Finally, Caylan Ford is having her say. Falsely accused of racist sympathies just a few weeks before the 2019 election, she was immediately dumped by the UCP as an electoral liability. Her reputation was thereafter gang-raped for weeks through the twittersphere. Now, the onetime ‘star candidate’ has put together a film that may well stand for years as the definitive rebuke of cancel culture..The just-released “When the Mob Came,” (co-directed by Andrew Peloso, VEK Labs) is her story. But as something very precious drains away from all of our lives — the fundamental decencies of forbearance, civility and respect in public life — it has relevance to all of us. That is, if lies could destroy a reputation such as hers, they can destroy anybody’s..Ford’s documentary starts with the delicious days when a charismatic and highly educated young mother is welcomed with honours into the United Conservative Party. Pundits can’t believe the party’s luck that someone with her resume would run for them — a woman with two masters’ degrees, one from Oxford, and a solid resume built around several years with the Canadian foreign service..Sitting with her at a press conference, Jason Kenney glows..Then the story changed. A malicious and carefully redacted Facebook Messenger exchange leaked to left-wing propagandists and broadcast by them, portrays her as somebody who echoes ‘white supremacist’ talking points. The redactions are well done and she having deleted the exchange as part of shaking off an acquaintance who has proved to be dishonest, unreliable and possibly dangerous, Ford has no way to prove her words were taken out of context..The party gives her 10 minutes to write her resignation, which she does..The party moved on to a comfortable victory..For Ford however, the internet hell was just beginning..For a start, she was instantly unemployable — a novelty for someone with her credentials..Then came the public shaming..If you don’t spend all your time in the twittersphere, you really don’t know how far the society we live in has retreated from civility: To call Twitter a jungle is to impugn the essential dignity of animals. And in the high-tension weeks before the election, thousands of vicious comments appeared on Twitter, condemning her in the most abusive terms. Almost all were written by people who didn’t know her. Some were driven perhaps by that dreary hope that in calling somebody else a ‘PoS white supremacist homophobe' or a 'Nazi,' they might by comparison elevate their own feelings of self-worth..Given the imminence of the election others excoriated her, merely to smear the entire UCP as a haven for racists and worse..Says Ford, “Deplatforming has become instrumentalized as a way of taking out people who are in somebody’s way. Once the script is embedded it’s natural that people with those tendencies would weaponize it.”.But then came the social ostracization. While the mob was raging, people just didn’t want any trouble. People she thought were friends, dropped her. Worse, people who knew better, people who understood exactly what had been done to her and knew she was nothing of a white supremacist or a homophobe, did not — and in some cases would not — speak up for her. She names two people with a public profile who did support her, Lindsay Shepherd — herself no stranger to controversy — and Edmonton MP Garnett Genuis, one of the fundamentally decent men in Parliament..But she nevertheless found herself silenced, unable even to speak for herself..“I couldn’t speak in public, I couldn’t even publish. I’m a capable op-ed writer but when I pitched the National Post, the Calgary Herald, the Globe and Mail, nobody would touch me.”.Things began to turn for her 18 months later when Howard Anglin, onetime principal secretary to Alberta premier Jason Kenney and deputy chief of staff to prime minister Stephen Harper, wrote a powerful defence in the National Post: “What happened to Caylan Ford 20 months ago, when she was running as a candidate for the United Conservative Party in Alberta, should terrify anyone thinking of running for public office. What has happened to her since should worry the rest of us.”.“After what Howard wrote, people began to come around. But it took that long. And I have yet to be fully restored to polite company.”.Ford’s personal experience is every bit as horrifying as Anglin says it is..But what does it mean for the rest of us? Cancel culture is a real thing and sometimes holding people to account for what they say is the right thing to do. But where are the limits?.In her film Ford asks, “Are public shaming and de-platforming campaigns justified as a way of advancing social justice and holding the powerful to account, or are they evidence of a creeping proto-totalitarianism? What happens when these tools are weaponized for personal or political advantage, and how does a person rebuild after public cancellation?”.As was the case here….Ford now has the full transcript of the problematic correspondence, retrieved from Facebook’s deep files. (Nothing, it appears, is ever really deleted ‘to the end of time.’) Thus armed, she is now engaged in a $7.65 million suit against the NDP, the CBC, the Toronto Star, the Broadbent Institute, Press Progress and nine other defendants, alleging defamation, a violation of privacy (‘intrusion again seclusion)’ and the intentional infliction of mental suffering. Farbeit from me to predict the result..But she is fighting for both justice, and ultimately for something deeper..“Cancel culture draws its power by creating a climate of fear. People are afraid to be cancelled. But as scary as it is, cancellation is not the worst fate. Failing to live with integrity is worse. Quietly acquiescing to tyranny and sacrificing your principles is worse. If you are faithful to the truth, there may be costs. But they are not the worst of costs. I am not a victim.".Truth..Integrity..Sacrifice..What a politician she might have made..Watch “When the Mob Comes,” here.
