The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) has the sad duty to inform you of the death of our Comrade Tony Seed. Tony died of a heart attack at the age of 78.

Tony came to the Party as a political activist in the 1960s’ youth and student movement. While studying at Carleton University he became editor of the student newspaper The Carleton. In 1967 he established the Canadian Free Press newspaper, a co-op bookstore on campus, and a student housing project in Ottawa. He took stands against police repression of the youth and was twice unjustly arrested by the RCMP. In the late 1960s he attended a meeting of the Toronto Student Movement where he met Hardial Bains and was introduced to the Necessity for Change analysis. This had a profound impact on his political thinking and led him to take up work with The Internationalists, the precursor organization of CPC(M-L). He was a founding member of the Party in 1970.

Journalism was his passion and in 1969 he began a job at the Globe and Mail where he rapidly advanced from copy editor to features writer. He was nominated for a National Newspaper Award in 1971 for a series of articles exposing abuse of the unemployed by the federal Unemployment Insurance Commission (UIC). For his principled stand of refusing to write falsehoods, he was fired by the Globe and Mail only nine days after his nomination for the award. He was subsequently denied employment by the monopoly media across the country. Unfazed, he took up the work to unite the people in defence of their rights, write for the Party press and subsequently develop an independent mass media. During this period he moved to Halifax to establish the Party’s organizations in the Atlantic provinces.

His contributions to humanizing the natural and social environment were many, including a significant series of articles that he wrote in 1974-75 on the Atlantic fisheries. He stood firmly with striking fishers in their fight to preserve their livelihoods and travelled with comrades from Halifax to Newfoundland during the trawlermen’s strike in the winter of 1974. They joined a mass meeting of hundreds of Newfoundland fishers to support, discuss and learn more from them and to distribute copies of People’s Canada Daily News reporting on their fight.

Tony publicized the just demand for a cessation to oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He firmly stood with the Cape Sable Island hook-and-line fishermen, the Burnt Church First Nation and others who were calling for an independent commission of inquiry into the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and opposing the corporatization and privatization of Canada’s fisheries and oceans and the decimation of coastal communities.

He stood with the small fishers and joined them in demanding the abolition of the Individual Transferable Quota system and to uphold the hereditary rights of First Nations. He wrote that those responsible for these crimes against the fishers, and who knew what the consequences of corporate quotas would be, must be held accountable.

Tony advocated for the abolition of dragger technology and the vesting of decision-making in the fisheries sector in the producers themselves on a community basis and for the expulsion of foreign corporate fleets from Canada’s 200-mile limit. He promoted the hook-and-line sustainable technology and the establishment of producer co-ops as a useful initiative towards reducing the corporate stranglehold on the fisheries and the cost of food. He wrote, “What cannot be consumed by the internal market can be consumed by the external market, if only the rights of the fishermen are provided with a guarantee, the interests of the fisheries cartel are not put in first place, and trade with other countries is based on mutual benefit instead of imperialist globalization. Fishermen know exactly what measures are required so that the fisheries can thrive and fishermen can be guaranteed a living.”

Tony also stood firm on the need to end the rape of our public lands. The Ecology Action Centre, of which he was a member, published Last Call for Public Lands, an initiative to protect the public lands which covered one-third of the Halifax Regional Municipality.

Tony stood as a candidate for the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) in 12 federal elections, the first time being in the riding of Halifax in October 1972 at 27 years of age before the Party was officially registered as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. In all but two elections Tony ran in Halifax, the two exceptions being the Newfoundland and Labrador St. John’s West riding in 1980 and his last campaign as an MLPC candidate in 2015 in the riding of Nepean in the national capital.

His actions, articles, pamphlets and research were a prominent factor in the peace movement in the 1980s during which he spearheaded the founding of the People’s Front Against Racist and Fascist Violence in Nova Scotia. In 1980, he championed the fight against the establishment of the KKK in Nova Scotia. A tireless activist in the anti-war movement, Tony subsequently worked to establish the No Harbour for War committee in Halifax in which thousands of Haligonians have participated. He spearheaded the renaming of Cornwallis Park in downtown Halifax to Peace and Friendship Park and the removal of the statue of Cornwallis, a brutal representative of the British crown who enslaved and committed genocide against the Mi’kmaq and Beothuk peoples in the 1700s.

