A giant in municipal politics, New Democratic Party (NDP) city councillor Jack Layton could get 'Snoopy' elected.
Riding on Layton's back in November municipal elections, Paula Elizabeth Fletcher was elected trustee on the Toronto Board of Education. Fletcher is the former leader of the Communist Party of Manitoba, where she served from 1981 to 1986 before returning to Toronto for "family reasons" (Canadian Tribune, 9/22/86-p2.)
Layton's prolific "Back Jack" municipal election signs prominently displayed Fletcher's photograph over the banner, "Paula Fletcher For Toronto School board". While Fletcher was unsuccessful in her bid to win a seat on the Winnipeg School Board in 1980, and was defeated by voters when she ran under the Communist Party of Canada's (CPC's) flag federally in Winnipeg North Centre, she was handily elected to the Toronto School board on Layton's coattails.
On her return to Toronto from out west, Fletcher became an organizer for the National Action Committee on the Status of Women; served on the Central Executive Committee of the CPC, and was a representative of the CPC on the 14-member Coordinating Committee of the Toronto Disarmament Network.
On the municipal front, Fletcher served as Executive Assistant to the late city Councillor Dan Leckie until he decided not to run in 1997. She then worked for Layton before achieving public office on her election to the school board last November.
Layton is married to former Toronto board trustee Olivia Chow, who is being groomed to take a run at the 2003 Toronto mayoralty.
Fletcher is married to John Cartwright, Business Agent of the Carpenters Union, who also has a long history with the CPC.
Known for the past three years as a committed environmentalist and sustainability advocate, Cartwright is a member of Toronto's 2008 Olympic bid committee, and a member of the Toronto Economic Development Corp.
(TEDCO). Earlier this month Cartwright was in Switzerland, where he, fellow Olympic bid member Sandra Levy and an OPP officer accompanied copies of a 300 pages long book, detailing Toronto's state-of-the-art sporting facilities for presentation to International Olympic Committee officials.
A director of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre Corp. from June 1993 to April 1996, Cartwright has also been a board member of the Centre since 1993.
In 1989, he became a member of the Central Committee of the CPC, and also an elected executive member of the Metro Toronto Labour Council as a representative of the Carpenters Union. Cartwright acted as chair of the Resolutions Committee of the Communist Party Metro Convention in March 1991.
In 1995, Cartwright and Fletcher owned three small multiple-dwelling houses in Toronto--two of which were rented out to well-known labour activists.
In November civic elections, Layton ran for re-election against several candidates, including Environment Watch owner Linda Lynch. Lynch, who stepped into the fray only one month before election day, garnered almost half of Layton's vote tally, in a race that saw Layton's plurality plunge to the lowest it's been for the past 15 years.
"For me the next election started the day after election and I'll be there to take him on and win next time," Lynch told Toronto Free Press. In addition to sharing his election signage space, Fletcher also shared Layton's brochures. No mention was made of her love affair with the Communist Party.
The local NDP has always found fertile ground at the municipal level of government. Public apathy in municipal elections paves the way for NDP control. School board elections, which were always in the bottom drawer, draw even less interest from candidates since Premier Mike Harris curtailed the traditional trustee salary to $5,000. Even though school board trustees must deal with a bigger budget and the complications of public education, they are paid tens of thousands of dollars less than their city hall councillor counterparts.
The arrival of Fletcher at the local school board will go a long way to help the NDP, which is trying to regain a toehold in municipal politics through education.
While major media outlets are trained on city hall, where the NDP is grooming Olivia Chow for the 2003 mayoral race, gains on the party's toehold at the school board are largely overlooked.
In the mid-80s' the NDP had a stranglehold at the Toronto Board of Education. According to freelance writers currently covering education, former NDP guru George Martell, Marxist activist and York University professor and flamboyant former board chair Bob Spencer are again active, after a long lapse, in school board politics.
As guru, it was Martell, who made NDP trustees voting en bloc at school board meetings, a matter of entrenched policy.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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