Tag Archive: Hate

Age of Unreason is here!

It’s the third and final book in the X Gang series – and my tenth book in all.  Just got it from Dundurn, my publisher.

You can get Age of Unreason here.  In the meantime, here’s some of the reviews about the series.  Hope you can pick it up!

  • Quill and Quire: “Kinsella skillfully blends convincing depictions of both the punk scene and the racist underground with the hoary trope of a band of kids setting out to solve a mystery. The novel is a suspenseful page-turner that also gives considerable food for thought, anchored in realistically drawn characters and an eye for significant detail.” 

  • Publisher’s Weekly: “Adult author Kinsella (Fight the Right) sets this riveting murder mystery in Portland, Maine, in the late 1970s…Tension starts high and stays there in this unflinching page-turner, which offers a fascinating glimpse into the early punk scene and a moving testament to the power of friendship.”

  • Globe and Mail: “Portrayals of rebellious and non-conforming teens can feel reductive or contrived but Kinsella nails it without any stereotyping or embellishment. Though this authenticity will have big teen appeal, the novel is also part police procedural, part detailed history on the emergence of punk and part gritty murder mystery, all elements that skew more adult. Classification aside, it’s absorbing, jarring and raw.”

  • Toronto Star: “Warren Kinsella is known mostly as a political operative and pundit, but he also has estimable punk-rock credentials (as punk historian and as bass player in SFH, which bills itself as Canada’s best-loved geriatric punk band). This YA novel is loosely based on real-life events, and concerns the murder of two teenagers in 1979 in Portland, Ore., then the epicentre of the punk scene. It will be of interest to anyone interested in punk culture — not just the music, but the fanzines, art and writing of the period.”

  • Booklist: “Kinsella’s book explodes off the page from the start…a dark and engrossing tale of punk-rock heroes fighting for justice.” 


Knowing this is coming, what do you do?

You do cheap publicity stunts, in a transparent bid to look somehow relevant, that’s what.

“Dozens of electoral district associations affiliated with the People’s Party of Canada have been deregistered by Elections Canada for failing to meet their reporting requirements, just months after the party contested its first general election.

The PPC captured just 1.6 per cent of the overall vote in the October election and elected not a single candidate — not even party leader Maxime Bernier, who quit the Conservative Party in 2018 to form his own political vehicle.

Thirty-eight PPC electoral district associations (EDAs) were deregistered: 15 in Quebec, 10 in Ontario, 10 in Atlantic Canada and one each in Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia.

…The PPC did not nominate a candidate in 10 of those ridings. In the remaining 28 ridings where the PPC did have a name on the ballot, the party averaged 1.4 per cent of the vote.

Elections Canada deregistered these EDAs for failing to submit a statement of assets and liabilities within six months of their registration, something that’s required of new EDAs. Elections Canada notifies both EDAs and the party when they fail to meet these requirements, giving them 30 days to file or “satisfy Elections Canada that the omission was not the result of negligence or a lack of good faith.”

Once an EDA is deregistered, it can no longer accept contributions or issue tax receipts.”

 


Statement by me and Daisy Group

I have been contacted by a CBC reporter who has told me that they have recordings secretly made at my firm in the Spring.  The recordings are about anti-racism work we did.  We’re really proud of that work.

Here’s a summary of what I said to this reporter.

We do not discuss client matters publicly.  It is up to the client to make public the relationship.

But I can say we have proactively reached out to Elections Canada and disclosed everything we did up until June 29, 2019, when our work ended – as the law requires.

I have proudly been exposing and opposing racism for more than 30 years.  Daisy Group has also exposed and opposed racists, anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, Islamophobes and misogynists for many years.  Many people and organizations seek us out to assist them in opposing hate.

I have proudly been exposing and opposing racism for more than 30 years.  As a political assistant, in 1990, I documented known white supremacists joining Preston Manning’s Reform Party.  In 1993, I documented Kim Campbell’s inadequate response to the presence of actual neo-Nazis in the Canadian Airborne Regiment.  In 2000, as a political advisor, I documented the presence of known racists in Stockwell Day’s Canadian Alliance. 

After lots of research, I concluded none of those leaders were in any way racist.  However, their parties had a problem in those days, which was well-known. 

But the extremism found in the People’s Party of Canada is far worse, and far more pervasive, than anything I experienced before. 

We were, and are, very proud to shine a light on the many extremists found in the People’s Party of Canada. 


Why I’m not so critical about Justin Trudeau lately

As regular customers know, I’m a Democrat.  Large “D.”

