Elizabeth Rowley

Elizabeth (Liz) Rowley is a politician and political activist in Ontario, Canada. She is the current leader of the Communist Party of Ontario and a leading member of the Communist Party of Canada, and has campaigned for office many times at both the federal and provincial levels.

She attended university in Alberta and was active with the Young Communist League of Canada. She subsequently moved to Ontario, and worked as a typesetter apprentice and secretary.

Rowley was a school trustee in the former Toronto borough of East York during the 1990s. She is strongly opposed to free trade agreements that she believes threaten public services, is a promoter of public education and medicare, and has promoted civil rights and labour causes. She has worked as a columnist for the "People's Voice", a Communist Party newspaper, and has written several articles on public resistance.

During the Communist Party's internal dispute on dissolution following the fall of the Soviet bloc, Rowley was a leader of the minority opposed to then-leader George Hewison's proposals to abandon Marxism-Leninism as an ideology. Rowley and other leaders in the minority such as William Kashtan and Miguel Figueroa were expelled from the party and sued. As a result of a legal settlement, the assets of the party were split in half and the name of the party was relinquished to the minority, while the majority reorganized itself as the Cecil-Ross Society, an educational foundation.

In 2001, she was elected to the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada, and replaced Hassan Husseini as leader of the Ontario Communist Party around the same time. This is Rowley's second tenure as leader; she also led the Ontario Communist Party in the 1990 general election.

Electoral record references

*Canadian federal election, 1972, Edmonton—Strathcona, 152 votes (winner: Douglas Roche, Progressive Conservative (note: Rowley, still a student at the time of this election, ran as an independent candidate)
*Canadian federal election, 1974, Windsor—Walkerville, 165 votes (winner: Mark MacGuigan, Liberal
*Canadian federal election, 1979, Hamilton Mountain, 102 votes (winner: Duncan Beattie, Progressive Conservative
*Canadian federal election, 1980, Hamilton Mountain, 65 votes (winner: Ian Deans, New Democratic Party)
*Ontario general election, 1981, Hamilton West, 260 votes (winner: Stuart Smith, Liberal)
*Canadian federal election, 1984, Hamilton East, 87 votes (winner: Sheila Copps, Liberal)
*Canadian federal election, 1988, Hamilton East, 133 votes (winner: Sheila Copps, Liberal)
*Ontario general election, 1990, Oakwood, 197 votes (winner: Tony Rizzo, New Democratic Party)
*Canadian federal election, 1993, Broadview—Greenwood, 151 votes (winner: Dennis Mills, Liberal) (note: Rowley ran as an independent in this election, as the Communist Party of Canada was not recognized as an official party)
*Ontario general election, 1999, Don Valley East, 91 votes (winner: David Caplan, Liberal)
*Canadian federal election, 2000, Etobicoke North, 347 votes (winner: Roy Cullen, Liberal)
*Ontario general election, 2003, Scarborough Centre, 241 votes (winner: Brad Duguid, Liberal)
*Canadian federal election, 2004, Scarborough Southwest, 168 votes (winner: Tom Wappel, Liberal)
*Canadian federal election, 2006, Scarborough Southwest, 120 votes (0.29%) (winner: Tom Wappel, Liberal)