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Warren Kinsella is a Canadian lawyer, author and consultant and a prominent political consultant and commentator.
Born in Montreal in August 1960, the son of renowned physician Douglas Kinsella, he has lived in many parts of Canada and in the United States and is now based in Toronto.
Kinsella is counsel and principal with a Toronto firm called Navigator. Before that, he was a special assistant to Jean Chrétien and chief of staff to several federal cabinet ministers. He has also played a key role in strategy for Liberal Party election campaigns.
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); a 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. In the 1980s he performed in a punk rock band and retains an interest in the genre today.
He ran as a Liberal in the 1997 Canadian 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.
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.
Later the same year, 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.
In the 2003 Toronto election, Kinsella was a senior campaign strategist for Mayoralty candidate John Tory.
Kinsella was a loyalist to former Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chretien and publicly criticized Martin for challenging Chretien's leadership and remained critical of Martin after Chretien announced his resignation and Martin became leader. 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.
Kinsella and his wife have four children.
External link
His web site (http://www.warrenkinsella.com)
Not to be confused with Canadian author W. P. Kinsella
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