I work on Democratic Party campaigns as a volunteer.  In 2016, I worked for Hillary in three states, including her Brooklyn headquarters.  I’ve volunteered for Democrats for as long as I can remember.

But I’m also a democrat, small “D.” I believe in democracy.

Saying that shouldn’t be a big deal, but it sort of is.  I come from the punk culture, you see.  The punk movement – defined as it is by anger, and aggression, and DIY, and creativity, and anti-racism – is where I started, and it’s the place where I feel like I can breathe.  It defines me.

Punks despise politics, however.  They think politicians are the scum of the Earth.  And they think democracy is a sham.

Take Gerry Useless, for example.  I met him in 1979 or so, when I brought his band, the Subhumans, to Calgary for the first time.

The Subhumans were intensely political, in a way that other punk bands (particularly North American ones) were afraid to be in the 1970s. In the United States or Canada, it was difficult to advocate for the sort of anarchy and class warfare the Sex Pistols and the Clash sang about. The economic chaos that hit Britain – characterized by massive unemployment, collapsing public services and actual race riots – was not really happening to the same degree in North America.

But the Subhumans and a few others were still unsatisfied with the way things were, and – to their credit – they regularly challenged their audience to press for radical change. For instance, in September 1979, Useless helped initiate Rock Against Radiation, an outdoor concert in Vancouver’s Vanier Park that featured DOA, the Subhumans, the Pointed Sticks and the K-Tels protesting both nuclear weapons and nuclear power. More than three thousand people showed up: the event was a fantastic example of the positive, proselytizing power of punk. Everyone was impressed, but not Gerry Useless.

Gerry Useless wanted more. His patience for societal change – change that was the product of a democratic process – was wearing thin. He wanted to do more than just sing about revolution.  He didn’t believe democracy worked anymore – or even if it ever did.

So he became a terrorist, basically. Useless and some other disaffected Vancouver punk rockers started doing things, and not just talking about things.  They broke into someone’s home and stole a cache of guns. They did lots of robberies, office-trashings and vandalism. When they were in need, they shoplifted; they became good at stealing cars.

Earlier in 1982, Useless and Co. had stolen a half-ton of Toval dynamite from a construction site; later, they located nearly 2,000 pounds of explosives at another remote site owned by the provincial highways department. They targeted the Cheekeye-Dunsmuir hydroelectrical transmission line, near Squamish, in May 1982. Early in the morning of May 31, they blew up four shunt reactors with 400 pounds of the stolen dynamite. The explosion was powerful enough to wake up residents ten kilometers away.

In the Summer and early Fall of 1982, Gerry Useless and his friends selected their next big target – Litton Systems, in Toronto. Litton manufactured the guidance system for U.S. cruise missiles.  The gang brought 550 pounds of explosives across Canada for that one.

In the resulting explosion, they almost killed a man, Terry Chikowski.  The bomb Useless and the others planted at Litton systems split open Chikowski’s back by approximately 14 inches. Four pounds of muscle were blown out of his back. Part of a rib, took. His spleen disintegrated. Four ribs snapped off his spine and four others cracked. A hole was blown in the lower left side of his stomach. His left lung and left kidney collapsed. His diaphragm was split. There were fragments of glass from in his heart.

Half a brick that was embedded in Terry Chikowski’s back, along with a piece of sheet metal. It was sticking out of him like a shark’s fin. Chikowski was in good physical shape before the bomb. Somehow, he survived.

Asked about it afterwards, Gerry Useless and his friends kind of shrugged: “Accidents happen,” they said.  Before long, they’d all go to jail, for a long time.

Why do I relate this long story? Because I knew Gerry Useless – we all did, in the punk scene – and it affected me.  And there are still those, like Jello Biafra, who seem indifferent to what Gerry Useless did.  Not me.

My punk friends will often say I shouldn’t have gotten involved in politics.  They say democracy is flawed, a farce.  They say that you will keep compromising, until you trade away parts of your soul.

I say this: “I won’t win every argument.  I won’t win every debate.  I think that democracy – however imperfect it is – encourages compromise, and conciliation, and change. Democracy is way better than what Gerry Useless did.”

Which brings us back to Fall 2019.  To me, a lawyer, obstruction of justice is disqualifying.  To me, a man who aspires to be a better man, groping a woman is disqualifying. To me, to someone who has aggressively opposed racism since my punk days, wearing blackface should also disqualify you from public office.  Any public office.  Full stop.

But millions of Canadians considered all of that, and they didn’t like it, but they decided to give the wrongdoer another chance.  They decided to forgive him.

