Leader
Miguel Figueroa is the leader of the Communist Party of Canada. Miguel was first elected leader in December 1992 at the 30th Party Convention, and has been subsequently re-elected to that office ever since, including the most recent 35th Convention (January 2007).
Miguel has been a CPC member since 1977, and has served in various capacities, including Greater Vancouver party organizer (1978-85), and Atlantic Party leader (based in Halifax) from 1986-92.
Over the years, Miguel has also been active in various mass activities in such fields as peace and disarmament, international solidarity, and union organizing. While in Halifax, he chaired the Union Organizing Drive Committee which ultimately brought over 800 part-time sessional professors and teaching assistants at Dalhousie University into CUPE.
Miguel became Party leader at a critical point in the history of the CPC, immediately following the crisis and collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, and on the heels of a serious internal crisis and split within the Canadian party itself.
For the first several years of his leadership, Mr. Figueroa paid primary attention to consolidating and rebuilding the CPC across the country. During this period, the Communist Party re-established its presence in Quebec and throughout most of English-speaking Canada, rebuilt the communist press in both English and French, and elaborated a new political program for the CPC, Canada's Future is Socialism!, adopted at the 33rd Central Convention in 2001.
Miguel also led the Party's legal and political battle against anti-democratic aspects of the Canada Elections Act, sections which unfairly discriminate against smaller political parties in Canada. The history-making case (Figueroa v. Attorney-General of Canada) resulted in the courts declaring several sections of the Elections Act unconstitutional, including a precedent-setting judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in June 2003 which struck down the 50-candiate rule as the threshold for federal party registration in Canada.
Miguel is 56 years old, married with a school age daughter, and resides in Toronto.
