Communist Party of Canada
Encyclopedia
The Communist Party of Canada (CPC) is a communist
political party
in Canada
. Although is it currently a minor or small political party without representation in the Federal Parliament
or in provincial legislatures, historically the Party has elected representatives in Federal Parliament
, Ontario Legislature
and Manitoba Legislature
as well as in various municipal governments. The party has also contributed significantly to trade union
organizing and history in Canada, peace and anti-war
activism, as well as many other social movements.
The Communist Party of Canada is the second oldest registered party after the Liberal Party of Canada
, and the only registered political party to historically have been once declared illegal.
The Communist Party also presents a more detailed programmatic document, "Canada's Future is Socialism," (2001) which outlines the Parties perspective on Canada today and the road to a socialist and ultimately communist society.
, Ontario
, on May 28 and 29, 1921. Many of its founding members were labour organizers and anti-war activists and had belonged to groups such as the Socialist Party of Canada
, One Big Union
, the Socialist Labor Party, the Industrial Workers of the World
, and other socialist, Marxist or Labour parties or clubs and organizations. Its first members were also inspired by the Russian Revolution
, and radicalised by the negative aftermath of World War I
as well as the fight to improve living standards and labour rights, including the experience of the Winnipeg General Strike. The party affiliation as the Canadian section of the Comintern
was acceptedin December of 1921, and was thus it adopted a similar organizational structure and policy to Communist parties
around the world.
The party alternated between legality and illegality during the 1920s and 1930s. As the War Measures Act
was in effect at its time of creation, the Party worked as the "Workers' Party of Canada" in February, 1922 as its public face, and in March began publication of a newspaper, The Worker. When the War Measures Act was finally allowed to lapse by Canadian Parliament in 1924, and the underground organization was dissolved and the party's name changed to the Communist Party of Canada.
The Party's first campaigns included establishing a youth organization, the Young Communist League of Canada
as well as solidarity efforts with the Soviet Union
. By 1923 the Party had raised over $64,000 for the Russian Red Cross, a very large sum of money in that time. It also initiated a Canadian component of the Trade Union Education League (TUEL) which quickly became an organic part of the labour movement with active groups in 16 of 60 labout councils as well as mining and logging camps. By 1925 Party membership stood at around 4,500 people -- composed mainly of miners and lumber workers, but also railroad, farm, and garment workers. Most of these people came from immigrant communities like Finns and Ukrainians.
The Party, working with the TUEL played a vital role in many bitter strikes and difficult organizing drives, and in support of militant industrial unionism
. In 1922–29, the provincial wings of the WPC/CPC also affiliated with the Canadian Labour Party
, another expression of the CPC's "united front" strategy. The CLP was a federated labour party. The CPC came to lead the CLP organization in several regions of the country including Quebec and did not run candidates during elections. In 1925 William Kolisnyk was the first communist elected to public office in North America, under the banner of the CLP. The CLP itself, however, never became an effective national organization. The Communists withdrew from the CLP in 1928-29, following a shift in Comintern
policy, as the organization itself folded with its right-wing separating to form a new organization.
and the theory of what the Party called "North American Exceptionism." This included Maurice Spector
, the editor of the party's paper The Worker and party chairman, and Jack MacDonald (who had supported Spector's expulsion) who resigned as the party's general secretary for factionalism, and was ultimately expelled with the support of the majority of party members.
MacDonald also was sympathetic to Trotskyist ideas and joined Spector in founding the International Left Opposition (Trotskyist) Canada, which was part of Trotsky's so-called Fourth International Left Opposition
. Also expelled were supporters of Nikolai Bukharin
and Jay Lovestone
's Right Opposition
, such as William Moriarty
. The communists disagreed over strategy and tactics, as well the socialist identity of the Soviet Union and Canada's status as an imperialist power. While some communists like J. B. Salsberg
were initially sympathetic to these positions, after debates that dominated party conventions for several years by the early 1930s the vast majority of members had clearly decided to continue with the party.
Tim Buck
was elected as party general secretary
in 1929. He would remain in the position until 1962, steering the party through perhaps its most dynamic period of history, including continued staunch support of the Soviet Union
.
for young unemployed men.
The CPC was the only party to make a systemic critique of the depression as a crisis of capitalism. It was also the first political party in Canada to call for the introduction of unemployment insurance; a national health insurance scheme; making education universally accessible; social and employment assistance to youth; labour legislation including health and safety regulations, regulation of the working day and holidays, as well as a minimum wage for women and youth; and state-run crop insurance and price control for farmers. As an indication of the Party's influence on Canadian history, many of these demands campaigned for in the 1930s would finally be legislated federally and provincially in the coming decades.
However in 1931, eight of the CPC's leaders were arrested and imprisoned under Section 98
of Canada's Criminal Code of Canada
. The party continued to exist, but was under the constant threat of legal harassment, and was for all intents and purposes an underground organization until 1934 when a massive campaign finally pushed back many of the police's practice of repression, and the communists were released. On the release of Tim Buck, the party held a mass rally attended by an overflow crowd of over 17,000 supporters and sympathizers in Maple Leaf Gardens
.
Although the party was banned, it organized large mass organizations such as the Workers' Unity League
, and the Canadian Labour Defence League
that played an important role in historic strikes like that of the miners in Estevan. From 1933 to 1936, the WUL lead 90 per cent of the strikes in Canada. Already, conditions had taught the social democratics and reformists, as well as the communists, important lessons of cooperation. In 1934, in accordance with the re-examined posistion of the Comintern, the CPC adopted strategy and tactics based on a united front against fascism.
In the prairies, the Communists organized the Farmers Unity League which mobilized against evictions and rallied hundreds of farmers into protest Hunger Marches, despite police brutality. Party members were also active in the Congress of Industrial Organizations
attempt to unionize the auto and other industrial sectors including Steelworkers, the Canadian Seaman's Union, the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union, the International Woodworkers of America
, and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
.
Among the poor and unemployed, Communists organized groups like the left-wing Workers Sports Association, one of the few ways that working-class youth had access to recreational programmes. The Relief Camp Workers' Union
, and the National Unemployed Workers Association played a significant role in organizing the unskilled and the unemployed in protest marches and demonstrations and campaigns such as the "On-to-Ottawa Trek
" and the 1938 Vancouver Post-Office sit-down strike.
Internationally, the party initiated the mobilization of the 1,500+ person Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
to fight in the Spanish Civil War
as part of the International Brigade. Among the leading Canadian Communists involved in that effort was Dr. Norman Bethune
, who is known for his invention of a mobile blood-transfusion unit, early advocacy of Medicare in Canada, and work with the Communist Party of China
during the Chinese war of independence.
Solidarity efforts around the Spanish Civil War, as well as many labour and social struggles during the Depression, saw much cooperation between members of the CPC and the CCF
. After 1935 the CPC advocated for electoral alliances and unity with the CCF on key issues. The proposal was debated in the CCF, with the 1936 BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan conventions generally supporting cooperation while the Ontario convention opposed. While the motion was defeated at that Parties third federal convention, the Communists continued to call for a united front.
The call was particularly urgent in Québec, where in 1937 the far-right Duplessis government passed "an act to protect Québec against communist propoganda" giving the police the power to padlock any premises used by "communists" (which was undefined in the legislation). Fascist groups attacked Jews, people from racialized communities, and communists.
with Nazi Germany, to bide time before an inevitable war between the two.
The Communist Parties opposition to Canada's entry into World War II
led to it being banned under the Defence of Canada Regulations
of the War Measures Act
in 1940. In many cases Communists were interned long before fascists. As growing numbers of Communist Party leaders were interned, some members went underground or exile in the United States. Conditions in the camps were harsh. A civil rights campaign was launched by the wives of many of the interned men for family visits and their release.
With 1941 invasion of the USSR
and the collapse of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
the party argued that the nature of the war had changed to a genuine anti-fascist struggle. The CPC reversed its opposition to the war and argued the the danger to the working class on the international level superseded its interests nationally.
During the Conscription Crisis of 1944
, the banned CPC set up "Tim Buck Plebiscite Committees" across the country to campaign for a "yes" vote in the national referendum
on conscription
. Following the vote, the committees were renamed the Dominion Communist-Labor Total War Committee
and urged full support for the war effort, a no-strike pledge for the duration of the war and increased industrial production. The National Council for Democratic Rights was also established with A.E. Smith as chair in order to rally for the legalization of the Communist Party and the release of Communists and anti-fascists from internment.
The party's first elected Member of Parliament
(MP) was Dorise Nielson. Nielson was elected in North Battleford, Saskatchewan in 1940 under the popular front
Progressive Unity
label, with the support of many individual CCFers. Nielsen kept her membership in the party a secret until 1943.
