Misplaced Pages

Warren Kinsella: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 05:53, 13 March 2014 editGuat6 (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users58,707 edits added Category:University of Calgary alumni using HotCat← Previous edit Revision as of 19:51, 20 March 2014 edit undo192.197.82.203 (talk)No edit summaryTag: possible BLP issue or vandalismNext edit →
Line 2: Line 2:
:''For the Canadian author, see ].'' :''For the Canadian author, see ].''


'''Warren Kinsella''' is a Toronto-based lawyer, author, musician, ], ] on the ], blogger and columnist for ] newspapers. '''Warren Kinsella''' is a Toronto-based lawyer, author, musician, ], ] on the ], blogger and columnist for ] newspapers.


==Personal life== ==Personal life==
He is the son of physician and medical ethicist ], ], founder of the National Council on Ethics in Human Research (NCEHR).<ref></ref> Kinsella holds a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from Carleton University and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Calgary. He is the son of physician and medical ethicist ], ], founder of the National Council on Ethics in Human Research (NCEHR).<ref></ref> Kinsella holds a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from Carleton University and a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Calgary.


==Politics==
As a teenager Kinsella was the bassist, lead singer and co-writer for the Calgary punk band The Hot Nasties. Their songs "Barney Rubble Is My Double" and "Invasion of the Tribbles" have been performed by ] and ] respectively, and Damian Abraham of ] has been quoted as saying that he wants the Nasties' "Secret of Immortality" played at his funeral.<ref>{{cite web|last=Kinsella|first=Warren| authorlink=|coauthors=|title=Nasty Past|work=warrenkinsella.com|publisher=|date=1999-2014|url=http://warrenkinsella.com/nasty-past/|format=|doi=|accessdate= 2014-01-21}}</ref>


==Campaign strategist and lobbyist== ===Campaign strategist===
Kinsella bills himself as the "Prince of Darkness" of Canadian politics, although he has not worked on a national campaign team since 2000. (He left ]'s team before the election of 2011 and repeatedly publicly denounced his former employer.) <ref>http://warrenkinsella.com/books/kicking-ass-in-canadian-politics.</ref> He served as a strategist in the Canadian federal ]'s ] "task force", and worked as a staffer in opposition leader ]'s office. After the Liberals won the election, Kinsella became ] to federal Public Works minister ] 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 ]. During his last stint as a national campaign headquarters worker during a federal campaign, he appeared on ]'s ] brandishing a purple Barney dinosaur to mock what he claimed were Canadian Alliance leader ]'s creationist beliefs. <ref>http://books.google.ca/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 </ref>
Kinsella bills himself as the "Prince of Darkness" of Canadian politics, although he has not worked on a national campaign since 2000. (He left Liberal leader ]'s team before the election of 2011.) <ref>http://warrenkinsella.com/books/kicking-ass-in-canadian-politics.</ref> He worked as a staffer in then-Opposition leader ]'s office and as a strategist in the Canadian federal ]'s ] "task force." After the Liberals won the election, Kinsella became ] to federal Public Works minister ]. In that job, he had a role in the hiring of Chuck Guite to run the government's advertising. After Kinsella left Dingwall's staff, Guite created an ad kickback regime that had a serious role in the defeat of the Liberals in 2006.<ref>http://www.yorku.ca/igreene/gomfactVI.pdf</ref> Kinsella ran as a Liberal candidate in the 1997 federal election in the riding of North Vancouver but was defeated by Reform incumbent ]. After the 2000 federal election, he concentrated mainly on Ontario provincial politics, although he did work periodically for federal Liberal politicians ], ], ] and ]. Kinsella was also involved in the 2007 and 2011 re-election campaigns of ] ] ] and his ]. Kinsella supported Sandra Pupatello in the 2013 leadership convention that chose a successor to McGuinty. The leadership was won by ].
After practicing with the law firm MacMillan Binch, he joined the Toronto-based Navigator consulting firm and later started his own company, ]. Both of the latter firms engage in paid political campaign strategy work, lobbying and communications crisis management.


