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{{Short description|Green Party of Canada leader, 1990–1996}}
{{BLP sources|date=September 2015}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name        = Chris Lea
| image       = File:Chris Lea - Green Party of Canada (2317151112) (cropped).jpg
| caption     = Lea in 2008
| birth_name  = 
| birth_date  = 
| birth_place = 
| death_date  = 
| death_place = 
| party       = [[Green Party of Canada]]
| occupation  = 
| office1     = Leader of the [[Green Party of Canada]]
| term_start1 = 1990
| term_end1   = 1996
| predecessor1= [[Kathryn Cholette]]
| successor1  = [[Wendy Priesnitz]]
| parents     = 
| spouse      = 
| children    = 
}}

'''Chris Lea''' is a [[designer]], [[politician]] and [[political activist]] in [[Canada]]. He was the leader of the [[Green Party of Canada]] from 1990 to 1996. Lea is notable for being the first [[out of the closet|openly]] [[gay]] political party leader in Canadian history.<ref name="Green PR">{{cite web |first=Camille |last=Labchuk |title=Green leaders show their Pride (press release) |publisher=Green Party of Canada |date=2007-06-22 |url=https://greenparty.ca/en/releases/22.06.2007 |accessdate=2007-11-17 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071114155126/http://greenparty.ca/en/releases/22.06.2007 |archivedate=2007-11-14 }}</ref>

==Biography==
Lea is a graduate student in theory and policy studies at the [[Ontario Institute for Studies in Education]].{{citation needed|date=May 2013}} He was formerly a professional [[architect]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0vgowqeoflfjmv0/Xi9vWVjMp9/Chris%20Lea%20resume%202013.pdf |title=Chris Lea resume }}{{dead link|date=August 2017|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0vgowqeoflfjmv0/kSsYede18e/Other%20Work/Documents/City%20Magazine%20Urban%20Visions.pdf |title=Vision warm-up; the auto and the economy |journal=City Magazine |volume=12 |number=3 |date=Summer 1991 |author=Chris Lea }}{{dead link|date=August 2017|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

During the 1980s, he volunteered for ''[[Body Politic (magazine)|The Body Politic]]'', a periodical focusing on gay issues, sitting briefly on its editorial collective, and serving on the committee that set up ''[[Xtra!]]'', 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. With [[Frank 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 an [[opera]] performer in 2002, and in February 2005 undertook his first on-stage solo in a performance of [[Gioacchino Rossini]]'s ''[[The Barber of Seville]]''.

He was the director of facilities at [[Hart House (University of Toronto)|Hart House]] at the [[University of Toronto]], where as part of a team he won a Green Innovation Award in 2010, for a project to utilise electrical power generated from [[Exercise bicycle|exercise bike]]s.<ref>[http://www.news.utoronto.ca/faculty-applied-science-engineering-24 Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering], University of Toronto News, May 11, 2010, Retrieved 2013-05-21.</ref> For many years he was vice-President of the [[Toronto Opera Repertoire]], and is now President of Toronto City Opera.<ref>{{cite web|title=Who We Are: The Toronto City Opera Board|url=http://www.torontocityopera.com/#!the-tor-board/czlm|website=Toronto City Opera|accessdate=11 February 2016}}</ref>

Lea lives in Toronto.{{citation needed|date=May 2013}}

===Green Party leadership===
Lea was the leader of the [[Green Party of Canada]] from 1990 to 1996.<ref name="Green PR" /> 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 started ''[[Green Canada]]'', the party's internal members' newspaper (which later became ''[[Green 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 (from [[Halifax Regional Municipality|Halifax]] to [[Clayoquot Sound]], by bike, rail and air, during the [[1993 Canadian federal election|1993 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 1992 [[Meech 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{{clarify|date=May 2013}}, 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 in [[Mexico 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 the [[House of Commons of Canada]] in the [[1993 Canadian federal election|1993 federal election]], and received 613 votes in the [[Toronto]] [[electoral district (Canada)|riding]] of [[Trinity&mdash;Spadina]] for a sixth-place finish. He also campaigned for the [[Ontario legislature]] in the [[1995 Ontario general election|1995 provincial election]] as a candidate of the [[Green Party of Ontario]], and received 241 votes in the Toronto riding of [[St. George&mdash;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 of [[Jim Harris (politician)|Jim Harris]] in the Toronto Green community, and supported Harris's bid for re-election as party leader in 2004.

==Electoral record==
{{CANelec/top|ON|1995|St. George—St. David|percent=yes}}
{{CANelec|ON|PC|[[Al Leach]]|10,662|33.9}}
{{CANelec|ON|Liberal|[[Tim Murphy (Canadian politician)|Tim Murphy]]|10,325|32.8}}
{{CANelec|ON|NDP|[[Brent Hawkes]]|9,672|30.7}}
{{CANelec|CA|Independent|Linda Gibbons|326|1.0}}
{{CANelec|ON|Green|'''Chris Lea'''|241|0.8}}
{{CANelec|CA|Natural Law|Ron Robins|151|0.5}}
{{CANelec|CA|Independent|Alex Nosal|98|0.3}}
{{CANelec/total|Total valid votes|31,475}}
{{end}}

{{CANelec/top|CA|1993|Trinity—Spadina (federal electoral district)|Trinity—Spadina|percent=yes|change=yes}}
{{CANelec|CA|Liberal|[[Tony Ianno]]|19,769 |51.14|+13.79}}
{{CANelec|CA|NDP|Winnie Ng|10,430|26.98|-11.57}}
{{CANelec|CA|PC|Lee Monaco|3,129|8.09|-13.25}}
{{CANelec|CA|Reform|Peter Loftus|3,027|7.83}}
{{CANelec|CA|National|Patrick Kutney|881|2.28}}
{{CANelec|CA|Green|'''Chris Lea'''|623|1.61}}
{{CANelec|CA|Natural Law|Ashley James Deans|391|1.01}}
{{CANelec|CA|Libertarian|Paul Barker|283|0.73|-0.49}}
{{CANelec|CA|Marxist-Leninist|Fernand Deschamps|74|0.19}}
{{CANelec|CA|Abolitionist|Robert Martin|52|0.13}}
{{CANelec/total|Total valid votes|38,659 }}
{{end}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{GPC Leaders}}
{{Canadian federal election, 1993A}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lea, Chris}}
[[Category:21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Green Party of Canada leaders]]
[[Category:Canadian gay politicians]]
[[Category:Green Party of Canada candidates in the 1993 Canadian federal election]]
[[Category:University of Toronto people]]
[[Category:LGBTQ architects]]
[[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]
[[Category:LGBTQ leaders of political parties]]