Warren Kinsella

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

J. Warren Kinsella, (born August 1960 in Montreal, Quebec), is a Toronto-based Canadian lobbyist, lawyer, author, musician, political consultant, commentator, and blogger.

As a political strategist, he has been described as Canada's "James Carville" and "Prince of Darkness" [ [http://www.warrenkinsella.com/static.php?page=words-books-kickingAssInCanadianPolitics] ] . He is the president and co-founder of The Daisy Consulting Group [ [http://www.daisygroup.ca/daisy.htm The Daisy Consulting Group] ] named after a famous Democratic Party ad in the 1964 U.S. presidential election.

Personal life and Education

He is the son of physician and medical ethicist Douglas Kinsella, C.M., founder of the National Council on Ethics in Human Research (NCEHR). [ [http://www.ccac.ca/en/Publications/PUBLICAT/Annualre/Annual01(2).htm National Council on Ethics in Human Research] ]

Kinsella has a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism (Honours) from Carleton University, and a law degree from the University of Calgary.

He and his wife have four children. In late 2000, he established a popular weblog, "Latest Musings". [Warrenkinsella.com (2006). " [http://www.warrenkinsella.com/musings.htm Latest Musings June 2006] ". Retrieved June 30, 2006.]

Politics

Kinsella served as a strategist in the Canadian federal Liberal Party's 1993 election campaign "task force", as a staffer in opposition leader Jean Chrétien's office. After the Liberals won the election to form the government, Kinsella became chief of staff to federal Public Works minister David Dingwall. He also worked in the party's "war room" in the 2000 federal election, where he gained national exposure by appearing on CTV's Canada AM brandishing a purple Barney dinosaur to mock Stockwell Day's creationist beliefs, which saw the Liberals win a third mandate.

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.

A vocal supporter of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Kinsella criticized the campaign of Chrétien's rival and successor, Paul Martin, several times in the 2004 federal election, and 2006 election, which saw the Liberals reduced to minority government and then defeated, respectively.

In December 2006, he revealed on his National Post blog [ [http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/kinsella/index.html National Post blog] ] that his firm had been actively supporting the candidacy of new Liberal leader Stéphane Dion.

Kinsella also played a role 2007 re-election of Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty and his Ontario Liberal Party. In the 2007 campaign, he wrote a blog post suggesting that Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod would rather bake cookies than run for office. Several candidates from opposition parties denounced the post as offensive to women, and Kinsella issued an apology. [ [http://www.thestar.com/News/article/240004] ]

ponsorship Scandal and Gomery Commission

During the Gomery Commission's inquiry into the Sponsorship scandal heard testimony that Kinsella, in his capacity as chief of staff to Minister of Public Works David Dingwall and at Dingwall's request, wrote a letter to the department's Deputy Minister, Ran Quail, requesting that bureaucrat Chuck Guité be appointed to review the government's advertising and communications strategy. [cite news |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/groupaction/publicinquiry.html |publisher=Canadian Broadcasting Corporation |title=Gomery Inquiry: A summary of the testimony |date=June 3, 2005 |accessdate=2008-09-27] Quail testified that he viewed the letter as political interference into civil service affairs, though both Dingwall and Kinsella characterized this letter as a request rather than a directive.cite news |url=http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20050121/dingwall_guite_050121?s_name=&no_ads= |title=Dingwall saw Guite as best man to run program |date=January 21, 2005 |publisher=Canadian Press |accessdate=2008-09-27] A later memo from Kinsella to Guité, complaining that several polling contracts awarded by the Finance department did not follow proper guidelines, was cited by Conservative leader Stephen Harper during the scandal as evidence that Prime Minister Paul Martin, who had been Finance Minister at the time the memo was written, was complicit in any misappropriation that took place. The memo dealt with $525,900 in contracts awarded to Liberal-friendly firm Earnscliffe Strategy Group. [cite news |url=http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/mini/CTVNews/20040420/questionperiod_earnscliffe_20040420?s_name=election2004 |publisher=CTV.ca |title=Paul Martin hammered on his contracting history |date=April 20, 2004 |accessdate=2008-09-29]

Kinsella was a frequent critic of the Gomery Commission, which he viewed as a "judicial circus" and biased against Jean Chrétien's supporters in the Liberal Party. In June 2008, a judge of the Federal Court set aside Gomery's finding that Chrétien bore some responsibility for the scandal, concluding that Gomery showed signs of bias against Chrétien; [cite news |url=http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_24216.aspx |title=Chretien Wins Federal Court Battle To Set Aside Gomery Findings |publisher=Canadian Press |date=June 26, 2008 |accessdate=2008-09-27] in response, Kinsella claimed victory, took particular note of the judge's conclusion that Gomery "had a plan or checklist of the evidence that was expected and which was required in order to support pre-determined conclusions", and asserted that "the very epicentre of Gomery...has a golf course-sized hole at the centre of it". [cite web |url=http://warrenkinsella.com/index.php?entry=entry080626-115707 |last=Kinsella |first=Warren |date=June 26, 2008 |title=Victory! Victory! Victory! |accessdate=2008-09-27 |work=warrenkinsella.com]

Involvement in punk rock

In his youth, Kinsella was the bassist of the Canadian punk band, "The Hot Nasties". [Punk History Canada " [http://www.punkhistorycanada.ca/noise/view.php?cat_id=31&id=115 The Hot Nasties] " Retrieved July 3, 2006.] In 2005, Kinsella wrote "Fury's Hour: A (sort-of) Punk-Rock Manifesto" (Random House, 2005), a history of the early days of punk.

Kinsella is now playing in punk rock band Shit From Hell. [http://www.shitfromhell.com/music.htm]

He wrote the song, "Barney Rubble is My Double", featured on the Hot Nasties long play cassette tape and the Shit From Hell self titled CD. It was also covered by The Evaporator's on their Ripple Rock album."

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)

Kinsella has also written commentary in most of Canada's major newspapers, including the Globe and Mail and the Ottawa Citizen. He was recently media columnist for the National Post. In 2008, Comment editor Jonathan Kay wrote a column denouncing Kinsella's views on the use of Human Rights Commissions as a means of preventing the publication of material offensive to Muslim groups. Two days later, Kinsella announced on his blog his resignation from the Post, commenting, "I don't mind being a minority voice - my views on human rights hopefully made that clear enough, in recent weeks - but, sometimes, you can only stomach so much. Being the father to an aboriginal child, for example, I have been appalled by the paper's positions on First Nations issues; they were horrible. On racism, on human rights, on a lot of things. It gets to you, after a while. Like Graham Greene said in The Quiet American - sometimes, to remain human, you have to choose sides. So, I have." [ [http://www.warrenkinsella.com/index.php?entry=entry080210-105126 Warren Kinsella - SO LONG, NATIONAL POST ] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.warrenkinsella.com Warren Kinsella's website]
* [http://www.daisygroup.ca/ Daisy Consulting Group]
* [http://www.thecommentary.ca/ontheline/20041102a.html Audio interview with THECOMMENTARY.CA's Joseph Planta]