The Communist Party remained banned, but with the entry of the Soviet Union into the war and the eventual release of the Canadian party's interned leaders, Canadian Communists founded the Labour-Progressive Party
in 1943 as a legal front and thereafter ran candidates under that name until 1959. At its height in the mid-1940s, the party had fourteen sitting elected officials at the federal, provincial and municipal level. Several prominent elected party members were:
In 1946, Igor Gouzenko
, a cipher clerk at the Soviet Embassy, defected to Canada alleging several Canadian communists were operating a spy ring which provided the Soviet Union with top secret
information. The Kellock-Taschereau Commission was called by Prime Minister
Mackenzie King to investigate the matter. This let to the convictions of Fred Rose
and other communists.
Nikita Khrushchev
's 1956 Secret Speech exposing the crimes of Joseph Stalin
and the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary
shook the faith of many Communists around the world. As well, the party was riven by a crisis following the return of prominent party member J.B. Salsberg from a trip to the Soviet Union where he found rampant party-sponsored antisemitism. Salsberg reported his findings but they were rejected by the party, which initially suspended him from its leading bodies. Ultimately, the crisis resulted in the departure of the United Jewish Peoples' Order
, Salsberg, Robert Laxer
and most of the party's Jewish members in 1956.
Many, perhaps most, members of the Canadian party left, including a number of prominent party members.
In the mid 1960s the United States Department of State
estimated the party membership to be approximately 3500. The Soviet Union's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia
caused more people to leave the Canadian Communist Party.
, and subsequently split. Under then general secretary George Hewison (1988–91), the leadership of the CPC and a segment of its general membership began to abandon Marxism-Leninism as the basis of the Party's revolutionary perspective, and ultimately moved to liquidate the Party itself, seeking to replace it with a left, social democratic entity.
The protracted ideological and political crisis created much confusion and disorientation within the ranks of the Party, and paralysed both its independent and united front work for over two years. Ultimately, the Hewison-led majority in the Central Committee (CC) of the party voted to abandon Marxism-Leninism. An orthodox minority in the CC, led by Miguel Figueroa
, Elizabeth Rowley
and former leader William Kashtan
, resisted this effort. At the 28th Convention in the fall of 1990, the Hewison group managed to maintain its control of the Central Committee of the CPC, but by the spring of 1991, the membership began to turn more and more against the reformist policies and orientation of the Hewison leadership.
Key provincial conventions were held in 1991 in the two main provincial bases of the CPC - British Columbia and Ontario. At the B.C. convention, delegates threw out Fred Wilson, one of the main leaders of the Hewison group. A few months later in June 1991, Ontario delegates rejected a concerted campaign by Hewison and his supporters, and overwhelmingly reelected provincial leader Elizabeth Rowley and other supporters of the Marxist-Leninist current to the Ontario Committee and Executive.
The Hewison group moved on August 27, 1991 to expel eleven of the key leaders of the opposition, including Rowley, Emil Bjarnason, and former central organizer John Bizzell. The Hewison-controlled Central Executive also dismissed the Ontario provincial committee.
The vast majority of local clubs and committees of the CPC opposed the expulsions, and called instead for an extraordinary convention of the party to resolve the deepening crisis in a democratic manner. There were loud protests at the CC's October 1991 meeting, but an extraordinary convention was not convened. With few remaining options, Rowley and the other expelled members threatened to take the Hewison group to court. After several months of negotiations between the Hewison group and the opposition "All-Canada Negotiating Committee", an out-of-court settlement resulted in the Hewison leadership agreeing to leave the CPC and relinquish any claim to the party's name, while taking most of the party's assets to the Cecil-Ross Society, a publishing and educational foundation previously associated with the party.
Following the departure of the Hewison-led group, a convention was held in December 1992 at which delegates agreed to continue the Communist Party (thus the meeting was titled the 30th CPC Convention). Delegates rejected the reformist policies instituted by the Hewison group and instead reaffirmed the CPC as a Marxist-Leninist organization. Since most of the old party's assets were now the property of the Hewison-led Cecil Ross Society, the CPC convention decided to launch a new newspaper, the People's Voice, to replace the old Canadian Tribune. The convention elected a new central committee with Figueroa as Party Leader. The convention also amended the party constitution to grant more membership control and lessen the arbitrary powers of the CC, while maintaining democratic centralism as its organizational principle.
Meanwhile, the former Communists retained the Cecil-Ross Society
as a political foundation to continue their political efforts. They also sold off the party's headquarters at 24 Cecil Street, having earlier liquidated various party-related business such as Eveready Printers (the party printshop) and Progress Publishers. The name of the Cecil-Ross Society comes from the intersection of Cecil Street and Ross Street in Toronto
where the headquarters of the party was located. The Cecil-Ross Society took with it the rights to the Canadian Tribune, which had been the party's weekly newspaper for decades, as well as roughly half of the party's assets. The Cecil-Ross Society ended publication of the Canadian Tribune and attempted to launch a new broad-left magazine, New Times which failed after a few issues and then Ginger http://www.pance.ca/ginger/ which only published twice.
A prolonged legal battle, Figueroa v. Canada ensued, which won the support of a number of outspoken democratic members of parliament, resulting in a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 2003 that overturned a provision in the Elections Act requiring fifty candidates for official party status and historically redefined a political party. The case was one of the most significant recent democratic reforms in Canadian election law. Earlier in the legal battle, the party had its deregistration overturned and its seized assets restored. This victory was celebrated by many of the other small parties regardless of political differences on the principle that it was a victory for the people's right to democratic choice.
During this time the CPC began to publish a fortnightly newspaper called People's Voice. Its Quebec section, le Parti communiste du Québec, publishes Clarté. The CPC also periodically publishes a theoretical/discussion journal Spark!. These publications and other information about the party is available on its site http://www.communist-party.ca.
The CPC is active in trade union
s, in the civic reform movement, and in a number of social justice, anti-war and international solidarity groups and coalitions. The Party has also helped refound the Young Communist League of Canada
. Local YCL groups have sprung up in several centres across the country, which has held two Central Conventions since 2007.
During the crisis in CPC during the 1990s, the PCQ became disorganized and its remaining members drifted apart from the CPC, adopting positions sympathetic to nationalism. It was not until 1997 that a range of communists and communist groups came together to re-organize the PCQ. A few years later the party brought together different tendencies in the left to form the Union of Progressive Forces or UFP which became Quebec solidaire.
The UFP agreed to place the question of Quebec independence as secondary to social or class issues. This was hotly debated as the party transformed into Quebec solidaire. The debate moved over into the PCQ as well. The Communist Party of Canada supports the right of "national self-determination, up to and including separation". It does not however support the fragmentation of Canada, however, and has called for "a new, democratic constitutional arrangement based on the equal and voluntary union of Aboriginal peoples, Québec, and English-speaking Canada".
These positions were questioned by the Quebec leader of the party, Andre Parizeau, who formulated a series of amendments in support of immediate independence in 2004. Rejected by both the Central Executive Committee (by a vote of 7-1) and the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Quebec Party (by a vote of 4-2), by January 2005, Parizeau wrote a letter to PCQ members declaring that the party was in crisis and, describing the four NEC members who opposed his amendments as a pro-federalist "Gang of Four", he summarily dismissed them.
At the PCQ convention of April 2005 Parizeau held a majority, but who was granted voting rights was highly disputed. Parizeau was subsequently expelled for "factional activity and the pursuit of a right opportunist line" and the Central Committee of the Party affirmed the authority of the previous Quebec National Executive Committee in June 18–19, 2005. Around the same time, Parizeau's group published a letter of withdrawal from the CPC accusing the Party of holding "des idées chauvines vis-à-vis du Québec" (chauvinistic ideas relative to Quebec).
Thus, by 2005, the Parti communiste du Québec had split into two rival groups with the same name over the issue of Quebec sovereignty with the pro-Quebec nationalist group lead by André Parizeau
continuing the electoral registration of the Parti communiste du Québec .
Parizeau's opponents in the PCQ on the other hand have re-started a new periodical, Clarté, reorganized the party with clubs across Montreal, opened an office and small reading room, launched an active website, and are also are re-affiliating with Quebec Solidaire as an organized group. The work closely with the youth and student organization, the League de la jeunesse communitse du Quebec. The CPC's account of this situation is available online, as is the letter from Parizeau's PCQ group.
