The Ottawa & District Labour Council is one of the oldest Canadian labour organizations tracing its inception to the Ottawa Trades Council in 1872.
It was not long after that the name was shortened to the Ottawa and District Labour Council.
No official records have survived prior to 1906 but it is known that the Council initiated the first official meeting of labour with a Prime Minister of Canada, Sir John A. Macdonald in 1873.
That same year the Council's President, Daniel John O'Donoghue, was elected to the Ontario Legislature, the first trade unionist elected to a legislature in Canada.
The records of the council which include minutes, reports, correspondence, files and yearbooks are on file at the National Archives of Canada dating from 1906.