Wab Kinew

Background

Originally from the Onigaming First Nation in Northwestern Ontario, he is the son of Tobasonakwut Kinew, a former local and regional chief and a professor of indigenous governance at the University of Winnipeg, and Kathi Avery Kinew, a policy analyst. Kinew moved to suburban Winnipeg with his parents in childhood and attended Collège Béliveau, a French immersion school, and vacationed in Onigaming in the summers. He graduated from the University of Winnipeg Collegiate which Kinew said in a 2014 interview was "a private high school, one of the best in Winnipeg." Kinew earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Manitoba.

Career

Kinew began working in broadcasting after the Winnipeg Free Press published a letter to the editor which he had written about Team Canada hockey, and a local CBC Radio producer contacted him to express interest in creating and airing a documentary feature on the topic.

Kinew has been a reporter and host for the CBC's radio and television operations, including the weekly arts magazine show The 204 in Winnipeg and the national documentary series 8th Fire in 2012. He is also a host of the documentary program Fault Lines on Al Jazeera America.

In 2014, he appeared as a panelist on CBC Radio's Canada Reads, defending Joseph Boyden's novel The Orenda. The novel won the competition.

Kinew was a guest host of Q for two weeks in December 2014, and moderated the 2015 edition of Canada Reads.

Music

After being a member of the hip-hop groups Slangblossom and the Dead Indians in the mid 2000s, Kinew released his debut individual CD as a rapper, Live by the Drum, in 2009. The CD won an Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Award for Best Rap/Hip-Hop CD. His second CD, Mide-Sun, followed in 2010.

University administration

In 2011, the University of Winnipeg named Kinew its first director of indigenous inclusion. In 2014, Kinew was appointed acting associate vice-president of Indigenous Affairs after Jennifer Rattray resigned the position. He is also an honorary witness for the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

On October 25, 2014, Kinew received an honorary doctorate degree from Cape Breton University.

Politics

He considered running for the leadership of the Assembly of First Nations in its 2014 leadership election, but decided not to mount a campaign as he was newly married in August and felt it was not the right time to be away from home for an extended period.

In 2016, he was announced as a Manitoba New Democratic Party candidate for Fort Rouge in the 2016 provincial election. During the final days of the campaign, misogynistic and anti-gay tweets and other social media comments were discovered by media on Kinew's Twitter feed. This created a scandal with calls for the New Democratic Party to drop Kinew from the ballots. Kinew apologized for his past comments.

On April 19, 2016, Kinew defeated Manitoba Liberal leader Rana Bokhari in the riding of Fort Rouge. He was subsequently named the NDP's spokesperson for reconciliation and critic for education, advanced learning, and training as well as housing and community development.

Kinew ran for leadership of the Manitoba NDP in 2017 and was elected leader at the convention of September 16, defeating the only other candidate, former cabinet minister Steve Ashton, by a margin of three to one.

Writing

Kinew has written two books, a personal memoir and a children's book about notable figures in First Nations history, which were published by Penguin Canada in 2015. The memoir, The Reason You Walk, chronicles the year 2012, during which Kinew strove to reconnect with the Indigenous aboriginal man who raised him. The Globe & Mail reviewer commented: "the undeniable significance of The Reason You Walk’s message, and the fact that the book holds so much for both aboriginal and non-aboriginal readers, makes it a must-read. This is not just a memoir, it’s a meditation on the purpose of living."

Personal life

Kinew recounts that he "experienced racially motivated assaults by adults" during his time growing up in suburban Winnipeg. In 2003, Kinew was convicted of impaired driving. Kinew has since quit drinking and is seeking a pardon from the Canadian government as of December 2014. In the spring of 2003 he was also charged with two counts of domestic assault related to allegations that he threw his then-girlfriend across a room during an argument. The charges were subsequently stayed. Kinew denies the allegations.

Kinew is married to Lisa, a family physician who practises medicine at an inner-city clinic, and has two sons from a previous relationship.