Canada

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."

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."