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Leslie Morris

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Leslie Morris
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Canada
In office
1962–1964
Preceded byTim Buck
Succeeded byWilliam Kashtan
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Ontario
In office
1945–1948
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byA.A. MacLeod
Personal details
Born
Leslie Tom Morris

(1904-10-10)October 10, 1904
Somerset, England
DiedNovember 13, 1964(1964-11-13) (aged 60)
Cause of deathCancer[1]
Political partyCommunist Party of Canada
Other political
affiliations
Labor-Progressive Party (1943–1959)
Communist Party of Ontario
Communist Party of Manitoba
OccupationPolitician

Leslie Tom Morris (October 10, 1904 – November 13, 1964) was a Welsh-Canadian politician, journalist and longtime member of the Communist Party of Canada and, its front group, the Labor-Progressive Party. He was leader of the Ontario Labor-Progressive Party in the 1940s and general secretary of the Communist Party of Canada from 1962 until his death in 1964.[2]

Life and career

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Morris was born in Somerset, England, to a Welsh working-class family. He and his family immigrated to Canada in 1910. Morris returned to the UK in 1917 and lived in Wales and England while working in the steel, coal mining and railway industries. He returned to Canada in time to join the Communist Party of Canada at its founding convention held December 1921 in Guelph, Ontario.

He became a prominent figure in the party first as secretary of the Young Communist League of Canada from 1923 to 1924, and then as editor over the years of various Communist newspapers including The Worker, Daily Clarion, Daily Tribune and Canadian Tribune.

Morris supported Tim Buck and the supporters of Joseph Stalin in the party during the factional struggles and purges of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

He was a candidate for the House of Commons of Canada on several occasions, but never elected:

Morris also campaigned unsuccessfully for provincial office. In the Manitoba provincial election of 1932, he ran in the city of Winnipeg as a "United Front Workers" candidate (the Communist Party being under legal proscription at the time). At the time, the provincial constituency of Winnipeg elected ten members by the single transferable ballot system. Morris finished eighth on the first count, and came within 309 votes of winning the tenth seat on the final count. Had he won, he would have been the first Communist elected to a provincial legislature in Canada. Litterick would be elected in 1936 setting that record.)

Morris was a popular stump speaker for the party and toured the country speaking to left wing and labour audiences. From 1954 until 1957, he was the national organizer of the Labor-Progressive Party (as the Communist Party had been known since 1943) and, in 1962, he succeeded Tim Buck as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Canada (as it was again known) and held the position until his death two years later.

Electoral record

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1963 Canadian federal election: Trinity
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Paul Hellyer 10,595 53.87 +6.85
Progressive Conservative John Wasylenko 5,171 26.29 +3.66
New Democratic Thomas Paton 3,512 17.86 -0.43
Communist Leslie Morris 391 1.99 -0.21
Total valid votes 19,669
1962 Canadian federal election: Trinity
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Paul Hellyer 9,615 47.02 +3.13
Progressive Conservative Stanley Frolick 6,124 29.95 -7.40
New Democratic Thomas Paton 3,740 18.29 +3.67
Communist Leslie Morris 449 2.20 -1.94
Independent Peter D'Agostino 295 1.44
Social Credit David E. Hartman 227 1.11
Total valid votes 20,450
1958 Canadian federal election: York South
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Progressive Conservative William George Beech 22,980 49.47 +9.44
Liberal Marvin Gelber 13,141 28.29 -1.16
Co-operative Commonwealth Bill Sefton 9,643 20.76 -8.19
Labor–Progressive Leslie Morris 427 0.92
Social Credit Harvey Jamieson 258 0.56 -1.01
Total valid votes 46,449
Canadian federal by-election, September 8, 1954: York West
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Progressive Conservative John B. Hamilton 12,228 45.3 +3.8
Liberal Robert M. Campbell 9,768 36.2 +1.4
Co-operative Commonwealth Bruce William Evans 4,711 17.5 -4.8
Labor–Progressive Leslie Tom Morris 282 1.0 -0.4
Total valid votes 26,989
1940 Canadian federal election: Winnipeg North
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Charles Stephen Booth 13,015 40.9 +11.6
Co-operative Commonwealth Abraham Albert Heaps 11,249 35.3 -6.8
Communist Leslie Tom Morris 5,315 16.7 -8.7
National Government Percy Ellor 2,255 7.1
Total valid votes 31,834
1932 Manitoba General Election: Winnipeg
10 to be elected by Single Transferable Vote
Party Candidate First Count Status
Conservative William Sanford Evans 13,507 Elected
Independent Labour Party John Queen 9,302 Elected
Liberal-Progressive William James Major 5,940 Elected
Independent Labour Party Seymour Farmer 5,053 Elected
Conservative John Thomas Haig 4,432 Elected
Liberal John Stewart McDiarmid 3,540 Elected
Conservative Huntly Ketchen 3,530 Elected
United Front Leslie Morris 3,455 Eliminated on the 24th count
Independent Labour Party Marcus Hyman 3,366 Elected
Liberal Ralph Maybank 2,945 Elected
Independent Ukrainian C. Andrusyshen 2,693 Eliminated on the 21st count
Independent Labour Party William Ivens 2,262 Elected
Conservative William V. Tobias 1,991 Eliminated on the 20th count
Conservative R.W.B. Swail 1,951 Eliminated on the 22nd count
Liberal Edward William Montgomery 1,614 Eliminated on the 19th count
Independent Labour Jessie MacLennan 1,600 Eliminated on the 17th count
Conservative James Alexander Barry 1,549 Eliminated on the 24th count
Independent F.W. Russell 1,339 Eliminated on the 16th count
United Front Jacob Penner 1,106 Eliminated on the 13th count
Independent Labour Party V.B. Anderson 1,061 Eliminated on the 15th count
Independent Labour Party Beatrice Brigden 894 Eliminated on the 11th count
Socialist Party of Manitoba George Armstrong 848 Eliminated on the 10th count
Liberal H.P.A. Hermanson 688 Eliminated on the 14th count
Liberal Duncan Cameron 597 Eliminated on the 8th count
Liberal John Y. Reid 588 Eliminated on 9th count
Liberal Clarence G. Keith 548 Eliminated on 7th count
Conservative D.M. Elcheshen 314 Eliminated on 5th count
Liberal W.J. Fulton 182 Eliminated on 4th count
Independent Thomas Gargan 82 Eliminated on 4th count

References

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  1. ^ Boyd, John. "A Noble Cause Betrayed ... but Hope Lives On". socialisthistory.ca. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
  2. ^ Leslie Morris (1970). Look on Canada, now ...: selected writings of Leslie Morris, 1923/1964. Progress Books. ISBN 9780919396135.