After the 2000 federal election, he concentrated mainly on Ontario provincial politics, although he did work periodically for federal Liberal politicians ], ], ] and ]. While working for Rock, he became embroiled in a name-calling dispute with senior Ontario Liberals over the issue of allowing non-citizens to vote for delegates to the leadership convention. Kinsella was a vocal supporter of Chretien during the inner-party struggle that resulted in Chretien being replaced by ] and sued several of Martin's supporters for libel. He joined the Toronto-based Navigator consulting firm and later started his own company. Both firms engage in paid political campaign strategy work, lobbying and and communications crisis management.
==Journalism==
Kinsella worked as a student reporter at the ] and ] and has written commentary in most of Canada's major newspapers and several magazines. His opinion pieces and analysis appeared in the ], the ], the ] and ]. He is now a columnist for the right-wing tabloid ] and smaller English-language Quebecor newspapers and also appears regularly on the ].


In November 2008, Kinsella worked briefly for leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.warrenkinsella.com/index.php?entry=entry081113-113000 |title=Warren Kinsella |publisher=Warren Kinsella |date= |accessdate=2013-04-25}}{{Primary-source-inline|date=April 2013}}</ref> One long-time senior Liberal questioned the hiring of Kinsella, calling him a "human shrapnel machine." <ref>{{cite news|title=The "Prince of Darkness" is back in the Liberal fold |url=http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/04/10/the-prince-of-darkness-is-back-in-the-liberal-fold/2/ |publisher=] |date=April 10, 2009 |first=Martin |last=Patriquin}}</ref>
==Books==

* ''Unholy Alliances'' (Lester, 1992)
Later that month Kinsella posted a video blog that accused an Ottawa restaurant of selling cat meat;<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.singtao.ca/toronto/2009-01-29/city1233222027d1571825.html |title=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 |publisher=] |date=January 29, 2010}}</ref> he apologized for the comment after criticism from Chinese-Canadian groups and political opponents.<ref>{{cite news|title=Ignatieff's first test|url=http://m.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/ignatieffs-first-test/article1343351/?service=mobile |newspaper=] |first=Jane |last=Taber}}</ref> Kinsella resigned from Ignatieff's campaign in May 2009.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/olo-bloodletting-prompts-warren-kinsella-to-ditch-war-room/article4353008/ |newspaper=] |title=OLO bloodletting prompts Warren Kinsella to ditch Liberal war room |first=Jane |last=Taber |date=May 10, 2010}}</ref> After leaving Ignatieff's office, he repeatedly denounced the former leader on his blog and in columns written for the ] chain of newspapers.
* ''Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network''(], 1997)

Kinsella also was involved in the 2007 re-election campaign of ] ] ] and his ]. In the 2007 campaign, he wrote a blog post suggesting that Progressive Conservative MPP ] would rather bake cookies than be seen on a stage with farm activist Randy Hillier, who later ran successfully for the Conservatives. Several candidates from opposition parties denounced the post as offensive to women, and Kinsella issued an apology.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.thestar.com/News/article/240004 | work=The Star | location=Toronto | title=Kinsella to stay despite 'unfortunate' comment | first=Rob | last=Ferguson | date=July 26, 2007 | accessdate=March 27, 2010}}</ref> The incident prompted MacLeod to write the ] '']''.<ref name="pm recipes">{{cite news|title=Conservatives, including PM, share recipes for cookbook|url=http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Politics/20100911/conservatives-food-100911/|accessdate=September 13, 2010|newspaper=CTV News|date=September 11, 2010}}</ref><ref name="MPP Bakes">{{cite news|last=Taylor|first=Louisa|title=MPP MacLeod cooks up fundraiser|url=http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/MacLeod+cooks+fundraiser/3513029/story.html|accessdate=September 13, 2010|newspaper=Ottawa Citizen|date=September 12, 2010}}</ref> Kinsella supported Sandra Pupatello in the leadership convention that chose a successor to McGuinty. The leadership was won by ].

===Sponsorship Scandal ===

During the ]'s inquiry into the ], a government advertising kickback scheme in Quebec which caused severe political damage to the then-Liberal government, Judge Gomery was told that Kinsella, while chief of staff to ] ], wrote a letter to the department's Deputy Minister, Ran Quail, requesting ] be appointed to review the government's advertising and communications strategy.<ref>{{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}}</ref>

Quail said he viewed the letter as political interference into civil service affairs. Dingwall and Kinsella characterized the letter as a request rather than a directive.

