THE ADVOCATE 731
VOL. 80 PART 5 SEPTEMBER 2022
NOS DISPARUS
By R.C. Tino Bella
Keith Kinash
Keith Kinash was born in 1947 in the small town of
Edam, Saskatchewan (he claimed he could throw his
baseball from one end of town to the other), the only
son of Helen and William Kinash. As a young child,
he spent his years playing quietly by his father’s side
while he was teaching at the local school. This was
where Keith began his lifelong pursuit of knowledge.
Keith’s father died while he was young, but his mother lived a long and
full life.
Those who grew up with Keith say he was an exceptional student beginning
in elementary school. One of his elementary school classmates commented
that “even in the early elementary grades Keith had a curiosity,
work ethic and discipline which fuelled his desire to learn. I was not at all
surprised that he excelled in high school, university and law school.”
Keith graduated from Queen’s law school in the class of 1975. After articles
with Buell Ellis in 1975, Keith was called to the bar in 1976. With a short
exception (30 days during which he practised personal injury law with
Bernie Simpson), throughout his career as a lawyer, Keith was employed by
the British Columbia Ministry of Attorney General as a Crown prosecutor in
the Fraser Region (Surrey to Chilliwack), primarily at the offices associated
with the courts in Surrey and New Westminster, where he progressed from
junior to senior counsel, and where he mentored and trained a generation
of junior lawyers. Those included many who have since progressed to
become lead counsel acting both for the Crown and the defence in the area
of criminal law.
At law school, Keith made several lifelong friends, including Robert (Bob)
Bonner, Q.C., with whom he worked in the Fraser Region for close to three