So, I have a choice: keep slamming my fists against the wall, knowing that it will change nothing.  Or, consider that – if I’m a democrat – I have to accept a different outcome, this time.  I have to defer to the judgment of others, however wrong I think they might be.  The judgment of the many, not of the one.

That’s what it means to be a democrat, to me.  It’s also a way to avoid what happened to Gerry Useless.

It’s a way to remain sane in an insane world.

 

 


Breaking news: opposition research firm does opposition research

From CBC, earlier today:

On his Kinsellacast podcast, an unapologetic Kinsella said the campaign to spotlight racists who attached themselves to the fledgling party was not supposed to extend into the period covered by election spending rules. 

“Our efforts would strictly adhere to Canadian election law and cease all operations on June 29,” he said. 

He also said Daisy Group’s work was “subject to full public disclosure. It would all be disclosed.”

Nor would the client be exempt from criticism, Kinsella said.

“We would reserve the right to vigorously criticize the client itself, publicly and in the media, if the client’s own members were found to be espousing racism,” he said, adding that there were times when he criticized the client in the media…

In his podcast, Kinsella defended Daisy Group’s work to undermine Bernier’s party, saying its work over the years to fight racism and white supremacy has set it aside from other companies that do similar communications and opposition research work.

“Daisy Group staff have worked for, or with, every single mainstream political party or their candidates to research, expose and oppose racist elements. Those have included the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party, the Green Party and the now-defunct Progressive Conservative and Reform parties,” he said. 

Kinsella said years ago he helped Stephen Harper, prior to his time with the Conservatives, root out and expel Heritage Front members from the Reform Party.

Kinsella said he has not worked with Bernier’s party because of some of the people it has attracted.

“He has attracted the support and involvement of myriad racists, anti-Semites and bigots,” said Kinsella.

Among those who signed registration papers for the People’s Party were members of the Soldiers of Odin and other white supremacist, anti-immigration groups, Kinsella said.

Kinsella said Daisy was approached because of its reputation. “Daisy fights racism and hate. That’s what we do. That’s why we were approached to assist in exposing and opposing racist elements within the ranks of the People’s Party.”

Kinsella said Daisy Group felt it was important for Canadians to know more about the People’s Party and who it was attracting.

“We had been going after racists in other parties too, but Bernier had more than all the others put together.”

Kinsella said he has no regrets about waging the campaign against Bernier’s party.

“Will I apologize for opposing racism and homophobia and anti-Semitism and misogyny? No. Never. Will I apologize for opposing extremists and haters in Bernier’s People’s Party? No. Never.”


My latest: this isn’t the face of a Prime Minister

Blackface.

I’ve been writing about, and researching – and opposing – racism for more than thirty years. And make no mistake: blackface isn’t funny.

It’s racist.

Ask Megyn Kelly. A year ago, the former Fox News star was filming a segment about Halloween costumes and “political correctness.” Someone asked whether it was acceptable for a white person to smear black makeup all over their face and pretend to be black.

Here’s what Kelly said: “But what is racist? Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween… Back when I was a kid that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

There was a massive backlash. Kelly apologized. But her show was cancelled not long afterwards.

Just this year, Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, faced demands that she resign because audio of a skit emerged from when she was in college – even though the person in blackface was her then-fiance. Not her.

Ivey still apologized.

Also this year: upscale fashion brand Gucci fired its global head of diversity because he hadn’t stopped a “balaclava jumper” from going on sale. The jumper featured an image that resembled blackface.

In Canada, we’ve experienced blackface backlash, too. Theatre impresario Robert Lepage faced protests when one of his plays apparently contained scenes that recalled blackface. Some University of Montreal students wore blackface to “pay tribute” to champion runner Usain Bolt. The university was forced to apologize for that.

So why is blackface so controversial? Why is what Justin Trudeau has done so wrong?

Because blackface is literally about white people caricaturing black people. It recalls the era when blacks were referred to as “darkies” and “coons.” It was something popularized in minstrel shows to suggest that blacks were inferior to whites. That they were stupider. That they were deserving of derision and mockery.

David Leonard, a professor at Washington State University, and an expert on the manifestations of racism, says this: “It’s an assertion of power and control. It allows a society to routinely and historically imagine African Americans as not fully human. It serves to rationalize violence and segregation.”

Is Justin Trudeau racist?

Well, his appalling treatment of a proud indigenous woman, Jody Wilson-Raybould, didn’t exactly suggest Trudeau was nearly as tolerant as he regularly claims to be. When asked about Donald Trump’s suggestion that four Democratic politicians “go back” to the “crime infested places” they came from, Justin Trudeau refused to say Trump’s racist statements were in fact racist.

