Warren Kinsella

For the Canadian author, see W. P. Kinsella.
Warren Kinsella
Born August 1960
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Alma mater University of Calgary
Carleton University
Spouse(s) Suzanne Amos (divorced)
Lisa Kinsella (2015–present)
Relatives Douglas Kinsella (father)
Website http://warrenkinsella.com/

Warren Kinsella is a Canadian lawyer, author, musician, political consultant, and commentator, based in Toronto, Ontario.[1] Kinsella has written commentary in most of Canada's major newspapers and several magazines, including The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Sun Ottawa Citizen, the National Post and The Walrus. He appeared regularly on the Sun News Network. Kinsella bills himself as the "Prince of Darkness" of Canadian politics.

Personal life

He is the son of physician and medical ethicist Douglas Kinsella, founder of the National Council on Ethics in Human Research (NCEHR).[2] Kinsella holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Carleton University and a bachelor of laws degree from the University of Calgary.

Kinsella is the founder of the Daisy Consulting Group, a Toronto-based firm that engages in paid political campaign strategy work, lobbying and communications crisis management, along with his wife Lisa.[3]

Politics

Federal Liberals

Kinsella served as a strategist in the Canadian federal Liberal Party's 1993 election campaign "task force", and worked as a staffer in opposition leader Jean Chrétien's office. After the Liberals won the election, Kinsella became chief of staff to federal Public Works minister David Dingwall for a short time.

Kinsella ran as a Liberal candidate in the 1997 federal election in the riding of North Vancouver but was defeated by Reform incumbent Ted White.

During his last stint as a national campaign headquarters worker during the 2000 Canadian federal election, he appeared on CTV's Canada AM brandishing a purple Barney dinosaur doll to mock what he claimed were Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day's creationist beliefs.[4]

After the 2000 federal election, Kinsella was a vocal supporter of Chretien during the intra-party struggle that resulted in Chretien being replaced by Paul Martin, and he would work on Liberal leadership campaigns for Allan Rock and Sheila Copps in opposition to Martin.

Starting in November 2008, Kinsella worked briefly for Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff.[5] One long-time senior Liberal questioned the hiring of Kinsella, calling him a "human shrapnel machine."[6] Later that month Kinsella apologized for a post in his video blog that jokingly mentioned that his regular Chinese restaurant sold "cat meat."[7][8] Kinsella resigned from Ignatieff's campaign in May 2009, citing treatment of fired colleagues.[9]

Kinsella publicly considered seeking the Liberal nomination for the 2015 Federal election in Toronto—Danforth, but ultimately demurred after believing he would not be approved as a nominee.[10]

Provincial Liberals

Kinsella was a long time supporter of Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, and was a fixture in Ontario Liberal Party election campaigns while McGuinty was leader. He would apologize for a blog post during the campaign suggesting that Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod would rather bake cookies than be seen with farm activist Randy Hillier; MacLeod would later use the remark as the humorous title for a cookbook.[11]

Kinsella supported Sandra Pupatello in the 2013 Liberal Party of Ontario leadership convention that chose a successor to McGuinty.[12] The leadership was won by Kathleen Wynne. Kinsella was sharply critical of Wynne's campaign during the 2014 Ontario election.[13]

Municipal Politics

Kinsella advised John Tory in the 2003 Toronto mayoral election.

In 2014 mayoral election, Kinsella assisted Olivia Chow's campaign. On August 20, 2014, Kinsella tweeted "Is John Tory’s SmartTrack, you know, Segregationist Track?", and posted a photo featuring Tory and an edited speech bubble stating that Jane/Finch and Rexdale were intentionally excluded from the plan.[14] Kinsella apologized for the incident. Daisy Consulting later announced that they had fired Chow as a client due to remarks regarding Kinsella.[15]

Gomery Inquiry

During the Gomery Commission's inquiry into the Sponsorship scandal, Justice John Gomery was told that Kinsella, while chief of staff to Minister of Public Works David Dingwall, wrote a letter to the department's Deputy Minister, Ran Quail in 1994 requesting Chuck Guité be appointed to review the government's advertising and communications strategy.[16] Quail said he viewed the letter as political interference into civil service affairs, while Dingwall and Kinsella characterized the letter as a request rather than a directive. No finding of any fault was found in Gomery's report relating to Kinsella's conduct.[17]

Writing

In 1997, Kinsella published the novel Party Favours, a thinly veiled roman à clef about the Chrétien government similar to the 1996 American novel Primary Colors.[18] The novel was initially credited to "Jean Doe",[19] with Kinsella only later revealing himself as the real author.

