Jacob Penner

Who was Jacob Penner?

Jacob Penner was a popular socialist politician in Canada. Penner was born and raised in a Mennonite family in Russia and emigrated to Winnipeg in 1904. In 1908, he met his wife Rose Shapack, a Jewish Russian immigrant, during an address by Emma Goldman at the Winnipeg Radical Club. They married in 1912.

A Marxist, he helped found the Social Democratic Party of Canada and was an opponent of conscription during the Conscription crisis of 1917 and was an organiser of the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919.

In 1921, he participated in the founding of the Communist Party of Canada and was the party's western organiser. He was also a Labour candidate for the Canadian House of Commons in Winnipeg North winning 565 votes. In 1933, he was elected to Winnipeg's city council as an alderman, a position he held until 1960 becoming the longest serving elected Communist alderman in North America. When he retired, fellow Communist Joseph Zuken succeeded him on City Council and was to serve until the 1980s.

Penner was very popular among his constituents in the city's impoverished north end and attracted support from across party lines. He was an early advocate of a minimum wage and unemployment insurance and used his political position to campaign for these reforms. His son, Roland Penner joined the Manitoba New Democratic Party and served as the province's Attorney-General in the 1980s. Another son, Norman Penner, was a professor at York University.