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Chris Lea
Lea in 2008
Leader of theGreen Party of Canada
In office 1990–1996
Preceded by	Kathryn Cholette
Succeeded by	Wendy Priesnitz
Personal details
Party	Green Party of Canada

Chris Lea is adesigner,politician andpolitical activist inCanada. He was the leader of theGreen Party of Canada from 1990 to 1996. Lea is notable for being the firstopenlygay political party leader in Canadian history.^[1]

Lea is a graduate student in theory and policy studies at theOntario Institute for Studies in Education.^{[citation needed]} He was formerly a professionalarchitect.^[2][3]

During the 1980s, he volunteered forThe Body Politic, a periodical focusing on gay issues, sitting briefly on its editorial collective, and serving on the committee that set upXtra!, Canada's most successful gay newspaper. Lea worked on the committee that organized the Summit Citizen's Conference, the counter-summit to the G-7 meetings taking place in Toronto in 1988. WithFrank de Jong, Lea organized a successful viral campaign against McDonald's use of disposable styrofoam clamshell packing containers and as well a series of protests which stalled the expansion of nuclear power in Ontario in the early 1990s by bringing light on the massive debt that the province's nuclear programme had created.

Lea, who hails from a family of entertainers that includes the 1950s Canadian TV icon Shirley Harmer, began a side career as anopera performer in 2002, and in February 2005 undertook his first on-stage solo in a performance ofGioacchino Rossini'sThe Barber of Seville.

He was the director of facilities atHart House at theUniversity of Toronto, where as part of a team he won a Green Innovation Award in 2010, for a project to utilise electrical power generated fromexercise bikes.^[4] For many years he was vice-President of theToronto Opera Repertoire, and is now President of Toronto City Opera.^[5]

Lea lives in Toronto.^{[citation needed]}

Lea was the leader of theGreen Party of Canada from 1990 to 1996.^[1] The Green Party of Canada's internal organization was very decentralized in the early 1990s, and its leadership position was seen as a nominal title. In his time as leader though, Lea worked to create a more usual party structure. Lea startedGreen Canada, the party's internal members' newspaper (which later becameGreen Canada Vert before it was absorbed into the Green Party of Canada web pages). Lea initiated the practice of having regular teleconference meetings of the party's council. Aided by de Jong and Steve Kisby, Lea was the first to compile a comprehensive Green Party policy document for electronic distribution. Lea was the first Green Party of Canada leader to do a national tour (fromHalifax toClayoquot Sound, by bike, rail and air, during the1993 federal election) and was the first to represent the party in a nationally televised debate. Lea created TV commercials and print advertising for elections and the 1992Meech Lake Accord referendum. He advocated for a unified corporate identity for the party, and designed the first Green Party logo to be used nationally.

As leader, Lea made presentations to royal commissions on electoral reform and on financing the CBC^{[clarification needed]}, sometimes in French. As well Lea helped to organize party conferences and took part in legal challenges against the broadcast consortium that regulates the televised debates during the election period.

In 1994, to settle an impasse between the U.S. Committees of Correspondence (the national green party) and the California Green Party over representation to the 1995 World Green Coordination meeting inMexico City, Lea organized an international election covering Canada, the U.S and the Caribbean, electing Ontario's Ella Haley and New Jersey's Anila Walkin.

As party leader, Lea campaigned for theHouse of Commons of Canada in the1993 federal election, and received 613 votes in theTorontoriding ofTrinity—Spadina for a sixth-place finish. He also campaigned for theOntario legislature in the1995 provincial election as a candidate of theGreen Party of Ontario, and received 241 votes in the Toronto riding ofSt. George—St. David. He has not sought federal or provincial office since this time, though he remains active within the Green Party. In 1998, he volunteered to be the party's chief agent to relieve Steve Kisby from these duties.

Lea has long been an ally ofJim Harris in the Toronto Green community, and supported Harris's bid for re-election as party leader in 2004.

• 21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people
• Living people
• Green Party of Canada leaders
• Canadian gay politicians
• Green Party of Canada candidates in the 1993 Canadian federal election
• University of Toronto people
• LGBTQ architects
• LGBTQ leaders of political parties

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