(known as the Ukrainian Labor Farmer Temple Association until 1946) and the United Jewish Peoples' Order
(known as the Labour League until 1945) respectively. Also active in the 1930s and 1940s was the Hungarian Workers Clubs, the Polish People's Association (formerly the Polish Workers' and Farmers' Association), the Serbian People's Movement and Croatian Cultural Association (formerly the Jugoslav Workers' Clubs) and the Carpatho-Russian Society. The Russian Farmer-Worker Clubs were formed in the early 1930s but closed by the government under the Defence of Canada Regulations
at the outbreak of World War II
. When the Soviet Union became Canada's ally in 1942, they re-appeared as the Federation of Russian Canadians
. The Canadian Slav Committee was formed in 1948 in an attempt to put party-aligned cultural associations for Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Yugoslavs and Carpatho-Russians under one umbrella. The UJPO broke with the party in 1956 over the revelations of antisemitism in the Soviet Union. An influx of left-wing Greek and Portuguese immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s resulted in the creation of the Greek Democratic Association and the Portuguese Democratic Association which remain close to the Communist Party.
(Party leader), Elizabeth Rowley
(leader of the Communist Party of Ontario
), Robert Loxley (Editor of Clarte, newspaper of the Parti communiste du Québec), Sam Hammond, Chair of the Trade Union Commission of the Party and leader of British Columbia Communist Party
, and Kimball Cariou (editor of People's Voice).
There is also a larger body, the Central Committee
, which is elected at convention and meets in intervening years. The Central Committee nominates the members of the Central Executive Committee and the composition of the CEC is ratified by convention.
Notes:
1: A ninth candidate, Dorise Nielson was a member of the Communist Party but ran and was elected as a Progressive Unity candidate.
2: The Communist Party was banned in 1941. From 1943 until 1959 they ran candidates under the name Labour Progressive Party.
3: In 1972 the party ran its candidates as independents. It is unknown how many party members ran in that election.
4: The party failed to register at least 50 candidates in time for the 1993 election. As a result the party was deregistered and its candidates ran as independents. Party status was not regained until prior to the 2000 general election. It is unknown how many party members ran in the 1993 and 1997 elections as independents.
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Although is it currently a minor or small political party without representation in the Federal Parliament
Parliament of Canada
The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch—represented by her governor general—the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and...
or in provincial legislatures, historically the Party has elected representatives in Federal Parliament
Parliament of Canada
The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch—represented by her governor general—the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and...
, Ontario Legislature
Legislative Assembly of Ontario
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...
and Manitoba Legislature
Legislative Assembly of Manitoba
The Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and the lieutenant governor form the Legislature of Manitoba, the legislature of the Canadian province of Manitoba. Fifty-seven members are elected to this assembly in provincial general elections, all in single-member constituencies with first-past-the-post...
as well as in various municipal governments. The party has also contributed significantly to trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
organizing and history in Canada, peace and anti-war
Peace movement
A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...
activism, as well as many other social movements.
The Communist Party of Canada is the second oldest registered party after the Liberal Party of Canada
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
, and the only registered political party to historically have been once declared illegal.
2011 election platform
As outlined in its campaign for the 2011 federal election, the party advocates for "fundamental change to end corporate control, and open the door to socialism and working class power" including the following goals and policies:- Labour and trade union rights including full employmentFull employmentIn macroeconomics, full employment is a condition of the national economy, where all or nearly all persons willing and able to work at the prevailing wages and working conditions are able to do so....
, higher minimum wageMinimum wageA minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...
, 36 hour work week with no loss in pay and services. - The creation of a "Bill of Rights for Labour" protecting the right to organize, strike and collective bargain.
- Progressive taxation including eliminating taxes on incomes below $36,000 and restoring the capital gains tax
- Electoral reformElectoral reform in CanadaThere are numerous efforts underway for electoral reform in Canada at federal, provincial/territorial, and municipal levels. At present the most active are provincial...
, abolishing the Canadian SenateCanadian SenateThe Senate of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the House of Commons, and the monarch . The Senate consists of 105 members appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister...
, enacting MMPMixed member proportional representationMixed-member proportional representation, also termed mixed-member proportional voting and commonly abbreviated to MMP, is a voting system originally used to elect representatives to the German Bundestag, and nowadays adopted by numerous legislatures around the world...
, lowering voting ageVoting ageA voting age is a minimum age established by law that a person must attain to be eligible to vote in a public election.The vast majority of countries in the world have established a voting age. Most governments consider that those of any age lower than the chosen threshold lack the necessary...
to 16, implementing the right of recall for MPs. - Expand public ownership and reverse privatizationPrivatizationPrivatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
such as ending P3 programs. - Nationalize energy and natural resources and shift emphasis from fossil and nuclearNuclear powerNuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
sources to renewable energyRenewable energyRenewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
. - An independent Canadian foreign policy based on peace and disarmament, ending involvement in AfghanistanWar in Afghanistan (2001–present)The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
and Libya2011 military intervention in LibyaOn 19 March 2011, a multi-state coalition began a military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which was taken in response to events during the 2011 Libyan civil war...
and withdrawing from NATO and NORAD. - Preserve and expand public health care
- Affordable, accessible, quality, public, child care
- Emergency Environmental reforms and immediate action to reverse climate changeClimate changeClimate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
- Withdraw from the North American Free Trade AgreementNorth American Free Trade AgreementThe North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...
. - Expanding public housing and banning evictionEvictionHow you doing???? Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, eviction may also be known as unlawful detainer, summary possession, summary dispossess, forcible detainer, ejectment, and repossession, among other terms...
s and foreclosures due to unemployment. - Repeal state security legislation like the no-fly list; put the Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRoyal Canadian Mounted PoliceThe Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
and Canadian Security Intelligence ServiceCanadian Security Intelligence ServiceThe Canadian Security Intelligence Service is Canada's national intelligence service. It is responsible for collecting, analyzing, reporting and disseminating intelligence on threats to Canada's national security, and conducting operations, covert and overt, within Canada and abroad.Its...
under democratic, civilian and community control, abolish racial profiling - A new constitution for Canada recognizing sovereignty and self-determination for Aboriginal People's and Quebec, up to and including the right to separation
- Legislate pay equity and support equity in hiring practices
- Reduce then eliminate tuition fees for post-secondary education;
- Democratic immigrationImmigrationImmigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
reform, no one is illegal. - Support food sovereignty, familyFamily farmA family farm is a farm owned and operated by a family, and often passed down from generation to generation. It is the basic unit of the mostly agricultural economy of much of human history and continues to be so in developing nations...
and organic farmingOrganic farmingOrganic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...
.
The Communist Party also presents a more detailed programmatic document, "Canada's Future is Socialism," (2001) which outlines the Parties perspective on Canada today and the road to a socialist and ultimately communist society.
Origins
The Communist Party was organized in conditions of illegality in a rural barn near the town of GuelphGuelph
Guelph is a city in Ontario, Canada.Guelph may also refer to:* Guelph , consisting of the City of Guelph, Ontario* Guelph , as the above* University of Guelph, in the same city...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, on May 28 and 29, 1921. Many of its founding members were labour organizers and anti-war activists and had belonged to groups such as the Socialist Party of Canada
Socialist Party of Canada
There have been two different but related political parties in Canada that called themselves the Socialist Party of Canada . The current Socialist Party is an electorally inactive and unregistered federal political party in Canada...
, One Big Union
One Big Union (Canada)
The One Big Union was a Canadian syndicalist trade union active primarily in the Western part of the country. It was formally founded in Calgary on June 4, 1919 but lost most members by 1922. It finally merged into the Canadian Labour Congress in 1956.-Background:Towards the end of World War I, a...
, the Socialist Labor Party, the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
, and other socialist, Marxist or Labour parties or clubs and organizations. Its first members were also inspired by the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution can refer to:* Russian Revolution , a series of strikes and uprisings against Nicholas II, resulting in the creation of State Duma.* Russian Revolution...
, and radicalised by the negative aftermath of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
as well as the fight to improve living standards and labour rights, including the experience of the Winnipeg General Strike. The party affiliation as the Canadian section of the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
was acceptedin December of 1921, and was thus it adopted a similar organizational structure and policy to Communist parties
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
around the world.
The party alternated between legality and illegality during the 1920s and 1930s. As the War Measures Act
War Measures Act
The War Measures Act was a Canadian statute that allowed the government to assume sweeping emergency powers in the event of "war, invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended"...
was in effect at its time of creation, the Party worked as the "Workers' Party of Canada" in February, 1922 as its public face, and in March began publication of a newspaper, The Worker. When the War Measures Act was finally allowed to lapse by Canadian Parliament in 1924, and the underground organization was dissolved and the party's name changed to the Communist Party of Canada.
