Communist Party of Canada
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Communist Party of Canada
Leader Miguel Figueroa
President Miguel Figueroa
Founded May 1921
Headquarters 290A Danforth Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
M4K 1N6
Ideology Communism, Marxism-Leninism
International affiliation Solidarity Network
Official colours Red, Yellow
Website
http://www.communist-party.ca/The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. It is a minor political party without elected representation at present in either the federal Parliament or in any provincial legislature. Since the merger of the Conservative Party in the early 21st century, the Communist Party of Canada remains the second oldest register party after the Liberal Party of Canada.Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Origins
1.2 Expulsion of factions
1.3 Great Depression
1.4 World War II
1.5 Labour-Progressive Party
1.6 Collapse of the Soviet bloc and party split
1.7 Reconstituted party
1.8 2005 split
2 Recent developments
3 Allied organizations
4 General Secretaries of the CPC
5 Central Executive Committee
6 Election results
7 References
8 See also
9 External links
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History
[edit]
Origins
The Communist Party was organized with great secrecy in a barn near the city of Guelph, Ontario, on May 28 and 29, 1921. Many of its founding members 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. The party was founded as the Canadian section of the Comintern, and was thus similar to Communist parties around the world.
The party alternated between legality and illegality during the 1920s and 1930s. It was initially illegal, and created the "Workers' Party of Canada" in 1922 as its public face. The CPC was legalized in 1924, and the Workers' Party ceased to exist.
In 1922-24, the provincial wings of the WPC/CPC affiliated with the Canadian Labour Party, as part of a "united front" strategy against the capitalist parties. The CPC came to dominate the CLP organization in several regions of the country; 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.
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Expulsion of factions
From 1928 to the mid-1930s, supporters of Leon Trotsky, such as Maurice Spector, the editor of the party's paper The Worker and party chairman, were expelled. Jack MacDonald, who had supported Spector's expulsion, was removed as the party's general secretary for factionalism, and was ultimately expelled with the support of the majority of party members. MacDonald was also a Trotskyist and joined Spector in founding the International Left Opposition (Trotskyist) Canada, which was part of Trotsky's International Left Opposition. Also expelled were supporters of Nikolai Bukharin and Jay Lovestone's Right Opposition, such as William Moriarty. J.B. Salsberg was initially sympathetic to the Right Opposition but quickly recanted, allowing him to remain in the party.
Tim Buck replaced MacDonald as party general secretary in 1929, and remained in the position until 1962, steering a course of unswerving loyalty to the leaders of the USSR.
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Great Depression
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 1936.
Although the party was banned, affiliated groups such as the Workers' Unity League, 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". Party members were also active in the Congress of Industrial Organizations attempt to unionize the auto sector.
The party also mobilised the 1,500-man 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 work with the Communist Party of China.
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World War II
The Communist Party opposed Canada's entry into World War II until the 1941 invasion of the USSR and the collapse of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. During the Conscription Crisis of 1944, the CPC set up "Tim Buck 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 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.
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Labour-Progressive Party
The party was banned in 1941, and thereafter ran candidates as the Labour-Progressive Party until 1959. Several party members were elected at various levels:
Fred Rose was elected to represent a Montreal riding in the Canadian House of Commons as an LPP MP, and was removed from office after being convicted of spying for the Soviet Union
Mary Kardash and William Ross were LPP and then Communist school trustees in Winnipeg
Jacob Penner and Joseph Zuken were popular aldermen 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. Kardash and James Litterick were Manitoba LPP Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs).
A.A. MacLeod and J.B. Salsberg were LPP members of the Ontario legislature.
Stanley Brehaut Ryerson and Stewart Smith were LPP Toronto aldermen.
Harry Rankin sat on Vancouver's city council on behalf of the Committee of Progressive Electors which he helped found in the late 1960s. Though not officially a Communist Party member he was a fellow traveller.
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. Many ex-Communists joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and its successor, the New Democratic Party (NDP). Some joined the Liberals. In the mid 1960s the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 3500.[1] The Soviet Union's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia caused more people to leave the Canadian Communist Party.
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Collapse of the Soviet bloc and party split
In common with most communist parties, it went through a crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union, 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 [1] which only published twice.
