Wilbert Doneleyko

Wilbert Doneleyko (born 1913 in Rossburn, Manitoba) is a former politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1945 to 1949. Doneleyko was elected as a candidate of the social democratic Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), but was expelled from the party caucus a few years later.

Doneleyko was the son of a pioneer farmer, and himself worked as a farmer until 1937. He later became a warehouse manager for the Manitoba Co-op Honey Producers, Limited. In 1935, he was the organizer for the federal Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in the Marquette riding.

Doneleyko ran for the Canadian House of Commons in the 1945 federal election, but narrowly lost in the riding of Springfield to Liberal John Sinnott. A strong performance by Andrew Bileski of the communist Labour-Progressive Party contributed to Doneleyko's defeat.

He was elected to the Manitoba legislature a few months later in the 1945 provincial election, defeating Liberal-Progressive Nicholas Stryk by 220 votes in the St. Clements constituency. The CCF was the primary opposition party in Manitoba during this period, and Doneleyko served with his party on the opposition benches. He was appointed as a party organizer in 1946.

After the 1945 election, Doneleyko's constituency of St. Clements housed the second-largest CCF constituency association in the province outside of Winnipeg. The largest was in The Pas, which was represented by Beresford Richards.

Both Doneleyko and Richards were party mavericks on the left-wing of the CCF, and both criticized their party's support for American and Canadian foreign policies. In March 1949, Doneleyko described the Marshall Plan as a tool of American imperialism in Europe, and referred to discussions for a North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a plot to maintain capitalist hegemony.

These comments were opposed by national CCF leaders such as Stanley Knowles, although many rank-and-file members supported Doneleyko's position. He was soon forced to clarify that his remarks on the Marshall Plan and NATO were his personal opinion only, and were not party policy. Shortly thereafter, however, Richards and Doneleyko signed a letter which was sent to various CCF members, calling for the party to reject the Atlantic Treaty. Doneleyko also became a member of the Manitoba Peace Council, an organization linked to the Labour-Progressive Party.

The controversy came to a head at the party's 1949 provincial convention, which lasted from July 14 to July 16. Leading CCF figures such as Knowles and Donovan Swailes described Richards and Doneleyko as having adopted "the disruptive tactics of Communism to embarrass the CCF". Motions to expel both members were tabled, and were passed by a margin of 56 to 18. The following day, the convention voted to endorse the Atlantic Treaty.

Doneleyko continued to sit in the legislature as an independent, and ran for re-election in the 1949 provincial election as an "Independent CCF" candidate. Despite his expulsion, he convinced the CCF organization in St. Clements not to field a candidate against him. He also won the endorsement of Labour-Progressive Party. Despite this, he was resoundingly defeated by a returning Nicholas Stryk.

He did not play an active role in Manitoba politics after his defeat.