Joseph Zuken

He joined the Communist Party of Canada as a young lawyer and intervened in struggles for workers rights and in anti-fascist movements during the Great Depression.

In 1941 Zuken was elected to Winnipeg's school board and was one of the few Communists to win re-election through the Cold War.

After serving on the school board for twenty years he was elected, in 1961, to Winnipeg's city council on behalf of the North End ward which had been represented since the 1930s by fellow Communist Jacob Penner.

The reforms included the establishment of a landlord/tenant review board, restrictions on eviction notices, and improvements to the privacy rights of tenants.

Though a loyal member of the Communist Party he expressed public criticisms of the Soviet Union in the 1970s for its restrictions on Jewish emigration and official antisemitism in Poland in the late 1960s.