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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 political consultant and commentator.

Kinsella is counsel to and a principal of the Toronto consultancy firm Navigator. He worked as a strategy advisor in the Canadian federal Liberal Party's 1993 election campaign "task force", as a special assistant to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and as chief of staff to several federal cabinet ministers.

Politics

Kinsella's often controversial work as a political strategist have led to his being labelled a "Liberal attack dog", and the "James Carville" and "Prince of Darkness" of Canadian politics. He 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, a large margin in Canadian politics. Kinsella very quickly left Vancouver for Toronto and has not run for office again.

Kinsella was a vocal supporter of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and criticized Paul Martin for challenging Chrétien's leadership. Kinsella remained critical of Martin after Chrétien announced his resignation and Martin became leader. With respect to federal politics, he refers to himself as a "Liberal-in-exile". He criticized the Liberal campaign several times in the 2004 federal election, and has done the same in the early period of the 2006 election. Kinsella had his lawyer write a letter threatening libel action against Mark Bourrie, an award-winning Ottawa journalist, author and doctoral student in January 2006, when the journalist published on his blog that Kinsella, when he was a political staffer, was instrumental in the Chretien government's hiring of Chuck Guite, a key figure in a later political kickback scandal, to run the governments ad system.

Justice John Gomery wrote, in his 2005 report on the "Sponsorship Scandal", that:

On November 23, 1995, Mr. Kinsella, the Executive Assistant of Mr. Dingwall, who was then Minister of PWGSC, wrote a surprising memorandum to Messrs. Quail and Stobbe, which to be appreciated must be reproduced in full:

Gentlemen, repeated reviews of the management of the federal government’s communications apparatus—and recent experience – have established a clear requirement for a centralized delivery system for the procurement and coordination of advertising, public opinion research and communications products. We have discussed this on previous occasions.

There is also obviously a clear requirement to work with the Privy Council Office so that communications initiatives can be tied to overall government priorities. PCO and PMO have recently expressed similar views. After discussing this with the Minister, it is therefore requested that the following tasks be undertaken; I. Create a common delivery system for advertising, research and all communications services products. II. Develop an information program explaining the role of functions of the integrated organization to departments of government including all regions as well as to communications industry suppliers.

III. Work with the Privy Council Office and other relevant central agencies to develop recommendations for a system that will generate ongoing strategic communications initiatives around government priorities'. IV. Investigate all “out-of-home” advertising and potential sponsorship initiatives that are available to effectively promote government programs. As the lead agency in the management of government advertising and public opinion research activities, the Advertising and Public Opinion Research Sector (APORS) is clearly best suited to carry out the noted tasks. In my view, Mr. J.C. Guité, current Director General of APORS should be assigned to carry out this review on a full time basis.

It is requested that he be assigned to a position that will allow him to carry out these tasks and that he be provided with the appropriate resources consistent with such an initiative. Central agencies have requested that his current position should be staffed immediately with a permanent and qualified person. The deliverable will be as follows:

• Develop an action plan to accomplish all of the above-noted tasks by January 15th, 1996.

• Provide a written report(s) on the findings by June 1, 1996.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.'

Mr. Gomery continues:

    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, which is entirely within the jurisdiction of the Deputy Minister. The reference to unidentified persons in the PCO and PMO gives the impression that the proposed reorganization of government communications under Mr. Guité was desired by persons at the highest level. To his credit, Mr. Quail resisted the temptation to take offence, and replied by a memorandum reading as follows:

I have your note of Nov 23/95 re: Direction to review the APORS and would make the following observations:

1. In paragraph 2 you mention the recent views of PCO. Would you please provide me the name at PCO—so we don’t cross lines.

2. The review that you have outlined in your note suggests this may be seen at the Centre as a Machinery of Government responsibility which as you know is the prerogative of the Prime Minister to assign. My experience indicates that it is necessary to ensure PMO/PCO is aware of the assignment of such issues to a Minister. Will you confirm this is in place?

3. On page 2 you recommend that we use Mr. Guité on this assignment and that the Central Agencies have suggested the position he “vacates” be staffed immediately on a permanent basis. I have 2 points on this:

a] I am not aware of any such directions; please advise who has recommended this action with respect to Mr. Guité’s position, so I can discuss the issues I see arising from this proposal.

b] On the assignment of Mr. Guité; my concern here is that the action you propose, while attractive in one sense, presents a problem to me in the handling of the EX personnel. There will be a requirement to find an additional EX position to cover the assignment period and secondly, no clear assignment for Mr. Guité once the work is completed…We already have a number of these cases and I have been working over the last two years to get these down to zero. In other words what to do with Mr. Guité at the end when no work exists…

I would like to hear from you before I take any further action.

Mr Gomery continues:

The matter died there. 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. Mr. Dingwall testifies that he does not remember the incident, but assumes that he must have instructed Mr. Kinsella to write the memo.