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Reconstituted party
The renovated party, now with fewer than 1,000 members, was smaller than before the split and had lost a number of assets, including the party's headquarters at 24 Cecil Street in Toronto. The CPC was not in a position to run fifty (50) candidates in the 1993 federal election, the number required to maintain official party status. As a result, the newly-relaunched CPC was deregistered by Elections Canada, and its remaining assets were seized by the government. A prolonged legal battle, Figueroa v. Canada ensued, 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. 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.
The CPC publishes a fortnightly newspaper called People's Voice. and its Quebec section, le Parti communiste du Qubec, published Clart. The CPC also periodically publishes a theoretical/discussion journal Spark!. These publications and other information about the party is available on its site – [2].
The Communist Party is one of two federally registered Communist parties in Canada, the other is the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). The CPC-ML was founded in 1963 as the Internationalists, an anti-revisionist Maoist party rejecting the reforms of Nikita Khrushchev. Today, the CPC-ML is known during elections as the "Marxist-Leninist Party".
The CPC is active in several trade unions, in the civic reform movement, and in a number of social justice, anti-war and international solidarity groups and coalitions. The Party is also working to help refound the Young Communist League of Canada. Local YCL groups have sprung up in several centres across the country, and a refounding convention of the pan-Canadian YCL happened in March 2007.
[edit]
2005 split
In 2005, the Parti communiste du Qubec split into two rival groups, both of which claim to represent the party. The national committee of one group, led by Andr Parizeau, voted unanimously to separate from the CPC in June 2005. His opponents reject the validity of this vote, claiming that Parizeau had expelled 4 of the 6 members of the national committee who would vote against separating. The Communist Party of Canada had previously expelled Parizeau, and does not recognize the legality of his group.
The 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 CPC program "Canada's Future is Socialism". According to a letter from Ontario leader Elizabeth Rowley, these amendments called on the party to expand its support for Quebec nationalism.
The Communist Party of Canada, according to a 2005 release, supports the right of "national self-determination, up to and including separation". It does not 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, Qubec, and English-speaking Canada". Many in the national party executive considered Parizeau's amendments as reflecting a narrower view of Quebec nationalism.
Parizeau's amendments were rejected by the Central Executive Committee by a vote of 7-1; Parizeau himself was the only member to vote in favour. The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Quebec Party also rejected Parizeau's amendments by a vote of 4-2.
In January 2005, Parizeau wrote a letter to PCQ members declaring that the party was in crisis. Describing the four NEC members who opposed his amendments as a "Gang of Four" and a pro-federalist faction, he summarily dismissed them from office. In turn, Parizeau's opponents called for the CPC to suspend him from office pending an investigation into his activities.
This controversy came to a head at the PCQ convention of April 2005. After delegates voted 16-14 to expel one of the four suspended NEC members, Parizeau's opponents staged a mass walkout from the convention hall. The seventeen delegates who stayed voted to establish a new National Committee and Executive, consisting entirely of Parizeau's supporters.
On April 27, 2005, the Central Executive of the CPC voted to expel Parizeau for "factional activity and the pursuit of a right opportunist line", declared that the expulsions from the PCQ were illegal, and affirmed the authority of the previous National Executive Committee. This decision was confirmed by the party's Central Committee at a meeting held on June 18-19, 2005.
Parizeau's group published a letter of withdrawal from the CPC on June 15, 2005. In this letter, the CPC was accused of holding "des ides chauvines vis--vis du Qubec" (chauvinistic ideas relative to Quebec). The CPC has rejected similar accusations from Parizeau in the past, and now holds the position that Parizeau's group has no legal authority to use the PCQ name. Parizeau's opponents in the PCQ have remained active in Quebec, participating in the province's May Day parades and starting a new periodical, entitled Clart. Parizeau's group publishes a separate newspaper called La voix du peuple. The electoral authorities of Quebec have recognized Parizeau's group as the legal owners of the PCQ name.[2]
The CPC's account of this situation is available online [3]), as is the June 2005 letter from Parizeau's PCQ group ([4]) ([5][6]).
[edit]
Recent developments
The CPC held its 35th Central Convention on February 1-4, 2007 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.
[edit]
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, the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians (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 Polish People's Association (formerly the Polish Labor Farmer Temple Association), the Serbian People's Movement and Croatian Cultural Association (formerly the Jugoslav Workers' Clubs) and the Carpatho-Russian Society. 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.