In his report, Judge Gomery said: “This communication was rightly taken by Mr. Quail to be a highly inappropriate attempt by political staff to interfere in the internal administration of PWGSC (Public Works and Government Services Canada)... Mr. Quail decided that Mr. Kinsella’s memo was a mistake by an inexperienced political staffer who did not know better than to attempt to give direction to a senior public servant on how to organize his department... As to why he would have wanted Mr. Guité to be given important new responsibilities, the record is unclear. But we do know that Mr. Guité and his personnel at APORS were given the whole responsibility for the management and administration of the Sponsorship Program when it came into being in the spring of 1996. …When CCSB was created in November 1997, it constituted almost exactly the consolidation of functions that had been advocated by Mr. Kinsella two years previously." <ref>http://www.yorku.ca/igreene/gomfactVI.pdf</ref>

Kinsella did not work for the federal government during the time of the actual sponsorship frauds. Kinsella had left government service to work as counsel to the Vancouver advertising firm Palmer Jarvis and was not involved with the sponsorship program. <ref>http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/206/301/pco-bcp/commissions/sponsorship-ef/06-03-06/gomery.irri.net/Jan%2021,%2005/gomery60jan2105.pdf </ref>Testimony at the ] did show Kinsella and Guite had exchanged correspondence by fax while Kinsella was at Palmer Jarvis but the nature of that correspondence was not explored in the oral testimony.<ref>http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/206/301/pco-bcp/commissions/sponsorship-ef/06-03-06/www.gomery.ca/documents/transcripts/en/2005/02/2005221370.pdf </ref>

Guite ran the ad contract scam from 1996 to 1999. On June 6, 2006, a jury in Montreal found Guité guilty on five counts of defrauding the federal government. On June 19, he was sentenced to 42 months in jail. He was given full parole on September 16, 2009.

==Writing==
*''Unholy Alliances'' (Lester, 1992)
* ''Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network'' ISBN 0-00-638051-4 (], 1997)
* ''Party Favours'' (HarperCollins, 1997) * ''Party Favours'' (HarperCollins, 1997)
* ''Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics'' (], 2001) * ''Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics'' (], 2001)
Line 26: Line 42:
* ''The War Room: Political Strategies for Business, NGOs, and Anyone Who Wants to Win'' (Dundurn Press, 2007) * ''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) * ''Fight the Right: A Manual for Surviving the Coming Conservative Apocalypse'' (Random House, Oct 2 2012)
Kinsella has also written commentary in most of Canada's major newspapers and several magazine, including the ], the ], the ] and ]. He is now a columnist for the right-wing tabloid ] and smaller English-language Quebecor newspapers. He also appears regularly on the ], Quebecor's right-wing channel.


==References== ==References==
Line 33: Line 50:
* *


{{Authority control|VIAF=46630965}}



{{Persondata
{{Authority control|VIAF=46630965}}
{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see ]. -->
| NAME = Kinsella, Warren | NAME = Kinsella, Warren
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
Line 51: Line 69:
] ]
] ]
]
]

Revision as of 19:51, 20 March 2014

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

Warren Kinsella is a Toronto-based lawyer, author, musician, political consultant, commentator on the Sun News Network, blogger and columnist for Quebecor newspapers.

Personal life

He is the son of physician and medical ethicist Douglas Kinsella, C.M., founder of the National Council on Ethics in Human Research (NCEHR). Kinsella holds a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from Carleton University and a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Calgary.

Politics

Campaign strategist

Kinsella bills himself as the "Prince of Darkness" of Canadian politics, although he has not worked on a national campaign team since 2000. (He left Michael Ignatieff's team before the election of 2011 and repeatedly publicly denounced his former employer.) He 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 a federal campaign, he appeared on CTV's Canada AM brandishing a purple Barney dinosaur to mock what he claimed were Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day's creationist beliefs.

After the 2000 federal election, he concentrated mainly on Ontario provincial politics, although he did work periodically for federal Liberal politicians Allan Rock, Stephane Dion, Sheila Copps and Michael Ignatieff. While working for Rock, he became embroiled in a name-calling dispute with senior Ontario Liberals over the issue of allowing non-citizens to vote for delegates to the leadership convention. Kinsella was a vocal supporter of Chretien during the inner-party struggle that resulted in Chretien being replaced by Paul Martin and sued several of Martin's supporters for libel. He joined the Toronto-based Navigator consulting firm and later started his own company. Both firms engage in paid political campaign strategy work, lobbying and and communications crisis management.

In November 2008, Kinsella worked briefly for leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff. One long-time senior Liberal questioned the hiring of Kinsella, calling him a "human shrapnel machine."