The Party's first campaigns included establishing a youth organization, the Young Communist League of Canada
Young Communist League of Canada
The Young Communist League of Canada is a Marxist-Leninist youth organization which fights to build a powerful youth and student movement across Canada and for socialism.According to their website,- History :...
as well as solidarity efforts with the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. By 1923 the Party had raised over $64,000 for the Russian Red Cross, a very large sum of money in that time. It also initiated a Canadian component of the Trade Union Education League (TUEL) which quickly became an organic part of the labour movement with active groups in 16 of 60 labout councils as well as mining and logging camps. By 1925 Party membership stood at around 4,500 people -- composed mainly of miners and lumber workers, but also railroad, farm, and garment workers. Most of these people came from immigrant communities like Finns and Ukrainians.
The Party, working with the TUEL played a vital role in many bitter strikes and difficult organizing drives, and in support of militant industrial unionism
Industrial unionism
Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations...
. In 1922–29, the provincial wings of the WPC/CPC also affiliated with the Canadian Labour Party
Canadian Labour Party
The Canadian Labour Party was an early, unsuccessful attempt at creating a national labour party in Canada. Although it ran candidates in the federal elections of 1917, 1921, 1925 and 1926, it never succeeded in its goal of providing a national forum for the Canadian labour movement...
, another expression of the CPC's "united front" strategy. The CLP was a federated labour party. The CPC came to lead the CLP organization in several regions of the country including Quebec and did not run candidates during elections. In 1925 William Kolisnyk was the first communist elected to public office in North America, under the banner of the CLP. The CLP itself, however, never became an effective national organization. The Communists withdrew from the CLP in 1928-29, following a shift in Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
policy, as the organization itself folded with its right-wing separating to form a new organization.
Debates, arguments and expulsions
From 1927 to 1929, the Party went through a series of policy debates and internal ideological struggles which saw the expulsion of both advocates of the ideas of Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
and the theory of what the Party called "North American Exceptionism." This included Maurice Spector
Maurice Spector
Maurice Spector was the Chairman of the Communist Party of Canada for much of the 1920s and an early follower of Leon Trotsky after his split from the Communist International....
, the editor of the party's paper The Worker and party chairman, and Jack MacDonald (who had supported Spector's expulsion) who resigned as the party's general secretary for factionalism, and was ultimately expelled with the support of the majority of party members.
Left Opposition
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Bolshevik Party from 1923 to 1927, headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with his death in January...
. Also expelled were supporters of Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
and Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
's Right Opposition
Right Opposition
The Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s...
, such as William Moriarty
William Moriarty
William Moriarty was a Canadian Communist and Right Oppositionist.Moriarty was born in England and became a trade unionist working as a tin miner in Cornwall, a railway worker and then a miner in Wales. He moved to Canada in 1912 and worked first as a harvest worker...
. The communists disagreed over strategy and tactics, as well the socialist identity of the Soviet Union and Canada's status as an imperialist power. While some communists like J. B. Salsberg
J. B. Salsberg
Joseph Baruch Salsberg was a Canadian politician, long time Communist and activist in the Jewish community.-Early life:...
were initially sympathetic to these positions, after debates that dominated party conventions for several years by the early 1930s the vast majority of members had clearly decided to continue with the party.
Tim Buck
Tim Buck
Timothy "Tim" Buck was a long-time leader of the Communist Party of Canada...
was elected as party general secretary
General secretary
-International intergovernmental organizations:-International nongovernmental organizations:-Sports governing bodies:...
in 1929. He would remain in the position until 1962, steering the party through perhaps its most dynamic period of history, including continued staunch support of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Great Depression
The stock market crash in late 1929 singled the beginning of a long and protracted economic crisis in Canada and internationally. The crisis quickly led to widespread unemployment, poverty, destitution and suffering among working families and farmers. The general election of 1930, brought to power the notorious R.B. Bennett Conservative government who attacked the labour movement and established "relief camps"Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
for young unemployed men.
The CPC was the only party to make a systemic critique of the depression as a crisis of capitalism. It was also the first political party in Canada to call for the introduction of unemployment insurance; a national health insurance scheme; making education universally accessible; social and employment assistance to youth; labour legislation including health and safety regulations, regulation of the working day and holidays, as well as a minimum wage for women and youth; and state-run crop insurance and price control for farmers. As an indication of the Party's influence on Canadian history, many of these demands campaigned for in the 1930s would finally be legislated federally and provincially in the coming decades.
However in 1931, eight of the CPC's leaders were arrested and imprisoned under Section 98
Section 98
Section 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada was a law enacted after the Winnipeg General Strike banning "unlawful associations." It was used in the 1930s against the Communist Party of Canada....
of Canada's Criminal Code of Canada
Criminal Code of Canada
The Criminal Code or Code criminel is a law that codifies most criminal offences and procedures in Canada. Its official long title is "An Act respecting the criminal law"...
. The party continued to exist, but was under the constant threat of legal harassment, and was for all intents and purposes an underground organization until 1934 when a massive campaign finally pushed back many of the police's practice of repression, and the communists were released. On the release of Tim Buck, the party held a mass rally attended by an overflow crowd of over 17,000 supporters and sympathizers in Maple Leaf Gardens
Maple Leaf Gardens
Maple Leaf Gardens is an indoor arena that was converted into a Loblawssupermarket and Ryerson University athletic centre in Toronto, on the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church Street in Toronto's Garden District.One of the temples of hockey, it was home to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the...
.
Although the party was banned, it organized large mass organizations such as the Workers' Unity League
Workers' Unity League
The Workers' Unity League was created in 1929 as a labour central operated by the Communist Party of Canada on the instructions of the Communist International....
, and the Canadian Labour Defence League
Canadian Labour Defence League
The Canadian Labour Defence League was a legal defence organization founded and led by Reverend A.E. Smith. The league was in 1925 as a civil rights organization dedicated to protecting striking workers from persecution. It was allied with the Communist Party of Canada and functioned as a front for...
that played an important role in historic strikes like that of the miners in Estevan. From 1933 to 1936, the WUL lead 90 per cent of the strikes in Canada. Already, conditions had taught the social democratics and reformists, as well as the communists, important lessons of cooperation. In 1934, in accordance with the re-examined posistion of the Comintern, the CPC adopted strategy and tactics based on a united front against fascism.
In the prairies, the Communists organized the Farmers Unity League which mobilized against evictions and rallied hundreds of farmers into protest Hunger Marches, despite police brutality. Party members were also active in the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
attempt to unionize the auto and other industrial sectors including Steelworkers, the Canadian Seaman's Union, the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union, the International Woodworkers of America
International Woodworkers of America
International Woodworkers of America was an industrial union of lumbermen, sawmill workers, timber transportation workers and others formed in 1937....
, and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America , is an independent democratic rank-and-file labor union representing workers in both the private and public sectors across the United States....
.
Among the poor and unemployed, Communists organized groups like the left-wing Workers Sports Association, one of the few ways that working-class youth had access to recreational programmes. The Relief Camp Workers' Union
Relief Camp Workers' Union
The Relief Camp Workers' Union was the union into which the inmates of the Canadian government relief camps were organized in the early 1930s. It was affiliated with the Workers' Unity League, the trade union umbrella of the Communist Party of Canada...
, and the National Unemployed Workers Association played a significant role in organizing the unskilled and the unemployed in protest marches and demonstrations and campaigns such as the "On-to-Ottawa Trek
On-to-Ottawa Trek
The On-to-Ottawa Trek was a long journey where thousands of people had unemployed men protesting the dismal conditions in federal relief camps scattered in remote areas across Western Canada. The men lived and worked in these camps at a rate of twenty cents per day before walking out on strike in...
" and the 1938 Vancouver Post-Office sit-down strike.
Internationally, the party initiated the mobilization of the 1,500+ person Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
The Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion or Mac-Paps were a battalion of Canadians who fought as part of the XV International Brigade on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Except for France, no other country gave a greater proportion of its population as volunteers in Spain than Canada. The...
to fight in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
as part of the International Brigade. Among the leading Canadian Communists involved in that effort was Dr. Norman Bethune
Norman Bethune
Henry Norman Bethune was a Canadian physician and medical innovator. Bethune is best known for his service in war time medical units during the Spanish Civil War and with the Communist Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War...
, who is known for his invention of a mobile blood-transfusion unit, early advocacy of Medicare in Canada, and work with the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
during the Chinese war of independence.
Solidarity efforts around the Spanish Civil War, as well as many labour and social struggles during the Depression, saw much cooperation between members of the CPC and the CCF
CCF
CCF can refer to:* 100 cubic feet, an American standard measurement of water or natural gas volume, more often written "Ccf" * Cambodian Children's Fund, charity organisation...
. After 1935 the CPC advocated for electoral alliances and unity with the CCF on key issues. The proposal was debated in the CCF, with the 1936 BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan conventions generally supporting cooperation while the Ontario convention opposed. While the motion was defeated at that Parties third federal convention, the Communists continued to call for a united front.