[edit]
General Secretaries of the CPC
Tom Burpee 1921
William Moriarty 1921-1923
Jack MacDonald1923-1929
Tim Buck 1929-1962
Leslie Morris 1962-1964
William Kashtan 1965-1988
George Hewison 1988-1992
Miguel Figueroa since 1992
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Central Executive Committee
The Communist Party of Canada's 35th convention held in February 2007 elected the following members to its leading body, the Central Executive Committee: Miguel Figueroa (Party leader), Elizabeth Rowley (leader of the Communist Party of Ontario), Pierre Fontaine (President of the Parti communiste du Qubec), Darrell Rankin (leader of the Communist Party of Canada - Manitoba), George Gidora, leader of British Columbia Communist Party, Sam Hammond, Chair of the Trade Union Commission of the 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.
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Election resultsCommunist Parties
Africa[show]
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Europe[show]
Middle East[show]
Related topics[show]
v • d • e
Election # of candidates nominated # of seats won # of total votes % of popular vote
1930 6 0 4,557 0.12%
1935 13 0 27,456 0.46%
19401 9 0 14,005 0.36%
19452 68 1 111,892 2.13%
19492 17 0 32,623 0.56%
19532 100 0 59,622 1.06%
19572 10 0 7,760 0.12%
19582 18 0 9,769 0.13%
1962 12 0 6,360 0.08%
1963 12 0 4,234 0.05%
1965 12 0 4,285 0.06%
1968 14 0 4,465 0.05%
19723 n.a n.a. n.a. n.a.
1974 69 0 12,100 0.13%
1979 71 0 9,141 0.08%
1980 52 0 6,022 0.06%
1984 52 0 7,551 0.06%
1988 51 0 7,066 0.05%
19934 n.a n.a. n.a. n.a.
19974 n.a n.a. n.a. n.a.
2000 52 0 8,779 0.07%
2004 35 0 4,564 0.03%
2006 21 0 3,022 0.02%
2008 24 0 3,639 0.03%
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.
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Communist Party of Quebec
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)
Parti communiste du Qubec
Leader Francis Gagnon-Bergmann
President Guy Roy
Founded 1921
Headquarters Casier postal 482 Succursale Place-d'Armes Montral (Qubec) H2Y 3H3
Ideology Communism,
Quebec sovereigntism
Official colours Red
Seats in the House of Commons 0
Website
http://www.pcq.qc.caThe Parti communiste du Qubec or PCQ (in English: Communist Party of Quebec) is a communist political party in Quebec. The PCQ was the Quebec branch of the Communist Party of Canada until 2005 when the PCQ split at convention with a majority opposing the CPC's stance on Quebec independence. The name "Parti communiste du Qubec" is now officially authorized by the DGEQ as the name of a political party led by Francis Gagnon-Bergmann.
The PCQ has run candidates in Quebec general elections from 1936 to 1998. The party was banned in 1941, and henceforth ran candidates as the Parti ouvrier-progressiste (in English: Labour Progressive Party) until 1959.
In 2002, the PCQ joined in a federation with the Rassemblement pour l'alternative progressiste and the Parti de la dmocratie socialiste to form the Union des forces progressistes, which in turn merged with Option Citoyenne to form Qubec Solidaire.Contents [hide]
1 2007 Provincial elections
2 2005 split
3 2006
4 See also
5 External links
[edit]
2007 Provincial elections
In 2007 the Parti communiste du Qubec decided not to run candidates in the provincial election and rather to support those of Quebec Solidaire. It should be specified that the PCQ was one of the party-founders of the UFP, interdependent ancestor of Quebec Solidaire. The party decided to remain active only in order to prevent that a new political formation takes its name, putting thus fine at the efforts to link the Quebec left. The president of the party, Andr Parizeau Francis Gagnon-Bergmann member of the Executive committee and Jocelyn Parent, were candidate for Quebec Solidaire in the district of Acadie Blainville and Mirabel. All the members of the PCQ are working in the Quebec Solidaire party.
