John Redpath (1796 – March 5, 1869) was a Scots-Quebecer businessman and philanthropist who helped pioneer the industrial movement that made Montreal, Quebec, the largest and most prosperous city in Canada.

According to surviving records, he was the son of Peter Redpath, a farm worker, and his second wife Elizabeth Pringle, from neighbouring Gordon, Berwickshire.

[citation needed] Once there, he used the trade he had learnt back in Scotland to gain him employment in the construction industry, working as a stonemason.

He was involved in major projects such as the construction of the Lachine Canal and locks that proved key to future commercial development of the city of Montreal.

Beginning in 1689, attempts were made by the French Colonial government and several others to build a canal that would allow ships to bypass the treacherous Lachine Rapids.

After more than 130 years of failure, with funding from the recently formed Bank of Montreal, the consortium, of which Redpath was a major part, was successful in its construction and the new canal officially opened in 1825.

He also committed substantial funds to develop the economies of Quebec's Eastern Townships, including investments in the Capel Copper operations, the Belvedere Mining and Smelting Company, Rockland Slate Company, Bear Creek Coal, and Melbourne Slate Co. As a result of his business acumen, in 1833 Redpath was invited to serve on the board of directors of the Bank of Montreal, a position he would hold for 36 years.

It had been unfair taxes and tariffs that led to the American Revolution and while the Annexation Movement was short-lived, the growing support for such an idea, particularly from powerful men like Redpath, John Molson, Louis-Joseph Papineau, and Alexander Galt, caused the British authorities to make changes that resulted in the Canadian–American Reciprocity Treaty of 1854.

Redpath was a supporter of the 1833 law that abolished slavery in the British colonies and served as the head of a small group that lobbied for government assistance to fight Montreal's "white slavery" traffic, working with the Magdalen Asylum in Montreal to aid impoverished immigrant women forced into prostitution.

Redpath was first married, on December 19, 1818, in Montreal, Canada, to Janet McPhee, a native of Glengarry, Ontario, and they had seven children before her death in 1834.