Fonds consists of National Office files; Convention and Central Committee files; Provincial files; Subject files; Trade union-labour files; Young Communist League; Printed material; Scrapbooks; Posters; Archives of Ontario records, 38 reels of microfilm. Fonds also consists of sound recordings of proceedings of meetings and conferences held by the Communist Party of Canada as well as speeches, talks and commentaries given by Tim Buck and other leaders of the Communist Party, 1950-[ca. 1976]. Also included is a 1945 film produced by the Communist Party of Canada entitled A better Canada. Photographs depict members and activities of the Communist Party of Canada, of the Labor Progressive Party, and of affiliate branches of these parties.
Microfilmed material is located on microfilm reels M-7376 to M-7413.
Communist Party of Canada : The Communist Party of Canada (CPC), a political party, was founded as an underground organization in 1921 when 22 delegates from the Socialist Party of Canada, the Social-Democratic Party of Canada, the Socialist Party of North America and other associations met in Guelph, Ontario. As their actions were limited by law, it was decided to hold another convention in 1922 to organize a legal party, the Workers' Party of Canada, which would then act on their behalf. The CPC remained an underground organization known to its members as "Z" and the Workers' Party as "A", until the 1924 convention when they dropped the name Workers' Party and officially became the Communist Party of Canada.
The Party has been declared illegal by the Government of Canada three times in its history. The first time was by the War Measures Act in 1918, and thus the use of the name Workers' Party until 1924. The second was in 1931 when the Bennett Government used Section 98 of the Criminal Code to outlaw the Party. The CPC remained underground until public pressure forced the Government to repeal Section 98 in 1936. The Party was outlawed a third time in 1940 under the Defence of Canada Regulations by an Order in Council (P.C. 2363). At that time it changed its name to the Labor-Progressive Party which it retained until 1959 when it returned to the CPC name.
The CPC has been associated with the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), the Canadian Labor Defence League (CLDL, which became the National Council of Democratic Rights in 1940), Canadian Friends of Soviet Russia, the Workers' Unity League, the Farmers Unity League and other organizations. The Young Workers' League held its first convention in 1923 and changed its name to the Young Communist League (YCL) in 1924. The YCL retained its name until it was temporarily disbanded in 1964 and was replaced by the National Youth Commission in 1965. In 1969 the YCL was reinstated.