Warren Kinsella
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- Warren Kinsella should not be confused with Canadian author W. P. Kinsella.
J. Warren Kinsella, LL.B., (born August 1960 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian lawyer, author and consultant and a prominent political consultant and commentator.
Kinsella is counsel and principal with a Toronto firm called Navigator. Before that, he was a special assistant to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and chief of staff to several federal cabinet ministers. He has also played a key role in strategy for Liberal Party of Canada election campaigns.
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Political work
Kinsella ran as a Liberal candidate in the 1997 federal election in the riding of North Vancouver where he lost to Ted White of the Reform Party of Canada by a margin of over 9,000 votes.
His often controversial work as a political consultant have led to him being labelled a "Liberal attack dog", the "James Carville" and the "Prince of Darkness" of Canadian politics. He seems to take a good deal of pride in the latter name, taking it as measure of his opponent's respect for his tactics. More controversially, the Canadian Alliance once produced "Spinning Warren's Web," a series on their website illustrating Kinsella's head on the body of a spider and comparing him to Jerry Springer.
During the 2000 federal election campaign, while on a political panel on CTV network morning show Canada AM, he criticized Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day's fundamentalist religious beliefs, particularly his rejection of evolution. "I just want to remind Mr. Day that The Flintstones was not a documentary", he said, before producing a large stuffed Barney toy. "And this is the only dinosaur that recently co-existed with humans." While the stunt offended some, the subtext that religious conservatism might find expression in Day's public policy alarmed other Canadians.
In the 2003 Toronto municipal election, Kinsella was a senior campaign strategist for conservative mayoral candidate John Tory.
"Liberal-in-exile"
Kinsella was a loyalist to former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and publicly criticized Paul Martin for challenging Chrétien's leadership. Kinsella remained critical of Martin after Chrétien announced his resignation and Martin became leader. Federally, he currently refers to himself as a "Liberal-in-exile", in protest of Paul Martin's decision to welcome former separatists as Liberal Party candidates in the 2004 federal election. His public disapproval of Martin's work as prime minister has run him afoul of the highest echelons of the Liberal Party.
He has, however, been concurrently identified as a top political strategist to Ontario Liberal Party leader and Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty.
Writing
Kinsella has written four books: one on international terrorism, Unholy Alliances (Lester, 1992); a national bestseller about organized racism, titled Web of Hate (HarperCollins, 1994, and republished in 1996 and 2001); the briefly best-selling novel Party Favours (HarperCollins, 1997), originally credited to the pseudonym Jean Doe and considered Canada's answer to Primary Colors; and, most recently, a book on political communications, Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics (Random House, 2001). He has also been a newspaper and magazine columnist and op-ed writer. Web of Hate and Kinsella's vocal opposition to the far right, racists, anti-Semites and white nationalists in Canada have earned him considerable enmity in these communities.
In late 2000, he established a web site, in part to counter the large amount of material circulated on the web by his detractors in the Liberal Party. His "Latest Musings" weblog gained a wide following.
Kinsella performed in a punk rock band in the 1980s; his book Fury's Hour: A (sort-of) Punk-Rock Manifesto is due out from Random House in August 2005.
Personal
The son of renowned physician Douglas Kinsella, Warren Kinsella has lived in many parts of Canada and in the United States and is now based in Toronto. He and his wife have four children.
External links
- Warren Kinsella's website (http://www.warrenkinsella.com)
- His weblog (http://www.warrenkinsella.com/musings.htm)
- An audio interview with Warren Kinsella (http://www.thecommentary.ca/ontheline/20041102a.html)