Simon James Dawson (1818 - 1902) was a Canadian engineer and politician. Born in Scotland, Dawson emigrated to Canada in his youth and was trained as an engineer. He was chosen to join the Canadian government's 1857 Red River Expedition and in 1858 - 1859 surveyed the route of a possible road and conducted explorations between Thunder Bay and Fort Garry. Afterwards, he was tasked with managing the construction of a road (a 'colonization road') along the route he had surveyed which later bore his name. Between the 1870s and 1890s, he joined the Legislative Assembly of Ontario and then the House of Commons of Canada, where he advocated for the rights of native peoples.