Joe Young

Who is Joe Young?

Joe Young is a Canadian political activist. He is a prominent member of the Communist League, and a frequent contributor to its newspaper, The Militant. Young has campaigned for federal, provincial and municipal office in Ontario and British Columbia, although he has never come close to being elected.

Young has long been active in radical left politics. He was a member of the New Democratic Party's youth wing and the Young Socialists in the early 1960s, and led a successful campaign to allow high school students to form political clubs. He became chairman of the Student Association to End the War in Vietnam in the late 1960s, and called for the immediate withdrawal of soldiers from that country. Young has worked in the industrial sector in his adult life, and is an active member of Canada's labour movement.

He was an airline cleaner at Pearson International Airport, and a member of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in the early 1990s. He campaigned as the Communist League candidate in Parkdale for the 1990 provincial election, and called for the government to settle native land claims and pull Canadian soldiers out of the Persian Gulf. He was 43 years old at the time.