The call was particularly urgent in Québec, where in 1937 the far-right Duplessis government passed "an act to protect Québec against communist propoganda" giving the police the power to padlock any premises used by "communists" (which was undefined in the legislation). Fascist groups attacked Jews, people from racialized communities, and communists.
World War II
Although the Communist Party had worked hard to war Canadians about the growing fascist danger, after some debate the Party saw the opening of World War II not as an anti-fascist war but a battle between capitalist nations. Most likely this conclusion was supported by the policies of the big powers. Many voices in the British establishment, for example, called loudly for support of Hitler against the USSR. Meanwhile, having failed in reaching agreement with Britain and other world powers, the USSR signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop PactMolotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
with Nazi Germany, to bide time before an inevitable war between the two.
The Communist Parties opposition to Canada's entry into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
led to it being banned under the Defence of Canada Regulations
Defence of Canada Regulations
The Defence of Canada Regulations were a set of emergency measures implemented under the War Measures Act a week before Canada's entry into World War II in the fall of 1939....
of the War Measures Act
War Measures Act
The War Measures Act was a Canadian statute that allowed the government to assume sweeping emergency powers in the event of "war, invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended"...
in 1940. In many cases Communists were interned long before fascists. As growing numbers of Communist Party leaders were interned, some members went underground or exile in the United States. Conditions in the camps were harsh. A civil rights campaign was launched by the wives of many of the interned men for family visits and their release.
With 1941 invasion of the USSR
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
and the collapse of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
the party argued that the nature of the war had changed to a genuine anti-fascist struggle. The CPC reversed its opposition to the war and argued the the danger to the working class on the international level superseded its interests nationally.
During the Conscription Crisis of 1944
Conscription Crisis of 1944
The Conscription Crisis of 1944 was a political and military crisis following the introduction of forced military service in Canada during World War II. It was similar to the Conscription Crisis of 1917, but was not as politically damaging....
, the banned CPC set up "Tim Buck Plebiscite Committees" across the country to campaign for a "yes" vote in the national referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
on conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
. Following the vote, the committees were renamed the Dominion Communist-Labor Total War Committee
Dominion Communist-Labor Total War Committee
The Dominion Communist-Labor Total War Committee was a front organization of the then-banned Communist Party of Canada. The Committees originated as the "Tim Buck Plebiscite Committees" which were organized by the party in 1942 to campaign for a "yes" vote in the 1942 referendum on conscription...
and urged full support for the war effort, a no-strike pledge for the duration of the war and increased industrial production. The National Council for Democratic Rights was also established with A.E. Smith as chair in order to rally for the legalization of the Communist Party and the release of Communists and anti-fascists from internment.
The party's first elected Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) was Dorise Nielson. Nielson was elected in North Battleford, Saskatchewan in 1940 under the popular front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
Progressive Unity
Unity (Canada)
Unity or Progressive Unity was the name used in Saskatchewan, Canada, by a popular front party initiated by the Communist Party of Canada for the 1938 Saskatchewan and 1940 Canadian election....
label, with the support of many individual CCFers. Nielsen kept her membership in the party a secret until 1943.
Labour-Progressive Party
Labour-Progressive Party
For the Labour-Progressive Coalition Government in New Zealand see the Fifth Labour Government of New ZealandThe Labor-Progressive Party was the legal political organization of the Communist Party of Canada between 1943 and 1959....
in 1943 as a legal front and thereafter ran candidates under that name until 1959. At its height in the mid-1940s, the party had fourteen sitting elected officials at the federal, provincial and municipal level. Several prominent elected party members were:
- Fred RoseFred Rose (politician)Fred Rose was a Communist politician and trade union organizer in Canada. He was born in Lublin in what is now Poland, part of Russia at the time. He emigrated to Canada as a child in 1916. He became involved with the Young Communist League of Canada, and then joined the Communist Party of Canada...
was elected to represent a Montreal ridingElectoral district (Canada)An electoral district in Canada, also known as a constituency or a riding, is a geographical constituency upon which Canada's representative democracy is based...
in the Canadian House of CommonsCanadian House of CommonsThe House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
as an LPP MP, and was removed from office after being convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. - Dorise NielsenDorise NielsenDorise Winifred Webber Nielsen was a Canadian politician and teacher.Born in England, Nielsen arrived in Canada and settled in Saskatchewan in 1927 to work as a teacher and married a homesteader the same year. She joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in 1934 and was a CCF campaign...
, a Saskatchewan MP elected as a "Unity" candidate, declared her affiliation with the LPP when it was formed in August 1943 and ran unsuccessfully for re-election as an LPP candidate. - Mary KardashMary KardashMary Kardash was a long-time Communist politician in the north end of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She was a member of Winnipeg school board in the 1970s and 1980s, having been elected as a Communist Party of Canada candidate. She had also been active in the Communist Party's predecessor, the...
and William Ross were LPP and then Communist school trustees in WinnipegWinnipegWinnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name... - Jacob PennerJacob PennerJacob Penner was a popular socialist politician in Canada. Penner was born and raised in a Mennonite family in Russia and emigrated to Winnipeg in 1904. In 1908, he met his wife Rose Shapack, a Jewish Russian immigrant, during an address by Emma Goldman at the Winnipeg Radical Club...
and Joseph ZukenJoseph ZukenJoseph Zuken was a popular Communist politician in Winnipeg and the longest serving elected Communist party politician in North America....
were popular aldermenAldermanAn alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...
in Winnipeg. Zuken was an LPP school trustee before succeeding Penner on city council by which time the LPP had changed its name back to the Communist Party. - W. A. KardashW. A. KardashWilliam A. Kardash was a politician and member of the Manitoba legislature.Kardash was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, having fought with the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion...
and James LitterickJames LitterickJames Litterick was a politician in Manitoba, Canada, and was the first member of the Communist Party of Canada to be elected to that province's legislature....
were ManitobaManitobaManitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
LPP Members of the Legislative AssemblyMember of the Legislative AssemblyA Member of the Legislative Assembly or a Member of the Legislature , is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to the legislature or legislative assembly of a sub-national jurisdiction....
(MLAs). - A.A. MacLeod and J.B. Salsberg were LPP members of the Ontario legislatureLegislatureA legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...
. - Stanley Brehaut RyersonStanley Brehaut RyersonStanley Brehaut Ryerson was a Canadian historian, educator, political activist. There is very little information available concerning his parents, but Ryerson was born in 1911, into a well-off middle class family in Toronto...
, Sam CarrSam CarrSam Carr was an organizer for the Communist Party of Canada and, its successor, the Labour-Progressive Party in the 1930s and 1940s. He was born Schmil Kogan in Tomachpol, Ukraine in 1906 and immigrated to Canada in 1924, living in Winnipeg and Regina before settling in Montreal in 1925...
, Charles Simms and Norman Freed were LPP TorontoTorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
aldermen while Stewart SmithStewart Smith (politician)Stewart Smith was a long-time leading member of the Communist Party of Canada. He also served on Toronto City Council for a period in the 1930s and 1940s....
was elected to the city's Board of Control. - Harry RankinHarry RankinHarry Rankin was a Vancouver lawyer and socialist alderman on city council.- Early Years:Rankin was born Harry Riffkin in Vancouver to a secular Jewish family which had immigrated from the Ukraine...
sat on VancouverVancouverVancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
's city councilVancouver City CouncilVancouver City Council is the governing body of the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.The city is governed by the Vancouver Charter, not the Community Charter and the Local Government Act which are used for other municipal governments...
on behalf of the Committee of Progressive ElectorsCoalition of Progressive ElectorsThe Coalition of Progressive Electors is a municipal political party in the Canadian city of Vancouver, British Columbia.-Origins:...
which he helped found in the late 1960s. Though not officially a Communist Party member he was a fellow travellerFellow travellerFellow traveler or fellow traveller is a term referring to a person who sympathizes with the beliefs of an organization or cooperates in its activities without maintaining formal membership in that particular group...
.
In 1946, Igor Gouzenko
Igor Gouzenko
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He defected on September 5, 1945, with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West...
, a cipher clerk at the Soviet Embassy, defected to Canada alleging several Canadian communists were operating a spy ring which provided the Soviet Union with top secret
Top Secret
Top Secret generally refers to the highest acknowledged level of classified information.Top Secret may also refer to:- Film and television :* Top Secret , a British comedy directed by Mario Zampi...
information. The Kellock-Taschereau Commission was called by Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Mackenzie King to investigate the matter. This let to the convictions of Fred Rose
Fred Rose (politician)
Fred Rose was a Communist politician and trade union organizer in Canada. He was born in Lublin in what is now Poland, part of Russia at the time. He emigrated to Canada as a child in 1916. He became involved with the Young Communist League of Canada, and then joined the Communist Party of Canada...
and other communists.
