SATURDAY,OCTOBER19,2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAILO NEWS | A
Warren Kinsella and his Daisy
Group consulting firm worked on
a secret campaign to “seek and
destroy” the fledgling People’s
Party of Canada and keep Max-
ime Bernier out of the national
leaders’ debates, The Globe and
Mail has learned.
Internal Daisy Group records
obtained by The Globe show a
team of Daisy Group employees
worked on a plan called “Project
Cactus” that focused on portray-
ing People’s Party supporters as
racist.
The records make several ref-
erences to a “client” for the pro-
ject, including sending a bill for
payment, but the client’s identity
is not revealed in the documents.
A source with direct knowl-
edge of the project said the client
listed in the documents is the
Conservative Party of Canada.
The Globe is keeping the source’s
name confidential because they
were not authorized to discuss
the matter.
Neither the Conservative Party
nor Mr. Kinsella would confirm or
deny that they are – or have been
- working together.
“We do not comment on what
vendors or suppliers we may or
may not do business with,” Con-
servative spokesperson Simon
Jefferies said.
The activity appears to have
taken place prior to June 30, when
new rules took effect requiring
third parties to disclose their po-
litical activities. It is legal for par-
ties to hire outside firms to assist
with political campaigns. De-
tailed campaign expenses are not
disclosed until after the election.
The People’s Party was created
by Mr. Bernier, a former Conser-
vative MP who narrowly lost to
Andrew Scheer in the 2017 Con-
servative Party leadership race.
The launch of a new national
party on the right of the political
spectrum created a risk for the
Conservative Party that some of
its traditional supporters could
switch to the new entity.
Mr. Kinsella, a former Liberal
adviser who is now a vehement
critic of Liberal Leader Justin Tru-
deau, has previously acknowl-
edged that he worked briefly this
year for the Green Party of Cana-
da. However, in a phone inter-
view, he declined to say whether
he worked for the Conservative
Party this year.
When asked about Project Cac-
tus, Mr. Kinsella said his firm does
work on anti-racism files. He nei-
ther confirmed nor denied that
his company worked with the
Conservatives to discredit thePeople’s Party.
“We don’t talk about client
matters,” he said. “What I can say,
just generally, is Daisy has been
involved in anti-racism cam-
paigns for years, most recently
against the neo-Nazi newspaper
Your Ward News, based here in
Toronto, and we’ve had some suc-
cess with that, so we’ve been very
active in anti-racism campaigns,
but we don’t talk about clients.”
The campaign, according to
the internal documents, focused
on criticizing Mr. Bernier and his
supporters online.
A Daisy Group document de-
scribing the project says “Daisy’s
war room campaign goals will be
to place Bernier and PPC on the
defensive” and to “work to at-
tempt to ensure that Bernier and
the PPC are not included in na-
tional leaders’ debates. If unsuc-
cessful in blocking his participa-
tion, Daisy will work to ensure
that Bernier and his party areweakened to the point of being
ineffective.”
Senior Daisy Group employee
Rob Gilmour outlined the plan in
the document.
He noted that Daisy Group’s
role could meet Elections Cana-
da’s definition of third-party ac-
tivity, a move that would require
the filing of disclosures on its po-
litical activities. “Daisy will create
an arm’s-length organization that
cannot be linked to the client or
any participating organization,”
he wrote. He later added, “If pos-
sible, Daisy will work to ensure
this campaign is not named as a
third party.”
Mr. Gilmour wrote that the
campaign would consist of three
“phases.” First, from March to
mid-April, Daisy would conduct
research for the campaign and
hold weekly or biweekly calls
with the client.
Then, in what Mr. Gilmour
called the “seek and destroy”phase, the Daisy group would
launch the campaign. This phase
would last from mid-April to June
30.
Finally, the campaign would
enter its “full steam ahead” por-
tion beginning on July 1 and end
on a date “TBD.” “We will push
Maxime Bernier and the PCC [sic]
off their messages – forcing them,
instead, to defend instances of
hate speech and sympathy for
racism,” he wrote. It is not clear if
this third phase was approved.
A Twitter account called
@Stamptogether – Standing To-
gether Against Misogyny and
Prejudice – was created in April,
2019.
Managers of the account
would respond favourably to
Conservative politicians, while
repeatedly condemning Mr. Ber-
nier and his supporters.
For example, Mr. Bernier
tweeted on May 2 that he left the
Conservative Party “because
there was no place for my bold
ideas under Scheer’s leadership.
Remember, he publicly disavow-
ed me after my six tweets on rad-
ical multiculturalism. You could
not have voted for my ideas if I
had stayed.”
The STAMP account responded
that day, stating: “Inventing race-
based phenomena that doesn’t
exist is just one more example of
how @MaximeBernier is a dan-
gerous racist. ‘Radical multicultu-
ralism’ is not a real problem.”
In one post, the group’s con-
tacts are listed as Lisa Kinsella
and Tom Henheffer of Daisy
Group.
The Twitter account doesn’t
appear to have attracted much at-
tention. It had 69 followers as of
Friday.
The account’s criticism of Mr.
Bernier ended on June 29, the day
before new Elections Act rules
took effect that require third par-
ties to register with Elections Can-
ada and disclose their spending
and revenue during the precam-
paign period that began June 30.
Internal Daisy Group docu-
ments indicate that the firm was
well aware of that deadline.Kinsellafirmhiredto‘destroy’PPC:records
DaisyGroup’ssecret
‘ProjectCactus’aimed
tokeepPPCLeader
outofnationaldebates
andportrayparty
supportersasracist
ManagersofaTwitteraccountcalled@Stamptogether–StandingTogetherAgainstMisogynyandPrejudice–
haverespondedfavourablytoConservativepoliticians,whilecondemningPeople’sPartyofCanadaLeader
MaximeBernier,seeninQuebecCityonFriday,andhissupporters.MATHIEUBELANGER/THECANADIANPRESSBILLCURRYOTTAWA
TOMCARDOSOTORONTO