John Neilson (July 17, 1776 – February 1, 1848) was a journalist, publisher and politician in Lower Canada (now Quebec).

Born in Scotland, he emigrated to Lower Canada in 1791 at age 15, to work in his older brother's publishing company in Quebec City.

He argued for greater control of the provincial government by the elected Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.

He was defeated in the general election of 1844, but then was named by the governor to the Legislative Council, the appointed upper house of the Parliament.

In 1791, he emigrated to Quebec City, Lower Canada, to work for his older brother, Samuel Neilson, who was operating the newspaper and publishing company of their deceased maternal uncle, William Brown.

Because he himself was underage, Neilson was under the tutelage of a Presbyterian minister, Alexander Spark, until reaching the age of majority and being able to acquire full control of the business.

The couple signed a notarial marriage contract, governed by the coutume de Paris, the French law in force in Lower Canada.

He explained in a letter to his mother that he wished to show that he had permanently established himself in Lower Canada, and provide an example that Canadians and British immigrants could live together.

He would go to court if necessary to ensure payments of his accounts, but preferred to rely on personal relations and private arbitrations in financial disputes.

According to his rival James Brown of Montreal, Neilson's publishing house was "the largest consumer of paper in this country".

He was a trustee for the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Learning, and took an interest in developing schools in the province, particularly in the rural areas.

He had a strong admiration for the British constitution, and also sympathies for the political concerns of French Canadians, such as increased popular control over the provincial government and the abolition of the seigneurial system.

He was gradually attracted to politics, at first supporting Pierre-Stanislas Bédard, an early leader of the Parti canadien, then James Stuart, and then moving towards Louis-Joseph Papineau.

Neilson accompanied Papineau to London to lobby against the union project in the name of the majority of the MPs in the Legislative Assembly.

The British government offered significant concessions on the points raised by the Lower Canada delegation, leading to Papineau writing a letter of thanks to Neilson on his return.

[2][9] During Neilson's time in the Assembly, he was a strong advocate for the censitaires, the tenant farmers who held their land under the seigneurial system.

The possible abolition of the seigneurial system was one of the major issues of the day, with competing interests of the feudal seigneurs and the tenant censitaires.

[1][2][11][12] In 1834, Neilson opposed the Ninety-Two Resolutions introduced by Papineau in the Assembly, a rewrite of the 1828 demands for reform with a radical, republican tone.

Neilson was a member of the Special Council from April to June 1838, and again from November 1838 until the creation of the Province of Canada in February 1841.

He was also one of the leading organisers of candidates opposed to the union in the Quebec region, under the general name of the Comité canadien de Québec.

Neilson's efforts paid off: out of the forty-two seats in Canada East, twenty or so were won by French Canadians opposed to the union.

[1][2][18][19] When the new parliament convened in Kingston, Canada West, Neilson was one of the leaders of the French-Canadian group in opposition to the union.

During the rest of the first session, he was a consistent opponent of Governor General Lord Sydenham, voting with the French-Canadian group in a loose alliance with the Canada West Reformers.

[22][23] Neilson stood for re-election in the general election of 1844, but was defeated by a more reform-minded candidate, Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau, representing Lafontaine's new Reform group.