Warren Kinsella

For the Canadian author, see W. P. Kinsella.

Warren Kinsella is a Canadian lawyer, author, musician, political consultant, and commentator, based in Toronto. 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).^[1] Kinsella holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Carleton University and a bachelor of laws degree from the University of Calgary.

Kinsella was married to Suzanne Amos from about 2004–2005 to 2009–2010, when they divorced.^[2] Kinsella became engaged with former government relations director Lisa Kirbie by January 2014, and the two were married in August 2015.^[3][4][5]

He is a partner with 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.^[6]

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.^[7]

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.^[8] One long-time senior Liberal questioned the hiring of Kinsella, calling him a "human shrapnel machine."^[9] Later that month Kinsella apologized for a post in his video blog that jokingly mentioned that his regular Chinese restaurant sold "cat meat."^[10][11] Kinsella resigned from Ignatieff's campaign in May 2009, citing treatment of fired colleagues.^[12]

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.^[13]

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.^[14]

Kinsella supported Sandra Pupatello in the 2013 Liberal Party of Ontario leadership convention that chose a successor to McGuinty.^[15] The leadership was won by Kathleen Wynne. Kinsella was sharply critical of Wynne's campaign during the 2014 Ontario election.^[16]

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.^[17] Kinsella apologized for the incident. Daisy Consulting later announced that they had fired Chow as a client due to remarks regarding Kinsella.^[18]

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.^[19] 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.^[20]

Internet activity

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.^[9]

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)

References

External links

• Warren Kinsella's website