Day 47 (cont’d) & Day 48
Note: I am a poor note-taker and these summaries will contain errors and omissions which will reflect my limitations. My intention is to report on the facts as accurately as possible although a subconscious bias may creep in. I can only provide glimpses into what I see as relevant and interesting events. My goal is to capture the essence of the day’s events rather than be comprehensive.
Read the reference documents: The Legal Case and Events Leading to Trial to obtain an understanding of the case and its history. Names and terms are abbreviated and defined in Glossary.
Evidence of Avnish Nanda
(Direct Examination by Mr. Franken)
Mr. Nanda is an Edmonton lawyer who described himself as an advocate of pluralism, multiculturalism, and racial equity. In 2019 he published 77 tweets about Caylan and authored an op-ed published in the Edmonton Journal. He never met or talked to Caylan.
He testified extensively about his family history, noting that he comes from two successive generations of refugees who experienced extreme religious violence in India. His grandparents were displaced by the partition of India and Pakistan, and his parents by religious strife in the Punjab. He grew up hearing accounts of refugee experiences, ethno‑nationalist conflict, and the challenges faced by minorities in democratic societies.
He is the first generation in his family born in Canada and grew up in racialized, majority‑minority neighbourhoods. His family was steeped in Hindu art, culture, and languages.
Summary of Mr. Nanda’s Evidence
In 2019, Mr. Nanda was very active on Twitter, engaging with political and social justice issues.
He first became aware of Caylan after reading a Toronto Star article about the Christchurch massacre, which mentioned that a UCP candidate had resigned after it came to light that she was “saddened by the demographic replacement of white peoples in their homelands.”
He read additional articles about Caylan, including the Licia Corbella profile.
On March 23, he began tweeting about Caylan, stating that she had made “fairly insane, dog whistle white supremacist racism” comments, that she should not be a political candidate, and that her views were “abhorrent.”
He testified that he “knew” Caylan’s quoted statements were white nationalist or white supremacist.
He could not reconcile Caylan’s denunciations of violence and extremism with what he believed were white supremacist statements.
He felt a personal duty to confront racism because of his family’s refugee history.
Tweets and Public Statements
On March 24, Mr. Nanda published multiple tweets asserting that:
Caylan’s ideas were “race hatred”;
she had never apologized or retracted her statements;
she showed “weird denial, lack of contrition” and had doubled down;
she propagated falsehoods;
she was a leader of “white supremacist propaganda”;
she was associated with the “bozo candidate” problem.
He also retweeted a post calling Caylan an “unapologetic white supremacist.” Other tweets equated “population replacement” with “White genocide” and “race hatred.”
Mr. Nanda testified that he tweeted Caylan multiple times requesting her story, though none of these tweets remain online because he deleted them. Caylan denies ever receiving such tweets, and no documentary evidence supports Mr. Nanda’s claim.
He communicated on Twitter with Lebrun and Magusiak of Press Progress. He “tagged” Caylan in his tweets and considered this an invitation for her to respond, though at the time she was being tagged hundreds of times per day.
He had no recollection of Caylan tweeting him to invite him for coffee.
He believed Caylan needed to apologize and repudiate her quoted statements. He felt Alberta media did not sufficiently cover racial issues.
A March 26 tweet by Nanda inferred that Caylan was “peddling dangerous racist conspiracy theories and extreme white nationalist rhetoric.” Tweet Analytics showed that this tweet received 24,000 impressions, 143 likes, and 134 retweets or quote‑tweets.
On March 27, he tweeted that Caylan’s statements reflected racism and white supremacy, and that she espoused racist theories.
Edmonton Journal Op‑Ed
In June, the Edmonton Journal published his op‑ed, Opinion: White Supremacy has no place in Alberta. In it, he wrote that Caylan:
was “channeling a well-known white supremacist conspiracy theory that warns of white people being supplanted in Europe and North America by non-white, often non-white, often non-Christian populations”;
was “peddling racist conspiracy theories” that denigrate marginalized communities;
“holds dangerous political views.”
He referenced “gruesome acts of violence,” including the Christchurch massacre, presumably to imply association. He inferred that Caylan espoused a worldview that placed him, as a racialized person, inferior to her.
Rachel Notley was among those who publicly commended the article.
Reaction to the Danielle Smith Interview
On March 29, Danielle Smith interviewed Caylan. That same day, Mr. Nanda published 15 tweets criticizing both Caylan and Ms. Smith. He did not consider the interview to be real journalism. He criticized Ms. Smith for not putting the quoted statements to Caylan and for not eliciting an apology.
