The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) (CPC-ML) is a Canadian federal Marxist-Leninist political party. It is not to be confused with the Communist Party of Canada.
The party is registered with Elections Canada as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. Elections Canada, the agency which oversees elections and political parties, claimed that, in order to avoid confusion among voters, it could not allow political parties to register with similar names. In this case, Elections Canada argues that allowing the party to use its preferred name could cause confusion with the Communist Party of Canada — a decision opposed by the CPC-ML.

History and ideology
Today, the CPC-ML tends to be supportive of North Korea, although it does not promote Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong-il or Juche in the manner that it promoted Hoxha and Mao in previous years. The CPC-ML has developed a more independent line since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, prior to which it had a very stridently anti-revisionist position, viewing the Soviet bloc as state capitalist and equivalent to the western bloc. Bains visited Cuba several times in the 1990s which led him (and the CPC-ML) to revise his earlier views of Cuba as revisionist. The CPC-ML has become strongly supportive of Cuba and the Cuban Revolution and now has close relations with the Cuban Embassy in Ottawa and prints the English language edition of the Cuban Communist Party's newspaper, Granma, for Canadian distribution.
On January 1, 1995, the party put forward a broad program of work for the current period, which it has named the Historic Initiative. This was further elaborated during its Seventh Congress.
Since 1997, the party's leader has been Bains' widow, Sandra L. Smith. Unusually, Smith has never run as a candidate in a general election despite being the party's leader.
The CPC-ML is active in several trade unions, particularly the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the United Steelworkers of America whose important Stelco local (Local 1005) in Hamilton, Ontario is led by Rolf Gerstenberger, a party member. Local 1005 is one of several USWA locals at Stelco. USWA officials rely on other Stelco local officials to act as official spokespeople for the union in its dealings with the company and the courts, effectively isolating Gerstenberger. president of USWA Local 8300, based in Toronto, and of the Steelworkers Toronto Area Council. CPC-ML has also been active in the movement against the war in Iraq.
The party, if elected, would establish a Citizen's Committee for Democratic Renewal, or CCDR, that would nominate candidates for federal office. This would remove the process from the control of each political party's riding association, and establish what they see as a more equitable approach to the issue of democracy.
In recent years the party has become less doctrinaire, eschewing quotations from Mao, Stalin, Lenin or Hoxha in favour of what it calls "Contemporary Marxist-Leninist Thought". Its Eighth Party Congress was to be held in 2005 with the theme ""Laying the Foundations for the Mass Communist Party"[1], but the congress was delayed due to the Federal Election[2].
The CPC-ML has a news-sheet, The Marxist-Leninist Daily, a youth wing, the Communist Youth Union of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and also operates the "Workers Centre" which helps educate and organize trade unionists through discussion groups, and a magazine, Worker's Forum. The party often conducts broader political activity under the name "People's Front" and uses that name for the British Columbia provincial wing of the party. (see People's Front (British Columbia). In Ontario provincial elections, CPC-ML supporters have most recently run as Independent Renewal candidates.