Tony was a lifetime sportsman playing many team sports and becoming a certified coach in three. He was president of the Nova Scotia Cricket Association from 1993 to 2009 and a founding member of the Halifax Masters’ Basketball League. Tony worked to create opportunities for everyone in particular for the youth to participate in sports under the banner “Friendship First, Competition Second.” He co-authored The Kids’ Baseball Book in 1994 with Curtis Coward, former professional player with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Of special note is the active role Tony played in developing independent media and truthful journalism to serve the interests of the people for which he became best known. He was an investigative journalist second to none. When revolution went into retreat after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, he established and was editor and publisher of Nova Scotia’s award-winning shunpiking magazine. One year after its founding in 1995, shunpiking received the Nova Scotia Environmental Award for its “outstanding contribution to the enhancement and preservation of Nova Scotia’s environment.”

Upholding the rights of all, shunpiking annually published the Black History Supplement and smashed the silence on the history of Nova Scotians in welcoming liberated former enslaved black people, opposing the destruction of Africville and waging a persistent struggle against the profound British colonial divide-and-rule racism and practice. He also published the Mac-talla Supplement in association with the Gaelic Council of Nova Scotia to promote Gaelic language and culture in Nova Scotia.

Through his company New Media Services he provided assistance to a myriad of community organizations. He was well respected amongst his media colleagues, gave guest lectures in journalism schools and was frequently consulted by those active in independent media. In 2002, he published the well-received Dossier on Palestine. He organized the well-attended and successful International Seminar on Disinformation in 2004. Tony himself received the Journalist of the Year award from the Canadian Islamic Congress in 2006 for defending the rights of all in the media.

After moving to Ontario in 2011 to assist his aging parents, he continued his research and writing, producing two weblogs, one on political and military affairs and one on amateur sport.

Tony travelled to the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Europe and Lebanon where he spoke extensively with people from all walks of life to better grasp unfolding events and to contribute to the historiography of both the Cold War period and the geopolitics following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. In 2014 he was invited to be an international observer of the presidential elections in Syria. He wrote extensively against the activities of the Israeli Zionists in the Palestinian refugee camps, Gaza and the West Bank as well as in Lebanon, and the U.S. promotion of civil war in Syria, as well as against the so-called colour revolutions in other countries culminating with extensive coverage of the Maidan coup d’état in Ukraine. He exposed Canada and U.S. assistance in the takeover of Ukraine by Banderist neo-Nazis and the disastrous U.S./NATO proxy war there aimed at isolating and annihilating Russia.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sends deepest sympathies to Tony’s family including his two sons, Martin (Courtney) and Nick, granddaughter Makenna and grandsons Ben and Nate, sisters Debby Seed and Julia McIlvride and brother John, his nephew and nieces, cousins and extended family, and to his many friends and comrades across Canada and abroad. With the support of his comrades and family, Tony faced and overcame a series of health challenges over the last several years. In recent months he was steadily improving but unfortunately his heart failed him on July 24.

Tony’s contributions to the fight against imperialist war and to make Canada a Zone for Peace, for the empowerment of the Canadian people, journalism and for broad enlightenment were many. He donated his extensive research, writings and library to the Hardial Bains Resource Centre. They will be made available to all those working on the many important themes to which Tony devoted his life including Canada’s military history and the historiography of the Cold War, the Indigenous Peoples, the Black community and the contributions of fishers and other working people.

By decision of the Central Committee, Tony’s name will be added to the Party Memorial located in Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa where he will be memorialized on August 19 at 2:30 pm. Comrades, family, friends and fellow-travellers are welcome to join us at that time to honour his life and work.

Remembrances and messages can be sent to remembrances@cpcml.ca.

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