Comment 70979

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted November 01, 2011 at 12:17:54 in reply to Comment 70973

I'm kinda curious about the labour standards involved. Stone-masons are known for their enormously powerful guilds, how much of a role did this play in Ontario? And how many of these buildings were simply put up by residents and friends? Wages may have been low in early Canada, but in many ways the situation improves the farther you look back, since most wage work was supplemental income on top of farming etc.

Canada's northern climate has always provided a basic economic barrier to the kind of exploitative nature seen in the south. The same patterns show up all over history and the globe. Not that it didn't happen here, but given how much harder it is to sustain a person in Canada than the Caribbean, we never really could have seen slavery on the same scale. Added to that, sugar doesn't really grow here, and the industries which did suit the colonial regimes (logging, fishing, fur etc) require workers with a lot of autonomy and aren't easy to manage on a plantations. Not trying to excuse anything here - just put it all in a little context. I suspect, as lifestyles went, being an Ontario stone-mason just wasn't that bad by 1850s standards.

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