Norman Penner

Norman Penner (February 21, 1921 – April 16, 2009) was professor emeritus at York University, a writer and historian, a war veteran, and a former activist in the Communist Party of Canada and the Labor-Progressive Party who broke with the party as a result of the events of 1956.

Biography Penner was the son of Jacob Penner, a leading member of the Communist Party and popular Winnipeg alderman. He graduated from high school in 1937 and then worked from 1938 to 1941 as the full-time officer for the Winnipeg branch of the Communist Party.

He enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1941 and served overseas during World War II as a signalman. When he returned home in 1947, he became an organizer in Toronto for the Labor-Progressive Party as the Communist Party was then known.

He broke with the party in 1957 as a result of the Soviet invasion of Hungary and Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech the previous year, events which caused the disillusionment of many party members.

Penner was hired as a lecturer at York University's Glendon College in 1972 and soon became a professor and head of the political science department, continuing to teach until 1995. Vote % | Progressive Conservative William Beech

-| | Co-operative Commonwealth E.B. Jolliffe

-| | Liberal Robert Colucci

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