nominally led by George Hewison had formed the Cecil-Ross Society while those asserting to be the "Leninist core of the Party" retained the name of the CPC. The Cecil-Ross Society advocated the transformation of the CPC into a broad-left political organization. Until the time of their agreed separation, both sides attempted to direct the Party and its associated political and financial assets. The initial battles of the ideological dispute over the future of the Communist Party of Canada were quickly carried into the YCL. Here the Hewison group's effort attempted to wind-down the YCL and build a new organization known as "Rebel Youth". For example, the last leader of the YCL was Merle Terlesky of Toronto who took over after its leader Chris Frazer departed from the group after the League's fractions central convention in 1990. Terlesky, a queer-positive and pro-feminist young man who was active defending abortion clinics was recruited into the "reform" Hewison group. In the pre-convention discussion, Terlesky loudly supported the Gorbachev reforms internationally, and the transformation of the YCL into a non-Leninist, left-social democratic action group. Terlesky's leadership saw the closing of the central YCL office after he returned from a 3-month trip to the USSR in 1991. Seeing little interest across the country in carrying on any form of youth organization, he did little to rebuild after the divisive convention. When Terlesky spoke at a YCL-USA convention and informed them that the YCL Canada has given up on Marxist and Leninist ideals, it was not received well. For a short time Terlesky even attended meetings of the I.S. ( International Socialists) in Toronto after the YCL ended, and then quit the Toronto left scene entirely and returned to his home province of Alberta. Shortly after, Terlesky denounced his involvement in Communist politics, as well as his queer-positive and pro-feminist views and ironically became involved in the right-wing populist Reform Party of Canada, anti-abortion groups. Terlesky's leadership appeared to have marked a comic-tragic end to the Canada's organized communist youth. Meanwhile, in the eventual settlement, the party's Toronto office, within which the YCL central office was contained, the party's printing company, and much of the party's savings and went with the short-lived Cecil-Ross group. While some members joined the Cecil-Ross organization, many former YCLers simply left communist politics altogether. A smaller core group of former YCLers chose to stay with the CPC, putting most of their