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. Sponsorship contracts were considered by all concerned to be a form of advertising, and were so defined in Appendix Q , and Mr. Guité was the government’s expert in advertising matters.

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."

--Then, there's this from the report, which confirms that the first sponsorships were handed out by Chuck Guité when Kinsella was still in government, notwithstanding his longstanding and oft-repeated defense:

"The “Sponsorship Program” had its origin in 1994-95 when the advertising section of Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), under its director, Joseph Charles (“Chuck”) Guité, disbursed about $2 million from its normal operating budget for what were described as “special programs,” at which federal government advertisements were prominently displayed. In 1995-96, nearly $22 million was disbursed by PWGSC for advertising rights at similar events and for expenses related to the promotion of national unity. The objective was to publicize certain federal programs and the federal presence in general."

Mr Gomery also writes:

“On November 28, 1994, APORS published a public notice that the Department of Canadian Heritage…was seeking a full-service advertising agency “in support of its mandate to promote Canada’s identity and its cultural and natural heritage.” …It may be noted that the public notice did not refer to a selection process leading to the qualification of a number of advertising agencies, and that it indicated that one agency only was being sought.

Of the agencies making presentations on February 2, McKim Communications had the best score, but Scott Thornley was within the 10% margin and was also chosen to be on the pre-qualified suppliers list. All five agencies that made presentations on the second day were selected. They were Groupe Everest, BCP Canada, Compass Communications, Palmer Jarvis Communications and Vickers & Benson…"

Mr Gomery's narrative continues,

In his testimony, Mr. Guité states that the use of the Heritage Canada list of suppliers by PWGSC was decided upon during the pre-referendum period, in consultation with public servants in the Privy Council Office who were working on unity and pre-referendum strategy.63 Mr. Guité and Ms. LaRose both acknowledge that the conversion of the Heritage Canada list of pre-qualified suppliers into a list to be used by PWGSC was irregular and did not respect the requirements of Appendix Q. No competitive agency-selection procedure whatsoever led to the qualification of suppliers of advertising services to PWGSC.

Neither Mr. Guité nor Ms. LaRose explained why only five of the seven firms on the Heritage Canada list were declared to be qualified as suppliers of advertising services to PWGSC.64 It may be noted that of the five agencies qualified for PWGSC, three of them (Groupe Everest, BCP Canada and Vickers & Benson) were well known to have been closely associated with the election campaign of the Liberal Party in 1993.

After leaving government, Kinsella went to work at Palmer Jarvis--one of the five firms that were qualified through this process, but not one of the firms closely associated with the Liberal election campaign in 1993.

This brings us to this most interesting exchange during the interrogation of the Diane Marleau, one of the few Honourables who emerges honourably in the Gomery report:

"MR. COURNOYER: If we go to page 118 under Tab 17, we have a number of fax reports or fax sheets. At 118 we have a fax that is dated August 27th, 1996.

Were you aware that Mr. Guité was exchanging information with Mr. Warren Kinsella at Palmer Jarvis about this?

MS. MARLEAU: Absolutely not. That would be highly unusual. Mr. Kinsella had been the Executive Assistant to Minister Dingwall. My understanding was that he had left Minister Dingwall’s office. So that is unusual. But I couldn’t tell you more about it. I wasn’t aware of it.

MR. COURNOYER: You didn’t have -- well, superficially, that is what the document seems to be, a fax sent to Mr. Kinsella."

In the 2003 Toronto municipal election, Kinsella was a senior campaign strategist for conservative mayoral candidate John Tory. He has also been identified as a top strategist to Ontario Liberal Party leader and Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty. He is also a lobbyist for, among others, the COntario Funeral Directors Association.

Writing

Kinsella has written five 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 a book on political communications, Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics (Random House, 2001).

His fifth book, Fury's Hour: A (sort-of) Punk-Rock Manifesto (Random House) came out in August 2005. Kinsella played bass and sang in the punk rock band Hot Nasties , which released the Invasion of the Tribbles EP in the 1980s. He now plays bass in another punk rock band, Shit From Hell, with other members of the Liberal Party of Canada.

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.

Kinsella has also been a newspaper and magazine columnist and op-ed writer. In late 2000, he established a web site, in part to counter the large amount of material circulated on the web by his detractors. His weblog, Latest Musings, gained a wide following.

Personal

The son of respected 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. Kinsella is an alumnus of Bishop Carroll High School.

See also

• Hot Nasties

External links

• Warren Kinsella's website
• His weblog
• Mark Bourrie's web page
• Norman Spector's analysis of Kinsella/Gomery
• Andrew Coyne v. Kinsella
• Audio interview with THECOMMENTARY.CA's Joseph Planta

• 1960 births
• Canadian political strategists
• Canadian lawyers
• Candidates for the Canadian House of Commons
• Canadian bloggers
• Anti-neo-Nazi activism
• People from Quebec