Construction work is among the top ten most dangerous industries. In Canada, there were 18 job-related construction worker deaths in 2024–25, according to the new 2026 Report on Work Fatality and Injury Rates in Canada.
A forthcoming memorial in Toronto will honor construction workers who lost their lives on and off the job site. The Ontario Building Workers’ Memorial is designed by a multidisciplinary team led by PARTISANS, a Toronto architecture office.
The Ontario Building Workers’ Memorial will be built at Queens Park near the intersection of College Street and University Avenue. The memorial’s goal is to “commemorate the contributions and sacrifices of construction workers whose lives have been lost or changed forever due to work-related incidents,” the Ontario provincial government said in a statement.
Cancer deaths from asbestos exposure in construction workers outnumber on-site traumatic deaths. The memorial takes this into account by including the names of all workers that died from construction work-related causes, such as asbestos exposure, onto bronze plaques.
“This new memorial at Queen’s Park will be a powerful place for reflection and a reminder that one life lost is one too many,” Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said in a statement. “We owe it to every worker and every family to keep pushing for safer workplaces so that everyone can return home at the end of the day.”
Architecturally, the plaques form a self-supporting structure. Every year a new plaque will be added on April 28, the National Day of Mourning, to commemorate deaths that year.
The ultimate material and qualitative effect will be comparable with the National Memorial for Peace and Justice by MASS in Alabama, in that both memorials use bronze and are immersive.
The memorial is backed by city and provincial government leaders, as well as representatives from the building trades, including the Ontario Federation of Labor and Construction Employers Coordinating Council of Ontario.
Similar memorials dedicated to construction workers in Toronto include Fallen Workers Memorial (2017) by Dereck Revington Studio; Workers’ Monument (2000) by Derek Lo, Lana Winkler, and John Scott; and Monument to Construction Workers (1994) by Margaret Priest.
This latest memorial is slated for completion in 2027.