Poverty, Distress, and Disease: Labour and the Construction of the Rideau Canal, 1826-32

The construction of The Rideau Canal was one of the first projects in Upper Canada to employ thousands of wage-earners. While this was a British military undertaking, the officers and the contractors they hired shared a common attitude to workers: they were viewed primarily as instruments of production required to facilitate the most economic completion of the project. Because of an unfavourable labour market, labourers were forced to endure difficult and often dangerous working and living conditions. The response of workers to these conditions was militant but sporadic. They tended to act against individual property owners and contractors in order to obtain the immediate necessities for survival. More concerted activity was discouraged in large part by the military which posted soldiers along the line of the canal to suppress dissent and ensure a cheap supply of labour.