Later that month Kinsella posted a video blog that accused an Ottawa restaurant of selling cat meat; he apologized for the comment after criticism from Chinese-Canadian groups and political opponents. Kinsella resigned from Ignatieff's campaign in May 2009. After leaving Ignatieff's office, he repeatedly denounced the former leader on his blog and in columns written for the Toronto Sun chain of newspapers.

Kinsella also was involved in the 2007 re-election campaign 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 be seen on a stage with farm activist Randy Hillier, who later ran successfully for the Conservatives. Several candidates from opposition parties denounced the post as offensive to women, and Kinsella issued an apology. The incident prompted MacLeod to write the cookbook I'd Rather Be Baking Cookies: A Collection of Recipes from Lisa MacLeod and Friends. Kinsella supported Sandra Pupatello in the leadership convention that chose a successor to McGuinty. The leadership was won by Kathleen Wynne.

Sponsorship Scandal

During the Gomery Commission's inquiry into the Sponsorship scandal, a government advertising kickback scheme in Quebec which caused severe political damage to the then-Liberal government, Judge 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, requesting Chuck Guité be appointed to review the government's advertising and communications strategy.

Quail said he viewed the letter as political interference into civil service affairs. Dingwall and Kinsella characterized the letter as a request rather than a directive.

In his report, Judge Gomery said: “This communication was rightly taken by Mr. Quail to be a highly inappropriate attempt by political staff to interfere in the internal administration of PWGSC (Public Works and Government Services Canada)... Mr. Quail decided that Mr. Kinsella’s memo was a mistake by an inexperienced political staffer who did not know better than to attempt to give direction to a senior public servant on how to organize his department... As to why he would have wanted Mr. Guité to be given important new responsibilities, the record is unclear. But we do know that Mr. Guité and his personnel at APORS were given the whole responsibility for the management and administration of the Sponsorship Program when it came into being in the spring of 1996. …When CCSB was created in November 1997, it constituted almost exactly the consolidation of functions that had been advocated by Mr. Kinsella two years previously."

Kinsella did not work for the federal government during the time of the actual sponsorship frauds. Kinsella had left government service to work as counsel to the Vancouver advertising firm Palmer Jarvis and was not involved with the sponsorship program. Testimony at the Gomery Inquiry did show Kinsella and Guite had exchanged correspondence by fax while Kinsella was at Palmer Jarvis but the nature of that correspondence was not explored in the oral testimony.

Guite ran the ad contract scam from 1996 to 1999. On June 6, 2006, a jury in Montreal found Guité guilty on five counts of defrauding the federal government. On June 19, he was sentenced to 42 months in jail. He was given full parole on September 16, 2009.

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)

Kinsella has also written commentary in most of Canada's major newspapers and several magazine, including the Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen, the National Post and The Walrus. He is now a columnist for the right-wing tabloid Toronto Sun and smaller English-language Quebecor newspapers. He also appears regularly on the Sun News Network, Quebecor's right-wing channel.

References

  1. National Council on Ethics in Human Research
  2. http://warrenkinsella.com/books/kicking-ass-in-canadian-politics.
  3. http://books.google.ca/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
  4. "Warren Kinsella". Warren Kinsella. Retrieved April 25, 2013.
  5. Patriquin, Martin (April 10, 2009). "The "Prince of Darkness" is back in the Liberal fold". Maclean's.
  6. "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.
  7. Taber, Jane. "Ignatieff's first test". The Globe and Mail.
  8. Taber, Jane (May 10, 2010). "OLO bloodletting prompts Warren Kinsella to ditch Liberal war room". The Globe and Mail.
  9. Ferguson, Rob (July 26, 2007). "Kinsella to stay despite 'unfortunate' comment". The Star. Toronto. Retrieved March 27, 2010.
  10. "Conservatives, including PM, share recipes for cookbook". CTV News. September 11, 2010. Retrieved September 13, 2010.
  11. Taylor, Louisa (September 12, 2010). "MPP MacLeod cooks up fundraiser". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved September 13, 2010.
  12. "Gomery Inquiry: A summary of the testimony". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. June 3, 2005. Retrieved September 27, 2008.
  13. http://www.yorku.ca/igreene/gomfactVI.pdf
  14. http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/206/301/pco-bcp/commissions/sponsorship-ef/06-03-06/gomery.irri.net/Jan%2021,%2005/gomery60jan2105.pdf
  15. http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/206/301/pco-bcp/commissions/sponsorship-ef/06-03-06/www.gomery.ca/documents/transcripts/en/2005/02/2005221370.pdf

External links


Template:Persondata

Categories: