Caylan Ford has settled a defamation lawsuit with activist Duncan Kinney and Progress Alberta for $250,000 over false claims related to her 2019 provincial election campaign.
Ford, a former United Conservative Party candidate in Alberta, had been accused of holding extremist views, including white supremacy and Islamophobia, following the publication of private conversations.
These allegations led to Ford’s resignation from the race.
In a social media post, Ford stated, “In the weeks prior to the election, Progress Alberta and Duncan Kinney published a series of false and inflammatory statements about me.”
She continued, “Among other things, they called me a white supremacist, hateful, racist, Islamophobic, and extremist. They drew an association between me and the Christchurch Mosque shooter who had killed 50 people, and misrepresented statements made in a private conversation to attribute to me views I did not have,” she said.
Ford also noted an incident where, after defending herself in a radio interview with now-Premier Danielle Smith, Progress Alberta launched a campaign against Smith for giving Ford a platform, claiming that she had given “a platform to [a] white supremacist.”
The settlement comes after three years of litigation, though Ford’s legal battle continues against 12 other defendants, including PressProgress, the Toronto Star, the CBC, and the Alberta NDP.
Ford originally filed a $7.6 million defamation lawsuit in 2020, seeking redress for what she described as a coordinated effort to malign her during the election.