He believed Albertans were looking to him to help voters make informed decisions and wanted to present the perspective of a racialized Albertan.
Day 48 – Continuation of Nanda Evidence
Mr. Nanda continued his testimony, elaborating on his concerns about white supremacism, white nationalism, replacement theory, extremism, anti‑racism, and xenophobia. He was certain that Caylan’s views were white nationalist, white supremacist, and xenophobic.
Collaboration with Progress Alberta
Following the Danielle Smith interview, Progress Alberta initiated a campaign against Ms. Smith and Caylan. Mr. Nanda collaborated with them to publicize a petition against Ms. Smith and CHQR.
He tweeted Emma McIntosh stating that “a bunch of us … are launching a campaign against Danielle Smith for allowing that interview with Ford to happen,” and later emailed her in an attempt to have criticisms of Danielle and Caylan published in the Toronto Star.
He published at least 11 tweets on April 1, mostly replying to himself, promoting criticism of Danielle and Caylan. One of these tweets received 25,083 impressions and 778 engagements.
He was counsel for Progress Alberta in an unrelated Elections Alberta matter.
He described Caylan’s views as “abhorrent.”
Reaction to Apologia and Subsequent Articles
Mr. Nanda read Caylan’s essay Apologia. Reading it appeared to confirm his belief that she was a white supremacist, white nationalist, believer in the Great Replacement Theory, and comparable to the Charlottesville neo‑Nazis.
On April 11, he published at least 16 tweets about Apologia.
He also read Graeme Gordon’s article A political hit job in the name of progress: how UCP candidate Caylan Ford fell from grace. He published four tweets in response, inferring that Caylan held perspectives of “West versus Rest, Clash of Civilization, and racial primordialism.”
He testified that Caylan’s statements were problematic because they conveyed white nationalism, racism, xenophobia, and white supremacist ideologies.
Conclusion of Evidence
Mr. Nanda was cross‑examined and his testimony concluded. His evidence closed the defence case. The Plaintiff did not call rebuttal evidence. Trial testimony is now complete.
Next Steps
Plaintiff’s written brief due July 3
Defendants’ rebuttal briefs due August 7
Plaintiff’s sur‑rebuttal due August 31
Oral arguments scheduled for three days beginning October 7
Madam Justice Harris will deliver judgment sometime after oral argument.
Comment Regarding Nanda
Avnish Nanda perhaps deserves to be distinguished from his more scurrilous co‑Defendants, Lebrun and Magusiak. Their motives were transparently political; they set out to destroy Caylan because doing so served their partisan objectives. Nanda’s motivations were different. He set out to save Alberta — or at least believed he was doing so — from the supposed threat he imagined Caylan represented.
He approached the matter not as a journalist or a neutral observer He was a social justice warrior on a moral crusade, convinced that he was the exemplar of virtue, standing between Alberta and the rise of white supremacy. In that blissful frame of mind he was prepared to tweet endlessly until Caylan was cancelled.
His righteous certainty allowed him to seize upon a handful of phrases and inflate them into evidence of white nationalism, racism, xenophobia, and white supremacist ideology. No dialogue with Caylan was required; no context was relevant; no contradictory facts needed to be weighed. He quickly reached his conclusion and everything else became noise.
This is all the more striking because Nanda read Apologia and read A political hit job in the name of progress: how UCP candidate Caylan Ford fell from grace. Objective readers of Apologia would recognize that Caylan was not a racist white supremacist, and reading A political hit job brings a recognition that Caylan was falsely accused and powerless to do anything about it.
Nanda knew that Caylan had denounced violence and extremism. He knew she had described white nationalists as “odious” and their reasoning as “perverse.” Most reasonable people, armed with the same information, would not have leapt to the conclusions he did. But moral certainty has a way of eclipsing facts, and righteous virtue has a way of eclipsing truth. For Nanda, the leap from considering Caylan as a “concerned citizen” to condemning her as a “white supremacist” required no hesitation at all.
Nanda was not responsible for Caylan’s resignation. His focus was not on the events that precipitated her departure; his focus was on ensuring her cancellation. And in that mission he found willing collaborators. With the assistance of the broader cancel chorus — Jivraj, Lebrun, Magusiak, the CBC, the Toronto Star, Emma McIntosh, Duncan Kinney, Mohamed, Nenshi, and Ganley — the campaign succeeded.