Kinsella runs an online journal that resembles a weblog, though he prefers to call it a website. The blog is famous in Canadian political circles for Kinsella's on-and-off feuds with other bloggers, including one with columnist Ezra Levant that prompted Kinsella to initiate a defamation suit claiming $5,000,000 in damages.[6]

Writing

  • Unholy Alliances (Lester, 1992)
  • Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network ISBN 0-00-638051-4 (HarperCollins, 1997)
  • Party Favours (HarperCollins, 1997)
  • Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics (Random House, 2001)
  • Fury's Hour: A (sort-of) Punk-Rock Manifesto (Random House, 2005)
  • The War Room: Political Strategies for Business, NGOs, and Anyone Who Wants to Win (Dundurn Press, 2007)
  • Fight the Right: A Manual for Surviving the Coming Conservative Apocalypse (Random House, Oct 2 2012)
  • Recipe for Hate (Dundurn, 2017) (fiction)

References

  1. ↑ Warren Kinsella Rants on the Freedom-Site in the National Post
  2. ↑ National Council on Ethics in Human Research
  3. ↑ "WHO WE ARE". Daisy Group. Retrieved 2016-05-28.
  4. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=rU0yAugpDVEC&pg=PA144&lpg=PA144&dq=warren+kinsella+barney&source=bl&ots=5nbniaFqMf&sig=e8ifM6do8TBgt5rPTt0QGrLKwxM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HOzAUZ7dAs6qqAGPhoCICw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=warren%20kinsella%20barney&f=false
  5. ↑ "Warren Kinsella". Warren Kinsella. Retrieved 2013-04-25.
  6. 1 2 Patriquin, Martin (April 10, 2009). "The "Prince of Darkness" is back in the Liberal fold". Maclean's.
  7. ↑ "自由黨高級顧問金希拉 言論涉種族歧視.袁海耀要求向華社道歉". Sing Tao Daily. January 29, 2010.
  8. ↑ Taber, Jane. "Ignatieff's first test". The Globe and Mail.
  9. ↑ Taber, Jane (May 10, 2010). "OLO bloodletting prompts Warren Kinsella to ditch Liberal war room". The Globe and Mail.
  10. ↑ "Confessions of a true Grit". Toronto Sun. Retrieved 2015-01-04.
  11. ↑ Ferguson, Rob (July 26, 2007). "Kinsella to stay despite 'unfortunate' comment". The Star. Toronto. Retrieved March 27, 2010.
  12. ↑ Kinsella, Warren (January 14, 2013). "T.O. Curse may be Pupatello's Blessing". Toronto Sun.
  13. ↑ Kinsella, Warren (May 29, 2014). "How coalition became a bad word". Toronto Sun. Toronto. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
  14. ↑ "Warren Kinsella accuses John Tory transit plan of segregation, apologizes". CBC News. Toronto. August 20, 2014. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
  15. ↑ Batra, Adrienne (September 20, 2014). "Doug Ford's the wild card". Toronto Sun. Toronto. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
  16. ↑ "Gomery Inquiry: A summary of the testimony". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. June 3, 2005. Retrieved 2008-09-27.
  17. ↑ http://www.yorku.ca/igreene/gomfactVI.pdf
  18. ↑ "Political punk". The Globe and Mail, August 20, 2005.
  19. ↑ "Author of Party Favours keeping identity a secret". Toronto Star, September 17, 1997.
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