Hamilton Airport, the Upper Ottawa Street dump, and cutbacks to cultural funding. On election night, Rowley finished 6th out of 8 candidates with 13,320 votes. Fight to save the CPC During the Communist Party's internal dispute following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Rowley was one of the first activists expelled from the Party by General Secretary George Hewison after she vociferously opposed his proposals to abandon Marxism-Leninism as an ideology and liquidate the Communist Party of Canada into a broad-left formation. Along with former Party Secretary William Kashtan, Miguel Figueroa, Kimball Cariou and others, she was instrumental in the membership struggle to block attempts to dissolve the Communist Party of Canada during the early 1990s. Reinstated by the membership, Rowley helped lead an initiative to take Hewison's group to court, becoming the chief negotiator for the pro-Leninist side. The resulting legal settlement saw the assets of the party being split in half, with the Leninist group keeping the Party name. Over 15 per cent of the membership also left the Party during the split. The Communist Party held a new 30th Central Convention in 1991, at which Rowley was again elected to the party leadership. Within a few years, the party had begun another legal challenge, this time to maintain its identity as a registered political party. After the de-registration of the party in 1993, the Figueroa case was launched. Communist Party of Canada Ontario leader and school trustee Rowley moved to Toronto in 1988 after being elected leader of the Ontario Committee of the Communist Party, one of the first women leaders of an Ontario political party. She led the Ontario Committee of the Communist Party in a number of campaigns, including against the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, as well as the 1990 general election. For many years Rowley has strongly opposed the NAFTA and other trade agreements that she believes threaten public services, promoted public education and medicare, as well as civil rights and labour causes. During the mid-1990s Rowley became a powerful grassroots spokesperson against the cutbacks imposed by Mike Harris Conservative government in Ontario, including the Ontario Days of Action. Despite red-baiting, Rowley was elected school trustee in the former Toronto borough of East York for Ward 2. Rowley served along with fledgling politicians like Gail Nyberg and Jane Pitfield from 1994 to 1997, when the board was amalgamated. After her term as school