A volunteer with Olivia Chow’s campaign who made headlines last week for getting into an online spat with John Tory’s campaign is threatening to sue Tory’s strategist for libel.
Litigation firm Shillers LLP tweeted at Nick Kouvalis Friday afternoon to send him a link to a libel notice which alleges Kouvalis made defamatory statements against Kinsella on three separate occasions.
The lawsuit contains snapshots of three different tweets allegedly sent by Kouvalis suggesting Kinsella was fired by Chow’s campaign office.
Those tweets make it appear as if the Chow campaign “is better off without" Kinsella, and that Kinsella was “making a negative contribution to” and is “easily replaceable by” Chow’s campaign, according to the libel notice.
One of the tweets said “Good riddance.” Another linked to music videos “for the songs ‘Thunderstruck’ and ‘Irreplaceable’ that are pointedly directed at Mr. Kinsella,” the libel notice reads.
A third tweet said, “...don’t count [Olivia Chow] out just yet. The campaign made a very smart move dumping Kinsella et al today.”
The whole saga started when Kinsella, a veteran political consultant, posted a tweet on Aug. 19 accusing Tory’s SmartTrack transit plan of being “segregationist” and excluding the Jane-Finch and Rexdale neighbourhoods.
After Tory’s team denounced that initial tweet, Kinsella deleted it and apologized. But Tory wasn’t satisfied. He called Kinsella a “key political operative” in Chow’s campaign and said that Chow must accept accountability.
Chow, for her part, said Kinsella was only a volunteer with whom she had not spoken in months. She insisted she didn’t believe Tory discriminated with his transit plan and that Kinsella’s tweet “shouldn’t have happened.”
The issue persisted with Kinsella defending his criticism of Tory’s transit plan and Tory’s team asking Chow to take responsibility for Kinsella’s words.
Yesterday, Chow tried to add more distance between herself and Kinsella by saying that although he remains a volunteer, he would no longer be involved in her campaign’s day-to-day operations.
It was after this revelation that Kouvalis’ tweets were allegedly sent. The lawsuit accuses Kouvalis of being “motivated by malice.”
Kinsella is demanding that Kouvalis delete the tweets and issue an unequivocal apology and retraction on Twitter in a permanent location by Sept. 3.
None of the allegations have been proven in court. Neither Kouvalis nor a spokesperson for Tory’s campaign were immediately available for comment.
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