Elizabeth Rowley Canadian politician Date of Birth: 01.01.1949 Country: Canada

1. Early Life and Activism
2. Local Party Leadership
3. Threats and Challenges
4. Preserving the Party
5. First Secretary of the Ontario Branch
6. Political Activism and Advocacy
7. General Secretary of the Party
8. Personal Life

Early Life and Activism

Born in British Columbia in 1949, Elizabeth Rowley attended the University of Alberta in Edmonton and became an active member of the Young Communist League of Canada. She joined the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) in 1967.

As a young activist, Rowley campaigned against the War Measures Act during the October Crisis in 1970. She also ran as the party's youngest candidate in the 1972 federal election, advocating for issues such as women's reproductive rights, the legalization of abortion, and an end to the Vietnam War and Canada's involvement in it.

Local Party Leadership

After traveling the country and spending time in Quebec, Rowley settled in Southern Ontario. In Windsor, she became a student bursary worker and office administrator, eventually rising to become the local party leader. In 1975, she was elected Ontario First Secretary and moved to Hamilton. There, she actively engaged with labor unions, advocating for jobs, living standards, workers' rights, women's equality, social programs, and Canadian sovereignty.

Threats and Challenges

During a campaign against the Ku Klux Klan, Rowley's apartment was firebombed, and her car was bombed in the following year. In 1978, she unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Hamilton Board of Control. During the campaign, Rowley instructed the city to remove her election signs from municipal property as their placement violated local bylaws.

Preserving the Party

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Rowley was one of the first activists expelled from the party by General Secretary George Hewison, who proposed abandoning Marxism-Leninism and turning the CPC into a broad-based organization. Along with former party secretaries William Kashtan, Miguel Figueroa, Kimimila Cariou, and others, she played a crucial role in the early 1990s fight to preserve the CPC.

Reinstated to the party, Rowley helped the Leninist faction prevail in court. The legal battle resulted in the party being split in half, with the Leninist faction retaining the party's name and losing over 15 percent of its members. In 1991, the CPC held its 30th Central Conference, where Rowley was once again elected to party leadership. Years later, the party initiated another legal battle to preserve its status as a registered political party after being deregistered in 1993.

First Secretary of the Ontario Branch

Relocating to Ontario in 1988, Rowley was elected as leader of the CPC's Ontario branch, becoming one of the first women to lead a political party in the province. She led the party's Ontario Committee in campaigns against free trade and in the 1990 general election.

Rowley consistently opposed NAFTA and other trade agreements, which she believed threatened public services, education, healthcare, civil rights, and labor rights. In the mid-1990s, she emerged as a strong leader at the regional level, opposing the Harris government's cuts in Ontario. Despite her CPC affiliation, Rowley was elected as a school trustee in Toronto's former East York borough, serving from 1994 to 1997 alongside fellow nonpartisan politicians Gayle Nyberg and Jane Pidford.

Political Activism and Advocacy

After her tenure as a school trustee, Rowley became a regular columnist for the People's Voice, a working-class newspaper self-described as a socialist publication. She has also written extensively on class struggle in Canada, with her articles translated into multiple languages and published worldwide.

General Secretary of the Party

Rowley was elected to lead the CPC's Central Committee at a convention in Toronto on January 30-31, 2016. The change in leadership followed the retirement of Miguel Figueroa, who stepped down due to declining health after leading the organization for 23 years. While not the first woman to serve in the party's leadership, she is the first female leader of the CPC.

In the spring of 2016, Rowley embarked on a 15-city tour of Canada, engaging with party members and supporters about the upcoming 38th Party Conference and the party's action plan.

Personal Life

In 1981, Rowley married Hamilton steelworker Stelko while on the picket line during a 125-day strike. She is the mother of two adult children and enjoys gardening at her home in Toronto's East York neighborhood in her spare time.