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's 1956 Secret Speech exposing the crimes of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
and the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary
1956 Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956....
shook the faith of many Communists around the world. As well, the party was riven by a crisis following the return of prominent party member J.B. Salsberg from a trip to the Soviet Union where he found rampant party-sponsored antisemitism. Salsberg reported his findings but they were rejected by the party, which initially suspended him from its leading bodies. Ultimately, the crisis resulted in the departure of the United Jewish Peoples' Order
United Jewish Peoples' Order
The United Jewish Peoples' Order is a secular socialist Jewish cultural, political and educational fraternal organization in Canada. The UJPO traces its history to 1926 and the founding of the Labour League...
, Salsberg, Robert Laxer
Robert Laxer
Robert M. Laxer was a Canadian psychologist, professor, author, and political activist.Laxer was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1915 and graduated from McGill University with a B.A. in 1936 and an M.A. in 1939. Laxer joined the Communist Party of Canada during the Great Depression...
and most of the party's Jewish members in 1956.
Many, perhaps most, members of the Canadian party left, including a number of prominent party members.
In the mid 1960s the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
estimated the party membership to be approximately 3500. The Soviet Union's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
caused more people to leave the Canadian Communist Party.
Collapse of the Soviet bloc and party split
In common with most communist parties, it went through a crisis after the dissolution of the Soviet UnionDissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
, and subsequently split. Under then general secretary George Hewison (1988–91), the leadership of the CPC and a segment of its general membership began to abandon Marxism-Leninism as the basis of the Party's revolutionary perspective, and ultimately moved to liquidate the Party itself, seeking to replace it with a left, social democratic entity.
The protracted ideological and political crisis created much confusion and disorientation within the ranks of the Party, and paralysed both its independent and united front work for over two years. Ultimately, the Hewison-led majority in the Central Committee (CC) of the party voted to abandon Marxism-Leninism. An orthodox minority in the CC, led by Miguel Figueroa
Miguel Figueroa
Miguel Figueroa has been the leader of the Communist Party of Canada since 1992.- Early political career :Figueroa was born in Montreal, and has been a member of the CPC since 1977. He has held many positions within the CPC, including party organizer in Vancouver from 1978 to 1985, and leader of...
, Elizabeth Rowley
Elizabeth Rowley
Elizabeth Rowley is a politician, writer, and political activist in Ontario, Canada. Current leader of the Communist Party of Ontario, and a leading member of the Communist Party of Canada, Rowley has campaigned for office many times at both the municipal, federal and provincial levels.-Political...
and former leader William Kashtan
William Kashtan
William Kashtan became general secretary of the Communist Party of Canada in January 1965, several months following the death of Leslie Morris. The delay in his assuming the position was due to the opposition of Tim Buck to his appointment....
, resisted this effort. At the 28th Convention in the fall of 1990, the Hewison group managed to maintain its control of the Central Committee of the CPC, but by the spring of 1991, the membership began to turn more and more against the reformist policies and orientation of the Hewison leadership.
Key provincial conventions were held in 1991 in the two main provincial bases of the CPC - British Columbia and Ontario. At the B.C. convention, delegates threw out Fred Wilson, one of the main leaders of the Hewison group. A few months later in June 1991, Ontario delegates rejected a concerted campaign by Hewison and his supporters, and overwhelmingly reelected provincial leader Elizabeth Rowley and other supporters of the Marxist-Leninist current to the Ontario Committee and Executive.
The Hewison group moved on August 27, 1991 to expel eleven of the key leaders of the opposition, including Rowley, Emil Bjarnason, and former central organizer John Bizzell. The Hewison-controlled Central Executive also dismissed the Ontario provincial committee.
The vast majority of local clubs and committees of the CPC opposed the expulsions, and called instead for an extraordinary convention of the party to resolve the deepening crisis in a democratic manner. There were loud protests at the CC's October 1991 meeting, but an extraordinary convention was not convened. With few remaining options, Rowley and the other expelled members threatened to take the Hewison group to court. After several months of negotiations between the Hewison group and the opposition "All-Canada Negotiating Committee", an out-of-court settlement resulted in the Hewison leadership agreeing to leave the CPC and relinquish any claim to the party's name, while taking most of the party's assets to the Cecil-Ross Society, a publishing and educational foundation previously associated with the party.
Following the departure of the Hewison-led group, a convention was held in December 1992 at which delegates agreed to continue the Communist Party (thus the meeting was titled the 30th CPC Convention). Delegates rejected the reformist policies instituted by the Hewison group and instead reaffirmed the CPC as a Marxist-Leninist organization. Since most of the old party's assets were now the property of the Hewison-led Cecil Ross Society, the CPC convention decided to launch a new newspaper, the People's Voice, to replace the old Canadian Tribune. The convention elected a new central committee with Figueroa as Party Leader. The convention also amended the party constitution to grant more membership control and lessen the arbitrary powers of the CC, while maintaining democratic centralism as its organizational principle.
Meanwhile, the former Communists retained the Cecil-Ross Society
Cecil-Ross Society
The Cecil-Ross Society was a revisionist educational foundation operated by some former members of the Communist Party of Canada after they were forced to terminate their association with the party in 1992 in a political and legal dispute following the fall of the Soviet Union...
as a political foundation to continue their political efforts. They also sold off the party's headquarters at 24 Cecil Street, having earlier liquidated various party-related business such as Eveready Printers (the party printshop) and Progress Publishers. The name of the Cecil-Ross Society comes from the intersection of Cecil Street and Ross Street in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
where the headquarters of the party was located. The Cecil-Ross Society took with it the rights to the Canadian Tribune, which had been the party's weekly newspaper for decades, as well as roughly half of the party's assets. The Cecil-Ross Society ended publication of the Canadian Tribune and attempted to launch a new broad-left magazine, New Times which failed after a few issues and then Ginger http://www.pance.ca/ginger/ which only published twice.
The Figueroa Case
The renovated party, although with a much smaller membership and resources (including the party's headquarters at 24 Cecil Street in Toronto) now faced new challenges and threats to its existence. New anti-democratic electoral laws mandated that political parties run fifty candidates in Federal elections. The CPC was not in a position to run fifty (50) candidates in the 1993 federal election, and therefore its assets were seized as the party was de-listed.A prolonged legal battle, Figueroa v. Canada ensued, which won the support of a number of outspoken democratic members of parliament, resulting in a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 2003 that overturned a provision in the Elections Act requiring fifty candidates for official party status and historically redefined a political party. The case was one of the most significant recent democratic reforms in Canadian election law. Earlier in the legal battle, the party had its deregistration overturned and its seized assets restored. This victory was celebrated by many of the other small parties regardless of political differences on the principle that it was a victory for the people's right to democratic choice.
During this time the CPC began to publish a fortnightly newspaper called People's Voice. Its Quebec section, le Parti communiste du Québec, publishes Clarté. The CPC also periodically publishes a theoretical/discussion journal Spark!. These publications and other information about the party is available on its site http://www.communist-party.ca.
The CPC is active in trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s, in the civic reform movement, and in a number of social justice, anti-war and international solidarity groups and coalitions. The Party has also helped refound the Young Communist League of Canada
Young Communist League of Canada
The Young Communist League of Canada is a Marxist-Leninist youth organization which fights to build a powerful youth and student movement across Canada and for socialism.According to their website,- History :...
. Local YCL groups have sprung up in several centres across the country, which has held two Central Conventions since 2007.
Quebec communists
The Communist Party of Canada formed the Communist Party of Quebec in 1965, reflecting the national reality of Canada as a state with more than one nation within its boarders. The PCQ advanced many policies including the idea of a federated party of labour, which proved its prescience with the formation of Quebec solidaire. The PCQ remained as a component of the CPC, with control over its policies and administration.During the crisis in CPC during the 1990s, the PCQ became disorganized and its remaining members drifted apart from the CPC, adopting positions sympathetic to nationalism. It was not until 1997 that a range of communists and communist groups came together to re-organize the PCQ. A few years later the party brought together different tendencies in the left to form the Union of Progressive Forces or UFP which became Quebec solidaire.
The UFP agreed to place the question of Quebec independence as secondary to social or class issues. This was hotly debated as the party transformed into Quebec solidaire. The debate moved over into the PCQ as well. The Communist Party of Canada supports the right of "national self-determination, up to and including separation". It does not however support the fragmentation of Canada, however, and has called for "a new, democratic constitutional arrangement based on the equal and voluntary union of Aboriginal peoples, Québec, and English-speaking Canada".
