Put a trace on that call

Mystery man identified, but MPs unsure what to do about Kinsella allegations:

A mystery caller who supposedly tried to persuade former Liberal cabinet aide Warren Kinsella to back off on criticism of Prime Minister Paul Martin has been identified. Parliament Hill sources named the man Tuesday as Frank Schiller, who once worked with Kinsella in the office of former public works minister David Dingwall. Schiller also put in a stint on the staff of former prime minister Jean Chretien and is currently a principal of the Ottawa consulting firm IGRG (Industry Government Relations Group).

UPDATE: The Globe has more:

Key MPs on a parliamentary committee are considering calling a onetime aide to former public works minister David Dingwall, Frank Schiller, to testify about allegations that he passed on veiled warnings in a bid to prevent potentially damaging testimony against Prime Minister Paul Martin from being aired in public hearings... Mr. Kinsella told the committee he took the message as an intermediary transmitting a veiled threat that Mr. Dingwall could lose his job as president of the Royal Canadian Mint. Yesterday, behind closed doors, MPs on a public accounts subcommittee heard that according to Mr. Kinsella, it was his old friend and former colleague Mr. Schiller who made the phone call, sources said. Mr. Kinsella told the committee's chairman, Conservative MP John Williams, that Mr. Schiller warned him Mr. Dingwall was concerned, because senior government officials would force him to issue a statement disavowing Mr. Kinsella's testimony.

BACKGROUND: Here's his bio:

Since 1990, Frank has worked on staff for the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien, the Right Hon. Herb Gray, the Right Hon. Romeo LeBlanc, the Hon. Jim Peterson, and the Hon. David Dingwall. Frank also served as a key member of election readiness units, instrumental in the election of Liberal majority governments in 1993 and 1997... As Legislative Assistant, from 1993 to 1995, to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and Canada Post, Frank was responsible for managing the passage of several pieces of government legislation related to government operations and the Canadian constitution. He also successfully managed regional development and government procurement files... Frank has a solid reputation in the government relations/public affairs community and within government circles. He is known for his integrity, analytical abilities, understanding of the machinery of government, prudent, discreet and effective organizational skills, and dedication to client requirements.

This is interesting: He's also the owner/publisher of PoliticsWatch.com, much quoted on these pages. MORE: From The Ottawa Citizen, September 18, 1996 (An office where spin is in, by Jane Taber):

If you can spin you're in at Sheila Copps's $20-million Canadian Information Office. And your political leanings don't seem to matter. What matters is that you know how to get the message out, and, perhaps, that you know the right people... Two former senior Liberal assistants, Marc Laframboise and Frank Schiller, are now part of the information office team. There are also persistent but unconfirmed rumors that their friend Warren Kinsella is being considered for a contract to counter mis-information surrounding unity issues. He would do this from Vancouver, where he now lives... The three worked in the Liberal ``war room'' during the 1993 federal election campaign, which was headed by Health Minister David Dingwall and Romeo LeBlanc (now Governor General but a senator at that time)... The trio, having been successful in the war room, moved on to work for Chretien's most partisan and political minister, Dingwall, who was then Government Services minister... Laframboise and Schiller, who was Dingwall's legislative assistant, are working on developing the capacity for the agency to respond to Canadians and their questions about the country and unity. This job is not supposed to be political or partisan. At least they know what they're doing.

Last, from the Globe and Mail, January 26, 2000 (Lobbyist's marketing effort backfires, by Hugh Winsor):

The now infamous lobbyist's letter from a onetime Paul Martin acolyte may not have had much impact on the career plans of either the Finance Minister or Prime Minister Jean Chretien. But it has certainly caused a stir within the highly competitive lobbying community... We start with Jamie Deacey, the president of Association House, an umbrella organization for several government-relations consultants-cum-lobbyists. Mr. Deacey is a long-time Liberal politico who has turned the contacts, knowledge of polling, advertising, policy and political organization garnered from years as an assistant to Liberal cabinet ministers, as a private sector association representative and as a campaign activist, into a tidy business... Mr. Deacey chose to start off the new year with an ill-tempered blast [in a letter to clients] at Mr. Chretien for stubbornly clinging to power, repeating many of the old saws about lack of vision, etc. The not-so-subtle message is that when and if Mr. Martin makes it to the top, your guy in Ottawa was in on the ground floor with the Finance Minister. With 75 to 100 copies floating around, it was not surprising that somebody would see the opportunity for political troublemaking in Mr. Deacey's indiscretions and feed it to the media. Francis (Frank) Schiller is a young (30) former political assistant to David Dingwall when he was a Liberal minister, who is trying to build a career as a lobbyist with a competing firm, the Industry Government Relations Group. Before the ink was dry on the news story about Mr. Deacey's letter, he banged off a fax to Association House clients listed in the Lobbyist Registry offering his services. The inference in Mr. Schiller's fax was that Association House's usefulness has been diminished because of Mr. Deacey's "groundless attack" on Mr. Chretien. On the other hand, he was offering "accurate and bias-free" advice and government-relations services. With him, he promised, the client's interests come first, and "we take no risk with clients' reputations." Those were fighting words for the boys at Association House. Art Silverman, who used to work with Mr. Schiller and Mr. Dingwall as a senior bureaucrat at Public Works and who claims a mentor-type relationship with Mr. Schiller, expressed his "disappointment" with such vigour that the young lobbyist was left shaking. Other calls from Association House went to Mr. Schiller's senior colleagues at IGRG complaining of his predatory tactics. Mr. Schiller felt sufficiently threatened that he consulted his lawyer, Warren Kinsella, who in another life was his boss in Mr. Dingwall's office. Mr. Schiller says his faxes to Association House clients were a valid marketing technique in a business where lobbyists are always scrapping for clients. "They have no right to attempt to libel chill a little guy like me for defending the Prime Minister."...

So he's a hard-core Chretienite, on a par with Kinsella himself, a veteran both of Dingwall's staff and the Canadian Information Office. So.. who called him?