The Canadian Conservative Party (CPC) has been accused of hiring a pro-Antifa political consultant to smear populist party opponents ahead of this year’s national election.
The CPC is accused of hiring political consultant and strategist Warren Kinsella and his Daisy Group firm, whose activities against the populist People’s Party of Canada (PPC) and it’s leader Maxime Bernier as well as leaked recordings being reported on this week in Canadian media, CBC reports.
In the recordings, Mr Kinsella is heard speaking to staff about “Project Cactus,” the alleged codename for the campaign to label Bernier and the PPC “racist” and “white supremacist.”
“I want the hatred you have for Maxime Bernier to wash over you as a purifying force,” Kinsella is alleged to have said in the recording, which reportedly took place in May of this year and added, “There’s nobody in the country doing what we’re doing to Max Bernier.”
Kinsella also refers to “Hamish and Walsh,” which, it has been speculated, refers to CPC campaign manager Hamish Marshall and CPC election co-chair John Walsh, saying the pair would be asking what results “Project Cactus” was achieving.
Mr Marshall has denied the allegations that the CPC hired Kinsella stating, “I have never monitored (or overseen or any other synonym) any project or anything with Daisy or any Kinsella person or entity.”
Walsh, however, gave no comment on the issue despite Kinsella’s former spouse bragging about being in touch with Walsh in the recording.
Kinsella also admitted in the recording that he had engaged in painting other conservatives as racists in the past but admitted, “None of them were. But I was successful at depicting them as racists.”
Active on Twitter, Mr Kinsella appeared to express his sympathy for the far-left extremist Antifa group in August of 2017 stating, “‘Antifa’ is short for anti-fascist. The only ones who should oppose antifa are fascists.”
Antifa, who operate in countries across Europe and North America, have been responsible for injuring hundreds of police officers in Hamburg in 2017 at the G20 summit, attempting to murder a populist politician in Bremen earlier this year and most recently have gone on a rampage in Leipzig, attacking construction sites and a real state employee in her own home.
U.S. President Donald Trump has gone as far as to consider designating the group a terrorist organization, a move that was slammed by left-wing parties and supporters in Germany.
In Canada, the group has also been active in Montreal where they threatened to attack Canadian mainstream journalists in 2017 and in Hamilton where Antifa anarchists smashed up a row of shops in 2018.
Kinsella is also linked to the Canadian equivalent of HOPE not Hate, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and its chair Bernie Farber, calling him “my brother from another mother” on his website.
Canadian Anti-Hate Network member Evan Balgord attempted to shut down a PPC event involving Maxime Bernier and hosted by U.S. political commentator Dave Rubin in Hamilton during the election campaign, writing an op-ed in the Hamilton Spectator accusing Rubin of “ushering people into the neo-Nazi movement.”
The PPC event went ahead despite Balgord’s op-ed, with several far-left Antifa protestors being arrested and a video of an elderly woman being accosted by Antifa extremists going viral on social media.