These positions were questioned by the Quebec leader of the party, Andre Parizeau, who formulated a series of amendments in support of immediate independence in 2004. Rejected by both the Central Executive Committee (by a vote of 7-1) and the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Quebec Party (by a vote of 4-2), by January 2005, Parizeau wrote a letter to PCQ members declaring that the party was in crisis and, describing the four NEC members who opposed his amendments as a pro-federalist "Gang of Four", he summarily dismissed them.
At the PCQ convention of April 2005 Parizeau held a majority, but who was granted voting rights was highly disputed. Parizeau was subsequently expelled for "factional activity and the pursuit of a right opportunist line" and the Central Committee of the Party affirmed the authority of the previous Quebec National Executive Committee in June 18–19, 2005. Around the same time, Parizeau's group published a letter of withdrawal from the CPC accusing the Party of holding "des idées chauvines vis-à-vis du Québec" (chauvinistic ideas relative to Quebec).
Thus, by 2005, the Parti communiste du Québec had split into two rival groups with the same name over the issue of Quebec sovereignty with the pro-Quebec nationalist group lead by André Parizeau
André Parizeau
André Parizeau is a politician in the Canadian province of Quebec, who is currently the leader of the Parti communiste du Québec.A split followed a lengthy dispute between Parizeau and the Central Executive Committee of the CPC. In November 2004, Parizeau introduced a series of amendments to the...
continuing the electoral registration of the Parti communiste du Québec .
Parizeau's opponents in the PCQ on the other hand have re-started a new periodical, Clarté, reorganized the party with clubs across Montreal, opened an office and small reading room, launched an active website, and are also are re-affiliating with Quebec Solidaire as an organized group. The work closely with the youth and student organization, the League de la jeunesse communitse du Quebec. The CPC's account of this situation is available online, as is the letter from Parizeau's PCQ group.
Recent developments
The CPC held its 36th Central Convention on February 2010 in Toronto. According to a Toronto Star article the assembly drew 65 delegates most of whom were from Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec with a few from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia. Party leader Miguel Figueroa called for the Communists to field 25 candidates in the upcoming federal election.Allied organizations
Traditionally, the Communist Party and Labour-Progressive Party have had allied organizations which were not formally affiliated with the party but were largely under its control. These groups often originated from left wing labour and socialist movements that existed prior to the creation of the Communist Party and operated political and cultural activities amongst various immigrant groups, published magazines and operated their own cultural centres and meeting halls. From the 1920s through the 1950s the largest immigrant groups represented in the party were Finns, Ukrainians and Jews who were organized in the Finnish Organization of Canada (founded in 1911 as the Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada), the Association of United Ukrainian CanadiansAssociation of United Ukrainian Canadians
The Association of United Ukrainian Canadians is a national cultural-educational non-profit organization established for Ukrainians in Canada...
(known as the Ukrainian Labor Farmer Temple Association until 1946) and the United Jewish Peoples' Order
United Jewish Peoples' Order
The United Jewish Peoples' Order is a secular socialist Jewish cultural, political and educational fraternal organization in Canada. The UJPO traces its history to 1926 and the founding of the Labour League...
(known as the Labour League until 1945) respectively. Also active in the 1930s and 1940s was the Hungarian Workers Clubs, the Polish People's Association (formerly the Polish Workers' and Farmers' Association), the Serbian People's Movement and Croatian Cultural Association (formerly the Jugoslav Workers' Clubs) and the Carpatho-Russian Society. The Russian Farmer-Worker Clubs were formed in the early 1930s but closed by the government under the Defence of Canada Regulations
Defence of Canada Regulations
The Defence of Canada Regulations were a set of emergency measures implemented under the War Measures Act a week before Canada's entry into World War II in the fall of 1939....
at the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. When the Soviet Union became Canada's ally in 1942, they re-appeared as the Federation of Russian Canadians
Federation of Russian Canadians
The Federation of Russian Canadians is a left-leaning cultural organization for Russian immigrants to Canada and their descendants.It is the successor of the Russian Farmer-Worker Clubs which were closed by the government at the beginning of World War II as a suspected subversive organization due...
. The Canadian Slav Committee was formed in 1948 in an attempt to put party-aligned cultural associations for Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Yugoslavs and Carpatho-Russians under one umbrella. The UJPO broke with the party in 1956 over the revelations of antisemitism in the Soviet Union. An influx of left-wing Greek and Portuguese immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s resulted in the creation of the Greek Democratic Association and the Portuguese Democratic Association which remain close to the Communist Party.
General Secretaries of the CPC
- Tom Burpee 1921
- William MoriartyWilliam MoriartyWilliam Moriarty was a Canadian Communist and Right Oppositionist.Moriarty was born in England and became a trade unionist working as a tin miner in Cornwall, a railway worker and then a miner in Wales. He moved to Canada in 1912 and worked first as a harvest worker...
1921–1923 - Jack MacDonald 1923–1929
- Tim BuckTim BuckTimothy "Tim" Buck was a long-time leader of the Communist Party of Canada...
1929–1962 - Leslie MorrisLeslie MorrisLeslie Tim Morris was a Welsh-Canadian politician, journalist and long time member of the Communist Party of Canada and, its front group, the Labour-Progressive Party....
1962–1964 - William KashtanWilliam KashtanWilliam Kashtan became general secretary of the Communist Party of Canada in January 1965, several months following the death of Leslie Morris. The delay in his assuming the position was due to the opposition of Tim Buck to his appointment....
1965–1988 - George HewisonGeorge HewisonGeorge Hewison is a former long-time member of the Communist Party of Canada and trade unionist. A second-generation member of the party, Hewison grew up selling the party press and joined the party at the age of 17...
1988–1992 - Miguel FigueroaMiguel FigueroaMiguel Figueroa has been the leader of the Communist Party of Canada since 1992.- Early political career :Figueroa was born in Montreal, and has been a member of the CPC since 1977. He has held many positions within the CPC, including party organizer in Vancouver from 1978 to 1985, and leader of...
1992–Present
Central Executive Committee
The Communist Party of Canada's 35th convention held in February 2010 elected the following members to its leading body, the Central Executive Committee: Miguel FigueroaMiguel Figueroa
Miguel Figueroa has been the leader of the Communist Party of Canada since 1992.- Early political career :Figueroa was born in Montreal, and has been a member of the CPC since 1977. He has held many positions within the CPC, including party organizer in Vancouver from 1978 to 1985, and leader of...
(Party leader), Elizabeth Rowley
Elizabeth Rowley
Elizabeth Rowley is a politician, writer, and political activist in Ontario, Canada. Current leader of the Communist Party of Ontario, and a leading member of the Communist Party of Canada, Rowley has campaigned for office many times at both the municipal, federal and provincial levels.-Political...
(leader of the Communist Party of Ontario
Communist Party of Ontario
The Communist Party of Canada is the Ontario, Canada provincial wing of the Communist Party of Canada. In the 1940s and 1950s under the name Labour-Progressive Party, the group won two seats in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario: A.A. MacLeod and J.B...
), Robert Loxley (Editor of Clarte, newspaper of the Parti communiste du Québec), Sam Hammond, Chair of the Trade Union Commission of the Party and leader of British Columbia Communist Party
Communist Party of British Columbia
The Communist Party of British Columbia is the British Columbia branch of the Communist Party of Canada. Its leader is Sam Hammond.From the 1945 British Columbia election to the 1956 election, it was known as the Labour Progressive Party....
, and Kimball Cariou (editor of People's Voice).
There is also a larger body, the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
, which is elected at convention and meets in intervening years. The Central Committee nominates the members of the Central Executive Committee and the composition of the CEC is ratified by convention.