[edit]
2005 split
In 2005, the Parti communiste du Qubec split into two rival groups, both of which claimed the name PCQ. The national committee (NC) of one group, led by Andr Parizeau, voted unanimously to expelled four members of the (NC) from the PCQ in June 2005. The Communist Party of Canada had previously expelled Parizeau, and does not recognize the legality of his group or his motion, stating that Parizeau had first expelled the members who would not vote in favour of his motion. As a result, Parizeau labeled group the Gang Of Four (after the struggles in the Chinese Communist Party after Mao's death). This group stayed loyal the Communist Party of Canada and its Quebec section also calls itslef the CPQ/CPC.
The 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 CPC program "Canada's Future is Socialism". According to a letter from Ontario leader Elizabeth Rowley, these amendments called on the party to expand its support for Quebec Independence.
Parizeau's amendments were rejected by the Central Executive Committee by a vote of 7-1; Parizeau himself was the only member to vote in favour. The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Quebec Party also rejected Parizeau's amendments by a vote of 4-2.
In January 2005, Parizeau wrote a letter to PCQ members declaring that the party was in crisis. Describing the four NEC members who opposed his amendments as a Gang Of Four and a pro-federalist faction, he summarily dismissed them from office. In turn, Parizeau's opponents called for the CPC to suspend him from office pending an investigation into his activities.
This controversy came to a head at the PCQ convention of April 2005. After delegates voted 16-14 to expel one of the four suspended NEC members, Parizeau's opponents staged a mass walkout from the convention hall. The seventeen delegates who stayed voted to establish a new National Committee and Executive, consisting entirely of Parizeau's supporters.
On April 27, 2005, the Central Executive of the CPC voted to expel Parizeau for "factional activity and the pursuit of a right opportunist line", declared that the expulsions from the PCQ were illegal, and affirmed the authority of the previous National Executive Committee. This decision was confirmed by the party's Central Committee at a meeting held on June 18-19, 2005.
Parizeau's group published a letter of withdrawal from the CPC on June 15, 2005. In this letter, the CPC was accused of holding "des ides chauvines vis--vis du Qubec". The CPC has rejected similar accusations from Parizeau in the past, and now holds the position that Parizeau's group has no legal authority to use the PCQ name.
The PCQ account of this situation is available online ([1]).
[edit]
2006
The official Directeur gnral des lections du Qubec recognizes the existence of a Parti communiste du Qubec with leader Andr Parizeau, authorized April 3, 2006. [2] This party did not run any candidates in the 2007 Quebec election.
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Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
Leader Sandra L. Smith
President Sandra L. Smith
Founded March 31, 1970
Headquarters 1867 Amherst Street,
Montreal, Quebec
H2L 3L7
Ideology Communism
Marxist-Leninism
Official colours Red, Yellow
Website
http://www.mlpc.ca/The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) (CPC-ML) is a Canadian federal Marxist-Leninist political party. It is not to be confused with the Communist Party of Canada.
The party is registered with Elections Canada as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. Elections Canada, the agency which oversees elections and political parties, claimed that, in order to avoid confusion among voters, it could not allow political parties to register with similar names. In this case, Elections Canada argues that allowing the party to use its preferred name could cause confusion with the Communist Party of Canada — a decision opposed by the CPC-ML.Contents [hide]
1 History and ideology
2 Current position
3 Electoral results
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
[edit]
History and ideology
Hardial Bains founded the Internationalists at the University of British Columbia on March 13, 1963.[1] Bains had sided with the People's Republic of China in the emerging Sino-Soviet split, a view contrary to that of the Communist Party of Canada, and on that basis decided to work towards the formation of an anti-revisionist Party in Canada.
The Internationalists were initially a Maoist student group but, as a result of their growth, they declared themselves a formal political party on March 31, 1970, and adopted the name "Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)".
The party first ran candidates for the Canadian House of Commons during the 1974 federal election but has had to run them as candidates of the "Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada" after Elections Canada ruled that the party's preferred name was too close to that of the Communist Party of Canada. However, the party continues to call itself the CPC-ML outside of its federal electoral activities.
The ideological trajectory of CPC-ML changed from Maoism and support for the People's Republic of China against what it saw as the revisionist (or Khrushchevite) Soviet Union, to later siding with Albania during the Sino-Albanian split that came two years after the death of Mao Zedong. CPC-ML reoriented itself as an anti-revisionist party upholding the legacy of Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour of Albania until the collapse of the Communist Albania in 1992.
