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Robert W. Passfield
Robert W. Passfield, Senior Historian (retired), Parks Canada Agency, has published several articles in academic journals and an earlier book, Building the Rideau Canal (1982), on ...view moreRobert W. Passfield, Senior Historian (retired), Parks Canada Agency, has published several articles in academic journals and an earlier book, Building the Rideau Canal (1982), on the construction of the canal works, and the military and engineering significance of the canal. The present work, Military Paternalism, Labour, and the Rideau Canal Project (2013), focuses on working conditions and the treatment of the labourers during the construction period, 1826-1832. To date, Labour historians have portrayed the life of the canal labourers as one of 'poverty, distress and disease', and have implied that the military deployed trops to suppress labour unrest and were indifferent to the suffering of the canal workers. This book presents a revisionist view, through placing the Rideau Canal project within its wilderness environment, and in taking into account cultural factors in examining the labour situation.
Within that broader framework, a totally different view emerges of the causes of the suffering experienced by the canal labouorers, and their treatment by the mililtary. Moreover, the paternalism practiced by the Commanding Royal Engineer, Lt. Col. John By, is revealed in his ongoing efforts to promote the physical, material, and moral well-being of the canal workers. The phenomenon of military paternalism is examind further within an existing Marxist interpretive context, and in terms of the cultural values of Anglican toryism and Lockean liberalism.view less