Election results
| Election | # of candidates nominated | # of seats won | # of total votes | % of popular vote | % in ridings contested |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1930 Canadian federal election, 1930 The Canadian federal election of 1930 was held on July 28, 1930 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 17th Parliament of Canada... |
6 | 0 | 4,557 | 0.12% | |
| 1935 Canadian federal election, 1935 The Canadian federal election of 1935 was held on October 14, 1935 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 18th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of William Lyon Mackenzie King won a majority government, defeating Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's Conservative Party.The central... |
13 | 0 | 27,456 | 0.46% | |
| 1940 Canadian federal election, 1940 The Canadian federal election of 1940 was the 19th general election in Canadian history. It was held March 26, 1940 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 19th Parliament of Canada... 1 |
9 | 0 | 14,005 | 0.36% | |
| 1945 Canadian federal election, 1945 The Canadian federal election of 1945 was the 20th general election in Canadian history. It was held June 11, 1945 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 20th Parliament of Canada... 2 |
68 | 1 Fred Rose (politician) Fred Rose was a Communist politician and trade union organizer in Canada. He was born in Lublin in what is now Poland, part of Russia at the time. He emigrated to Canada as a child in 1916. He became involved with the Young Communist League of Canada, and then joined the Communist Party of Canada... |
111,892 | 2.13% | |
| 1949 Canadian federal election, 1949 The Canadian federal election of 1949 was held on June 27 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 21st Parliament of Canada. It was the first election in Canada in almost thirty years in which the Liberal Party of Canada was not led by William Lyon Mackenzie King. King had... 2 |
17 | 0 | 32,623 | 0.56% | |
| 1953 Canadian federal election, 1953 The Canadian federal election of 1953 was held on August 10 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 22nd Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Louis St... 2 |
100 | 0 | 59,622 | 1.06% | |
| 1957 Canadian federal election, 1957 The Canadian federal election of 1957 was held June 10, 1957, to select the 265 members of the House of Commons of Canada. In one of the great upsets in Canadian political history, the Progressive Conservative Party , led by John Diefenbaker, brought an end to 22 years of Liberal rule, as the... 2 |
10 | 0 | 7,760 | 0.12% | |
| 1958 Canadian federal election, 1958 The Canadian federal election of 1958 was the 24th general election in Canada's history. It was held to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 24th Parliament of Canada on March 31, 1958, just nine months after the 23rd election... 2 |
18 | 0 | 9,769 | 0.13% | |
| 1962 Canadian federal election, 1962 The Canadian federal election of 1962 was held on June 18, 1962 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 25th Parliament of Canada... |
12 | 0 | 6,360 | 0.08% | |
| 1963 Canadian federal election, 1963 The Canadian federal election of 1963 was held on April 8 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 26th Parliament of Canada. It resulted in the defeat of the minority Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.-Overview:During the Tories' last year in... |
12 | 0 | 4,234 | 0.05% | |
| 1965 Canadian federal election, 1965 The Canadian federal election of 1965 was held on November 8 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 27th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson was re-elected with a larger number of seats in the House... |
12 | 0 | 4,285 | 0.06% | |
| 1968 Canadian federal election, 1968 The Canadian federal election of 1968 was held on June 25, 1968, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 28th Parliament of Canada... |
14 | 0 | 4,465 | 0.05% | |
| 1972 Canadian federal election, 1972 The Canadian federal election of 1972 was held on October 30, 1972 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 29th Parliament of Canada. It resulted in a slim victory for the governing Liberal Party, which won 109 seats, compared to 107 seats for the opposition Progressive... 3 |
n.a | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | |
| 1974 Canadian federal election, 1974 The Canadian federal election of 1974 was held on July 8, 1974 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 30th Parliament of Canada. The governing Liberal Party won its first majority government since 1968, and gave Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau his third term... |
69 | 0 | 12,100 | 0.13% | |
| 1979 Canadian federal election, 1979 The Canadian federal election of 1979 was held on May 22, 1979 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 31st Parliament of Canada. It resulted in the defeat of Liberal Party of Canada after 11 years in power under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Joe Clark led the Progressive... |
71 | 0 | 9,141 | 0.08% | |
| 1980 Canadian federal election, 1980 The Canadian federal election of 1980 was held on February 18, 1980 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 32nd Parliament of Canada... |
52 | 0 | 6,022 | 0.06% | |
| 1984 Canadian federal election, 1984 The Canadian federal election of 1984 was held on September 4 of that year to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 33rd Parliament of Canada... |
52 | 0 | 7,551 | 0.06% | |
| 1988 Canadian federal election, 1988 The Canadian federal election of 1988 was held November 21, 1988, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 34th Parliament of Canada. It was an election largely fought on a single issue: the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement .... |
51 | 0 | 7,066 | 0.05% | |
| 1993 Canadian federal election, 1993 The Canadian federal election of 1993 was held on October 25 of that year to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 35th Parliament of Canada. Fourteen parties competed for the 295 seats in the House at that time... 4 |
n.a | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | |
| 1997 Canadian federal election, 1997 The Canadian federal election of 1997 was held on June 2, 1997, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 36th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party of Canada won a second majority government... 4 |
n.a | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | |
| 2000 Canadian federal election, 2000 The 2000 Canadian federal election was held on November 27, 2000, to elect 301 Members of Parliament of the Canadian House of Commons of the 37th Parliament of Canada.... |
52 | 0 | 8,779 | 0.07% | 0.39% |
| 2004 Canadian federal election, 2004 The Canadian federal election, 2004 , was held on June 28, 2004 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 38th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin lost its majority, but was able to form a minority government after the elections... |
35 | 0 | 4,564 | 0.03% | 0.31% |
| 2006 Canadian federal election, 2006 The 2006 Canadian federal election was held on January 23, 2006, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 39th Parliament of Canada. The Conservative Party of Canada won the greatest number of seats: 40.3% of seats, or 124 out of 308, up from 99 seats in 2004, and 36.3% of votes:... |
21 | 0 | 3,022 | 0.02% | 0.32% |
| 2008 Canadian federal election, 2008 The 2008 Canadian federal election was held on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 40th Canadian Parliament after the previous parliament had been dissolved by the Governor General on September 7, 2008... |
24 | 0 | 3,639 | 0.03% | 0.35% |
| 2011 | 20 | 0 | 2,894 | 0.02% | 0.31% |
Notes:
1: A ninth candidate, Dorise Nielson was a member of the Communist Party but ran and was elected as a Progressive Unity candidate.
2: The Communist Party was banned in 1941. From 1943 until 1959 they ran candidates under the name Labour Progressive Party.
3: In 1972 the party ran its candidates as independents. It is unknown how many party members ran in that election.
4: The party failed to register at least 50 candidates in time for the 1993 election. As a result the party was deregistered and its candidates ran as independents. Party status was not regained until prior to the 2000 general election. It is unknown how many party members ran in the 1993 and 1997 elections as independents.
See also
- Communist Party candidates, 2011 Canadian federal election
- Communist Party candidates, 2008 Canadian federal electionCommunist Party candidates, 2008 Canadian federal electionThis is list of Communist Party of Canada 2008 federal election candidates by riding and province.- Alberta :*Calgary East - Jason Devine*Edmonton Mill Woods Beaumont - Naomi Rankin- British Columbia :*Burnaby Douglas - George Gidora...
- Communist Party candidates, 2006 Canadian federal electionCommunist Party candidates, 2006 Canadian federal electionThe Communist Party of Canada ran several candidates in the 2006 federal election, none of whom were elected.-Lisa Gallagher :Gallagher received 120 votes , finishing seventh against Conservative incumbent Merv Tweed....
- Communist Party candidates, 2004 Canadian federal electionCommunist Party candidates, 2004 Canadian federal electionThe Communist Party of Canada ran a number of candidates in the 2004 federal election, none of whom were elected. Information about these candidates may be found here.-Beatriz Alas :...
- Communist Party candidates, 2000 Canadian federal electionCommunist Party candidates, 2000 Canadian federal electionThe Communist Party of Canada fielded a number of candidates in the 2000 Canadian federal election, none of whom were elected. Information about these candidates may be found here.-Outremont: Pierre Smith:...
- Communist Party candidates, 1997 Canadian federal election
- Communist Party of AlbertaCommunist Party (Alberta)Communist Party – Alberta is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. It is a provincial branch of the Communist Party of Canada.-History:...
- Communist Party of OntarioCommunist Party of OntarioThe Communist Party of Canada is the Ontario, Canada provincial wing of the Communist Party of Canada. In the 1940s and 1950s under the name Labour-Progressive Party, the group won two seats in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario: A.A. MacLeod and J.B...
- Communist Party of British ColumbiaCommunist Party of British ColumbiaThe Communist Party of British Columbia is the British Columbia branch of the Communist Party of Canada. Its leader is Sam Hammond.From the 1945 British Columbia election to the 1956 election, it was known as the Labour Progressive Party....
- Parti communiste du Québec
- PROFUNCPROFUNCPROFUNC , which stands for "PROminent FUNCtionaries of the communist party", was a Government of Canada top secret plan to identify and intern Canadian communists and crypto-communists during the height of the Cold War.-History:...
- People's Voice
- Young Communist League
- Rebel YouthRebel YouthRebel Youth is the bilingual magazine of the Young Communist League of Canada published in the late 1980s and restarted in 2005. The name Rebel Youth is from Cuba's youth newspaper, Juventud Rebelde...
- List of political parties in Canada
- United Jewish Peoples' OrderUnited Jewish Peoples' OrderThe United Jewish Peoples' Order is a secular socialist Jewish cultural, political and educational fraternal organization in Canada. The UJPO traces its history to 1926 and the founding of the Labour League...
, which was aligned with the party until 1956. - Organization for Jewish Colonization in Russia (IKOR)
- Canadian communists including many leading figures in the party.