark Gollom | CBC News | Posted: April 17, 2026 8:20 PM | Last Updated: Just now Defendants CBC, Toronto Star, Broadbent Institute deny defamation lawsuit allegations Image | ucp candidate ford Caption: Caylan Ford, a former UCP candidate in Calgary, is behind a $7.65-million defamation lawsuit against seven defendants, including the CBC, the Toronto Star and the Broadbent Institute. She alleges her private Facebook messages that were leaked to media outlets labelled her a white supremacist. (Caylan Ford/Facebook) (BUTTON) Load image Open image in new tab Caylan Ford is hoping a Calgary courtroom will deliver her justice seven years after her private Facebook messages were leaked to media outlets, a move she says branded her a white supremacist and devastated her life. "I'm very pleased that I was able to finally bring this to trial," Ford, a former candidate for the United Conservative Party in Alberta, told CBC News in an email response. "Although there has been minimal media or public attention, it is a profound cathartic relief that there is finally a venue in which the truth can be aired in full," she said. "I was wrongly defamed and lied about, and suffered very significant harms as a result. And I don't believe that such lies should be allowed to stand." Those "lies," according to Ford and her statement of claim, were published in 2019 by the CBC, the Toronto Star and PressProgress, the news organization of the progressive think-tank the Broadbent Institute. The CBC, the Star and the Broadbent Institute are among the seven defendants of Ford's $7.65-million defamation lawsuit. Representatives of the three organizations would not comment on the lawsuit or trial, but all have filed a statement of defence rejecting Ford's allegations. * Former UCP candidate who resigned over controversial messages wins restraining order against source The judge-alone trial, which began in March before Justice Lorena Harris of the Court of King's Bench of Alberta, is scheduled to last until mid-June. The court has so far heard from more than 30 witnesses, including Ford and former Alberta premier Jason Kenney. The defence, which is expected to launch next week, will include testimony from journalists, both former and current, of the media outlets. The lawsuit initially included 14 defendants, but Ford reached settlements with six of them. Progress Alberta, a non-profit group, paid Ford $250,000, while the other five defendants settled for undisclosed amounts. One person who is no longer a defendant didn't reach a settlement. Image | CBC MANDATE UPDATE Caption: The CBC says its articles regarding Ford 'accurately reported statements' made by her. (Evan Mitsui/CBC) (BUTTON) Load image Open image in new tab Ford, 39, said legal action may have been staved off had other defendants issued an apology or correction or offered her a chance to tell her side of the story. The "CBC, the Toronto Star, and the Broadbent Institute have shown no such contrition," she said. "They have never retracted or corrected their original stories, nor have they ever presented my perspective on the allegations," she said. "That is why they are still parties to the action." But according to their statements of defence, there's nothing to be contrite about and nothing that needs retracting or corrected — and all stand by the articles that were published about Ford. "The publications accurately reported statements authored by the plaintiff and were fair and balanced in their approach," the CBC wrote in its statement of defence. Ford resigns candidacy following PressProgress story Ford initiated legal action after she stepped down in March 2019 as a candidate for the United Conservative Party. Her resignation followed a story published in PressProgress under the headline: "UCP candidate complained white supremacist terrorists are treated unfairly, leaked messages show." The story quoted from what it said were leaked messages that had been part of private social media conversations Ford had with another individual, Karim Jivraj, whom she had met at a Progressive Conservative party in 2017. The two later cultivated a friendship, but that relationship eventually deteriorated. One of the messages from Ford, according to the PressProgress story, included a statement she allegedly made in reference to white supremacist riots in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017. "When the perpetrator is an Islamist, the denunciations are intermingled with breathless assurances that they do not represent Islam, that Islam is a religion of peace, etc.," Ford allegedly wrote. "When the terrorists are white supremacists, that kind of soul-searching or attempts to understand the sources of their radicalization or their perverse moral reasoning is beyond the pale." Image | ford and kenney Caption: Jason Kenney, left, who was UCP leader when this image was taken, introduced Caylan Ford, right, as his candidate for Calgary-Mountain View on a Facebook video in February 2019. Ford resigned her candidacy a month later, while Kenney was elected premier. (Caylan Ford/Facebook) (BUTTON) Load image Open image in new tab The story quoted an anonymous source as the leaker of the messages, but it was later revealed to be Jivraj. Jivraj also leaked the messages to the CBC and the Star, who published their own stories related to Ford's social media chat with him. At the time of her resignation, Kenney, who was UCP leader and a month away from being elected Alberta's premier, condemned the remarks attributed to Ford and "found her comments completely inexplicable." In her statement of claim, Ford said the articles and subsequent controversy led to her being "irreconcilably injured" and have caused her "catastrophic personal and professional embarrassment and humiliation on an international level." She has suffered "forced isolation and social ostracism," along with the unavailability of new employment, the statement of claim says. Articles were 'fair comment,' organizations say The CBC, the Toronto Star and the Broadbent Institute offered various defences, including that the articles were "fair comment" and were in the public interest. Their statements of defence also say they had given Ford an opportunity to respond on the record before publication, but she declined. The Star, in its statement of defence, denied that the articles or words complained about by Ford were "false, malicious, or defamatory." "To the extent various characterizations of the Ford comments (such as 'racist,' 'offensive,' 'comments about white nationalism' or 'promoting white supremacist talking points') are facts (which is denied), the Ford comments are racist, offensive, relate to 'white nationalism,'" it said. The Star said allegations that the comments were racist and promoted white supremacy "largely lay in the fact the comments were considered racist and supporting white supremacy by stakeholders and public figures, not in the truth or falsity of those characterizations." Image | CRAFT Star Postmedia Merger 20230628 Caption: The Toronto Star, in its statement of defence, denied that its articles about Ford were 'false, malicious, or defamatory.' (Andrew Lahodynskyj/The Canadian Press) (BUTTON) Load image Open image in new tab The CBC argued in its statement of defence that there is no cause of action because the first story it published was "largely based on statements authored" by Ford, which she does not deny having authored, and that the article, along with others, was based on a variety of reactions to her own statements. "To the extent that any statements made by the CBC bear any actual defamatory meanings, those meanings are true in substance and in fact," according to the CBC's statement of claim. Meanwhile, the Broadbent Institute denied that its article was defamatory or that Ford's statements had been "edited, altered, taken out of context or changed in any way." But Ford said that none of the defendants accurately reported her words in her social media conversations. "They certainly didn't accurately relay the surrounding context or my actual meaning," she said in her email to CBC News. For example, she said despite the characterization that she complained about how white supremacist terrorists were treated unfairly following the Charlottesville rally in 2017, "that simply never happened: I actually wrote that I found that rally 'sickening.'" Ford said the media received "short, decontextualized excerpts" from an unreliable source, never saw the whole conversation and instead "deceptively edited my comments to attribute to me views that I have never held." "The defendants did not just report on my words. They called me a white supremacist, a racist, hateful, and dangerous." More Stories Like This The related links below are generated automatically based on the story you’ve just read. Loading... CBC Lite is a low-bandwidth website. To see what's new, check out our release notes. For high quality images, media, comments, and other additional features visit the full version of this story. 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