Tom Freda 

A co-founder of Citizens for a Canadian Republic, Tom Freda has been its national director and main Anglophone media spokesperson since 2002. He studied Applied Arts at the Sheridan Institute in Oakville, Ontario and Fine Arts at Toronto's Ryerson University.

As a republican activist, his strong belief in Canada’s evolution, sovereignty, unity and identity as a nation prompted his formation of Republic of Canada Online in 1999 and Monarchy-Free Canada in 2001, two internet sources of news and information about republicanism in Canada. Supporters of these sites helped form Citizens for a Canadian Republic the following year.

In his professional life, Tom was vice president and marketing director of Focus, a supplier to the advertising and publishing fields. He was also CEO of Visual Contact, a visual arts business specializing in digital media, marketing and design. Through his work, he has traveled extensively throughout every province and territory in Canada. His travel, landscape and fine art photography is published regularly in North America while his writing has appeared in numerous international publications.

A Nova Scotia native, his family connections in that province include the late Honourable Robert H. Winters, a federal cabinet minister under Prime Ministers Mackenzie King, St Laurent and Pearson, as well as the late U.S. industrialist and Nova Scotia native Francis M. Countway and his sister Sanda Countway, benefactors of Harvard University's Francis M. Countway Medical Library.

As a genealogist, Tom is also immensely proud of his own personal connection to Canada's colonial history. He's the direct descendant of a Brunswicker 'Hessian' soldier who fought with the British in the U.S War of Independence and who later became an early Nova Scotia pioneer.

He currently resides in Toronto with his wife and son.