During the 1980s, the CPC-ML adopted a slogan of "We are our own models" and began to seek a new ideological approach. Because of differences in theory, the CPC and CPC-ML have never united as one party.
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Current position
Today, the CPC-ML tends to be supportive of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's right to self-determination, although it does not promote Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong-il or Juche in the manner that it promoted Hoxha and Mao in previous years. The CPC-ML has developed a more independent line since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, prior to which it had a very stridently anti-revisionist position, viewing the Soviet bloc as state capitalist[citation needed] and equivalent to the western bloc.[citation needed] Bains visited Cuba several times in the 1990s which led him (and the CPC-ML) to revise his earlier views of Cuba as revisionist. The CPC-ML has become strongly supportive of Cuba and the Cuban Revolution and now has close relations with the Cuban Embassy in Ottawa and prints the English language edition of the Cuban Communist Party's newspaper, Granma, for Canadian distribution.
On January 1, 1995, the party put forward a broad program of work for the current period, which it has named the Historic Initiative. This was further elaborated during its Seventh Congress.
From 1997 to 2008, the party's leader was Bains' widow, Sandra L. Smith. Smith has never run as a candidate in a general election despite being the party's leader. In 2008, Anna Di Carlo became the party leader.
CPC-ML members are active in several trade unions, particularly the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the United Steelworkers of America whose important Stelco local (Local 1005) in Hamilton, Ontario is led by Rolf Gerstenberger, a party member. Local 1005 is one of several USWA locals at Stelco. USWA officials rely on other Stelco local officials to act as official spokespeople for the union in its dealings with the company and the courts, effectively isolating Gerstenberger.[citation needed] However, Gerstenberger has received support from Carolyn Egan[citation needed] president of USWA Local 8300, based in Toronto, and of the Steelworkers Toronto Area Council. CPC-ML has also been active in the movement against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The party, if elected, would establish a Citizen's Committee for Democratic Renewal, or CCDR, that would nominate candidates for federal office. This would remove the process from the control of each political party's riding association, and establish what they see as a more equitable approach to the issue of democracy.
In recent years the party has adopted its own "Contemporary Marxist-Leninist Thought". Its Eighth Party Congress was to be held in 2005 with the theme ""Laying the Foundations for the Mass Communist Party"[1], but the congress was delayed due to the Federal Election[2]. The congress was held in September 2008.
The CPC-ML has a news-sheet, The Marxist-Leninist Daily, a youth wing, the Communist Youth Union of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and also operates the "Workers Centre" which helps educate and organize trade unionists through discussion groups, and a magazine, Worker's Forum. The party often conducts broader political activity under the name "People's Front" and uses that name for the British Columbia provincial wing of the party. (see People's Front (British Columbia). In Ontario provincial elections, CPC-ML supporters have most recently run as Independent Renewal candidates.
[edit]
Electoral results
The party has run candidates in Canadian federal elections since 1972, with the number of candidates in any one election ranging from as few as 51 and as many as 177. Most of its candidates have run in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It was most prominent in the 1979 federal election and 1980 federal election, running under the slogan "Make the rich pay".
Its slogan in the 2004 federal election was "Annexation no! Sovereignty yes!"Election # of candidates nominated # of seats won # of total votes % of popular vote % in ridings contested
1974 104 0 16,261 0.17% ?
1979 144 0 14,231 0.12% ?
1980 177 0 14,697 0.13% ?
1993 51 0 5,202 0.04% 0.22%
1997 65 0 11,468 0.09% 0.40%
2000 84 0 12,081 0.09% 0.32%
2004 76 0 9,065 0.07% 0.25%
2006 69 0 11,163 0.08% 0.26%
2008 59 0 8,747 0.06% 0.31%
The party also nominated candidates in several by-elections:
September 8, 1980 - 0 elected
Hamilton West - 30 960 total votes - 120 votes received - 0.39%
February 13, 1995 - 0 elected
Ottawa—Vanier - 19 843 total votes - 61 votes received - 0.3%
Saint-Henri—Westmount - 16 697 total votes - 47 votes received - 0.28%
September 14, 1998 - 0 elected
Sherbrooke - 36 446 total votes - 72 votes received - 0.19%