Said Trudeau: “Canadians and indeed people around the world know exactly what I think about those particular comments.”

Do we really?

After Canadians have looked at that shocking photo of the Liberal prime minister mocking and denigrating black people – after the embarrassment and shame he has now brought on Canada internationally – it’s hard to know exactly what Justin Trudeau was thinking. Or if he thinks at all.

At the end of this shocking revelation, we are left with one thought: this is not the face of a prime minister.

Like Megyn Kelly, Justin Trudeau’s little show needs to be cancelled, once and for all.

Warren Kinsella is a Sun columnist and author of five award-winning books on racism.


Hate rag editor gets a year in jail

Finally.

James Sears, the editor of the so-called newspaper called Your Ward News, was finally sentenced this afternoon in a Toronto courtroom to one year in jail. He’d been convicted in January of promoting hatred against Jews and women.

I just did an interview with some Toronto media, and noted that the case was important for two reasons.

One, the viciousness of the hate found in Your Ward News – against Jews, against women, against gays and lesbians, against nonwhites – was some of the worst hate I have ever seen.

Two, the conviction for promoting hatred against women has never happened before in Canadian history. That was a first, and – as I told reporters – it will mean that this judgement is studied for many years to come.

We are grateful to the Crown and to Justice Blouin – who is retiring this week – for their wisdom and hard work.

Now, onto the next battle.


My latest, on the so-called “digital charter”

The Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development blinked. Then he blinked again. 

He has just been asked if his government’s “Digital Charter” would apply to his own political party. You know, the governing Liberal Party of Canada. 

He doesn’t answer. The host on CBC’s “Power and Politics” genially tries again. Will the Liberal Party agree to go along with the rules it proposes to impose on everyone else? Will the Grits practice what they preach on data privacy?

Navdeep Bains, the Minister with the aforementioned long title doesn’t answer. Again. 

Bains rallies. He sternly says the penalties for violating Canadians’ privacy will be “substantial.” The CBC inquisitor asks what that means. 

Navdeep Bains doesn’t say. 

And so it goes, as with much that the Justin Trudeau regime does: do as they say, but not as they do. Talk the talk, but don’t walk the talk. 

Justin Trudeau does that sort of thing a lot: you know, oversell, then underdeliver. Insincerity, phoniness, dishonesty. It’s his brand, pretty much. 

And there is no better recent example of that sort of rank hypocrisy than Justin Trudeau’s so-called“Digital Charter.”

Announced a few days back with much fanfare, but not much detail, the “charter” sketches out some basic principles about data protection and online privacy. 

Justin Trudeau, as is his wont, revealed the “Digital Charter” in Paris, where he knew his audience was likely to be less critical than the ones back home. Overseas, Prime Minister Chewbacca Socks can still command the occasional round of applause.

Not so much back here in the colonies, where the “Digital Charter” is like so much that Trudeau does – all sizzle, no steak. All talk, no action. 

That’s not to say Trudeau’s “Charter” – he calls it that, presumably, because it sounds like he’s serious, when he isn’t, really – doesn’t have some laudable goals. It wants to combat the spread of hate and violent extremism online, and who could be against that?

Except, well, Justin Trudeau has had nearly four full years to do something about the explosion in hate online. Every other Western democracy has done something about it. But Justin Trudeau? He waits until we are a mere 100 days or so from the 2019 election kick-off, and then claims he’s The Hate Fighter™️. 

Oh, and his “Charter” isn’t going to become law until (a) after said election takes place, and (b) he is re-elected. The chances of which, all the pollsters tell us, is presently somewhere between slim and none. 

It’s a problem. A big one. In an era where Facebook and other online behemoths regularly steal the private information of citizens, and profit from it, Canadians actually need something like the “digital charter.” At the moment, regular folks don’t have the ability to control – or consent to – the way all the political parties use their data, either. 

In 2019, when the tech giants steal your private information, they get fined pocket change. And the political parties – when they do likewise – they don’t get fined at all. They get away with it. 

The federal Privacy Commissioner, who has saint-like patience, has recently held press conferences about this outrage. He’s even brought along the Elections Commissioner, who has nodded his head and soberly agreed: the Trudeau government needs to be subject to the law, just as every other citizen and corporation is. 

But Justin Trudeau refuses. 

With less than a month to go until the House of Commons rises for the Summer, not to return for many months, Justin Trudeau needs to put his mouth where our money is. He needs to agree, finally, to practice what he preaches to the rest of us. 

Will he? Don’t hold your breath. 

But hold onto your data. 

(Justin Trudeau wants it.)