dangerous views can be espoused by intelligent, articulate people

Highly touted former candidate spread racist conspiracy theory, Avnish Nanda says.

I am a first-generation Albertan. My parents weren’t born here. But, they built their lives in Alberta and have called this province home for over 40 years.

Many are calling this Alberta election the most divisive in history. Candidates are not only being questioned on their policies, but where they stand on issues such as abortion, acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, and the place of racial minorities.

I don’t consider these questions divisive. Rather, they expose what vision candidates have for Alberta, and whether that includes people like me.

For nearly a year, Caylan Ford captivated conservatives in Alberta. Young, articulate and bright, she had been touted as “the personification of the new generation of leadership” in Alberta by United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney.

Kenney recruited Ford back to Alberta to run as the UCP candidate in Calgary-Mountain View, a progressive hub in the city where her star power could lead to a conservative breakthrough.

Ford was championed by the conservative establishment in a manner few rookies for public office are. A prominent columnist penned a profile of Ford, describing her as “a force of nature.” Even Laureen Harper, the wife of former prime minister Stephen Harper, posed in pictures with Ford, letting Albertans know the conservative pedigree that backed her candidacy.

That backing came to an abrupt end shortly before the election. In social-media messages from 2017, Ford revealed that she was “saddened by the demographic replacement of white peoples in their homelands,” and that this was not a “peaceful transition.”

Ford appeared to be channelling a well-known white-supremacist conspiracy theory that warns of white people being supplanted in Europe and North America by non-white, often non-Christian populations. These new arrivals undermine white culture and are viewed as an existential threat.

A number of white-supremacist mass murderers have identified the myth as the motivation behind gruesome acts of violence, including the man responsible for the mosque shootings in Christchurch.

Media coverage of the statements and swift condemnations led Ford to resign and Kenney to denounce her views.

However, rather than apologizing for or retracting the statements, Ford explained her resignation as an attempt to avoid being a distraction for the UCP during the election. Ford described her comments as being distorted and not reflective of her actual views, but refused to explain how she can stand with marginalized communities while she’s peddling racist conspiracy theories that seek to denigrate them. Ford also positions herself as a victim of bullying, painting her unfairly as a racist.

For me, this story doesn’t end with Ford’s resignation. In Calgary and Edmonton, nearly two out of five residents is a visible minority, and Ford’s views question our right to claim this province as our own.

I studied politics with many like Ford, capable individuals lauded for their ability to make cogent arguments, even when they are espousing a world view that places me inferior to them on the basis of my identity. Any attempt to challenge the repugnancy that is the core of their arguments is met with my apparent inability to consider viewpoints from a “free-thinking” perspective.

Ford represents something that I fear: an intelligent person, accepted by elements of the political establishment, who holds dangerous political views. Even though Ford is no longer a UCP candidate, questions linger around her views and the extent to which others hold them within the UCP.

While campaigning, Ford liked to remind voters she was a fourth-generation Calgarian, suggesting her family roots gave her a greater entitlement to govern.

In my Alberta, it doesn’t matter how many generations ago your family immigrated here. It doesn’t matter what you look like, what informs your conscience, or who you love. What matters is that you’re committed to your neighbour. That you understand that we are all in this together, and that our futures depend on it.