Why does anyone hire Nick Kouvalis? Good question.

Because the media are in the shorthand business – and because social media renders everything bite-sized and/or stupid – some folks have occasionally contrasted me with conservative lobbyist Nick Kouvalis.

I welcome that, because we couldn’t be more different. So, as a public service, here are some of the ways in which I differ from Nick Kouvalis.

• Kouvalis has been charged, criminally, for making death threats. I have never been charged with anything, although I have received two speeding tickets in my life, for which I apologize.
• Kouvalis has been found guilty of several ethical violations by the professional marketing/polling organization to which he belongs. I have never been found to have breached any professional rules or standards whatsoever – although, I was on the executive of both the Canadian Bar Association and the Ontario Bar Association, which I suppose was punishment enough.
• Kouvalis has not written any books of which I am aware, and I do not know his educational background. I have written ten books and have degrees in Journalism and Law. The journalism one is from Carleton, however, which cannot be helped.
• Kouvalis brags about using dirty tricks – fake identities and whatnot – in election campaigns. I have written books in which I have said, among other things, that dirty tricks do not work – and I have fired youngsters who show up with same. I did, however, wave around a purple dinosaur on TV once to poke fun at Kouvalis’ friend Stockwell Day. I admit that.
• Kouvalis brags about how much money he has. I was brought up to believe that the people who brag don’t have.
• Kouvalis uses front companies to conduct “polls” to push voters one way or another. I have written books in which I have said that “push polls” should be banned, and that those who make use of them are hurting democracy. I am old-fashioned about democracy, in that I think it is a fragile thing, and worth defending.
• Kouvalis says that he is good at beating Liberals, and then went on to work for BC Liberal leader Christy Clark; he has said terrible things about John Tory, and then turned his back on the Ford family to work for John Tory. I, for my part, worked for many years for guys named Chrétien and McGuinty, and I have stuck by them, in good times and in bad.
• Kouvalis has driven drunk, been caught and charged by police. He has continued to drink, despite promises to “get help.” I’ve never been charged with anything. Ever.
• Kouvalis even got drunk and broke into a Burlington Kelsey’s. He pleaded guilty to criminal trespass and received a fine. None of that has ever happened to me.
• Kouvalis called an academic critic a “cuck,” a term favored by white supremacists to describe race traitors. I, meanwhile, have spent more than three decades exposing and fighting white supremacists.
• Kouvalis enthusiastically defended supporting the white supremacists who led the so-called trucker convoy. I, meanwhile, called for them to be prosecuted for breaking the law. Which is happening.
• Kouvalis tweeted and subsequently retracted a false claim that anti-rascists and Black Lives Matter activists ⁠— not supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump ⁠— were responsible for the January 6 Capitol riots. He also said Trump would beat Joe Biden. I worked for Joe Biden. Who, you know, won.

Anyway. There you go. Those are some of the key ways in which Nick Kouvalis and I (and any other people who try to be ethical, tolerant, law-abiding people) differ. There are others.

And there will be many, many more.

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Woot! Heard from Daughter. They’re in a Giant Tiger parking lot in Halifax and okay. No power but okay. I told them to go get a Scrabble game because that’s their entertainment for the foreseeable future! Thank you, Giant Tiger! #FionaNS

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) September 24, 2022

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I support trans people without qualification. Without qualification, I also support never sexualizing kids, or caricaturing women’s bodies, or turning classrooms into places where the priority – the kids – becomes something less. #onpoli

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) September 23, 2022

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Four most recent. pic.twitter.com/nMVAwH7ipF

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) September 23, 2022

Truck is for sale. Other three sold.

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New one. Rainy days are productive. pic.twitter.com/TpMplKutla

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) September 22, 2022

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I met Trevor Harrison when I was brought in to advise the Ignatieff guys, more than a decade ago.  Whenever I’d see Trevor – always with his trademarked smile and good humour – I’d call him “Canada’s tallest freestanding political staffer.” He’d laugh.

Trevor died last week. You may not have known him, but many on the Hill did, and we are all diminished by his passing. RIP.

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I keep thinking about how a man who got 74 million votes in 2020 has now openly embraced QAnon in 2022 – and how it has elicited such little shock or condemnation. It shows how fully we are living in an era where sanity and probity are just completely fucking gone. #USPolitics

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) September 22, 2022

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The people saying Putin won’t ever use nuclear weapons are the same people who said he wouldn’t ever invade Ukraine.

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) September 21, 2022

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