Communist Party of Canada (Ontario)


The Communist Party of Canada is the Ontario provincial wing of the Communist Party of Canada. Using the name Labor-Progressive Party from 1943 until 1959, the group won two seats in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario: A.A. MacLeod and J.B. Salsberg were elected in the 1943 provincial election as "Labour" candidates but took their seats as members of the Labor-Progressive Party, which the banned Communist Party launched as its public face in a convention held on August 21 and 22, 1943, shortly after both the August 4th provincial election and the August 7th election of Communist Fred Rose to the House of Commons in a Montreal by-election.
MacLeod and Salsberg served as Members of Provincial Parliament from 1943 until 1951 and 1955 respectively. The party has not been able to win any seats at the provincial level since then. The party continued to run under the Labor-Progressive banner up to the 1959 provincial election, after which it again identified itself as the Communist Party.
Individual members of the party have been elected to school boards in the past few decades, but have done so as independents rather than as "Communist Party" candidates. Since 2019, the party has been led by Drew Garvie.

Election results

Year of electionLeader# of candidates# of seats won# of votes% of popular vote
1943n/a1n/an/a
1945Leslie Morris2n/a2.4%
1948A. A. MacLeodn/a1.0%
1951Stewart Smithn/an/a
1955Stewart Smithn/an/a
1959Bruce Magnusonn/an/a
1963Bruce Magnusonn/an/a
1967Bruce Magnusonn/an/a
1971William Stewartn/an/a
1975William Stewartn/an/a
1977William Stewart7,9950.24%
1981Mel Doig5,2960.16%
1985Gordon Massie3,6960.1%
1987Gordon Massie3,4220.09%
1990Elizabeth Rowley1,1390.03%
1995Darrell Rankin1,0150.03%
1999Hassan Husseini8140.02%
2003Elizabeth Rowley2,1870.05%
2007Elizabeth Rowley1,7150.04%
2011Elizabeth Rowley1,1630.03%
2014Elizabeth Rowley2,2900.04%
2018Dave McKee1,4710.03%

Source: Elections Ontario Vote Summary
Notes
1Ran under the label "Labour" or "Socialist-Labour"
2In addition, in 1945, the Labor-Progressive Party and Liberal Party of Ontario jointly endorsed 6 Liberal-Labour, 3 of whom were elected, in an effort to marginalize the CCF.

Party leaders

The party has three constituency associations registered with Elections Ontario:
Source: Elections Ontario, Yearly Financial Statements, Political Parties, Constituency Associations