He Calls It the “Epstein Class” War. His Own Record Got a Government Pardon.

Wab Kinew wants Canadians angry about powerful men escaping accountability.

On March 27, Manitoba’s Premier wrote to Prime Minister Mark Carney demanding action to end the war in Iran. He called it a “dumb war.” He said no Canadian should have to die in it. Then he went further — telling reporters that even the Trump administration cannot explain why they are at war, and that the Epstein files seem to be as good a reason as anyone can figure out.¹

He coined a phrase: “Let the Epstein class fight the Epstein war.”

It is a striking line from a premier whose own history of violence, stayed charges, and government pardons reads like a case study in powerful men avoiding consequences.

In June 2003, the RCMP charged Kinew with two counts of domestic assault. His then-girlfriend, Tara Hart, told The Canadian Press that Kinew threw her across their living room during an argument, leaving her with rug burns so severe she could barely walk.³ Hart said she left immediately. Her grandmother came to pick her up. She took one laundry basket of clothes.

The charges were stayed in 2004. Hart was never told why. Kinew has denied the assault ever happened. Hart has maintained her account for over two decades.

One year later — while still bound by a court recognizance on an impaired driving charge — Kinew was arrested again. According to the Crown prosecutor’s statement at his sentencing hearing, Kinew caught a cab at 5 a.m., intoxicated, and began directing racial slurs at the driver throughout the ride. At a red light, Kinew exited the vehicle, approached the driver’s open window, and punched him in the face. When the driver got out, Kinew pushed him to the ground and kicked him.⁵

A K / Unsplash — Kinew became Premier in 2023 after the Parole Board of Canada erased his assault and impaired driving convictions from the police database in 2016.

Kinew pleaded guilty to assault, refusing a breathalyzer, and two breaches of court orders. He was fined $1,400.

In his 2015 memoir, Kinew told a different story. The book contains no mention of racial slurs. It describes the cab driver as the aggressor. Court records contain no mention of Kinew’s friends being present, despite the memoir’s claim that he and friends hopped out without paying.⁶

In 2016, the Parole Board of Canada granted Kinew a full record suspension — erasing his convictions for assaulting the cab driver, refusing a breathalyzer, and breaching court orders from the Canadian Police Information Centre database. In 2023, he became Premier of Manitoba.

The record is documented. A man charged with domestic violence — charges stayed, not dropped, not tried — now lectures the country about powerful men who escape consequences. A man who punched a cab driver in the face after calling him racial slurs, then rewrote the story in a bestselling memoir, now invokes the language of the Epstein files to score political points against a foreign president.

Kinew’s own defence lawyer told the court in 2004 that his client’s memory of the cab assault was “quite hazy” because he was “extremely intoxicated.”⁸ His ex-girlfriend told APTN in 2017 that Kinew “knows what he did” and that hearing him deny it in public was painful.⁹

When asked about the discrepancies between his memoir and the court record, Kinew did not provide a direct answer.

Wab Kinew wants Canadians outraged that powerful men use money and influence to escape justice. He had his own assault convictions erased by a government pardon, his domestic violence charges quietly stayed by a Crown prosecutor, and his court record rewritten in a memoir that omitted the racial slurs. The “Epstein class” is not a foreign concept. It is a mirror.