Oshawa (2004 population 150,000, metropolitan population 296,298) is a city on Lake Ontario located 56 kilometres east of downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is commonly viewed as the eastern anchor of both the Greater Toronto Area and the Golden Horseshoe. It is the largest community in the Regional Municipality of Durham. The name Oshawa originates from the Seneca native term for "crossing of a stream".
The automobile industry, specifically the Canadian division of General Motors, has always been Oshawa's lifeblood. Founded in 1876 as the McLaughlin Carriage Company, General Motors of Canada's headquarters and major assembly plants are located in the city. The lavish home of the carriage company's founder, Parkwood Estate, has become a backdrop favoured by Toronto film crews.
The city is also home to Windfields Farm, a thoroughbred horse breeding operation and birthplace of Canada's most famous racehorse, Northern Dancer.
Once very much a distinct community - physically, economically, and culturally - Oshawa has been increasingly subsumed into the Greater Toronto Area by urban sprawl.
History
The area that would become Oshawa began as a transfer point for the fur trade. Beaver and other animal pelts where trapped by local natives and traded with the Coureur des bois (voyagers). Furs were loaded onto canoes by the Mississauga Indians at the Oshawa harbour and transported to the trading posts located to the west at the mouth of the Credit River. Around 1760, the French constructed a trading post near the harbour location; this was abandoned after a few years, but its ruins provided shelter for the first residents of what later became Oshawa.
In the late 1700s a local resident, Roger Conant, started an export business shipping salmon to the United States. His success attracted further migration into the region. A large number of the founding immigrants were United Empire Loyalists, who left the United States to live under British rule. Later Irish and then French Canadian immigration increased as did industrialization. As well, the surveys ordered by Governor John Graves Simcoe, and the subsequent land grants, helped populate the area. When Col. Asa Danforth laid out his York-to-Kingston road, it passed through what would later become the city.
In 1822, a "colonization road" (a north-south road to facilitate settlement) known as Simcoe Street was constructed. It more or less followed the path of an old native trail known as the Nonquon Road, and ran from the harbour to the area of Lake Scugog. This intersected the "Kingston Road" at what would become Oshawa's "Four Corners." In 1836, Edward Skae relocated his general store about a half-mile east to the southeast corner of this intersection; as his store became a popular meeting place (probably because it also seved as the Post Office) the corner, and the growing settlement that surrounded it, was known as Skae's Corners. In 1842, Skae, the postmaster, applied for official post office status, but was informed the community needed a better name. The name "Oshawa" was adopted, a native term meaning "where we leave our canoes and walk." As a result the Post Office became Oshawa. In 1849, the requirements for incorporation were eased, and Oshawa was incorporated as a village, in 1850.
The newly established village became an industrial centre (or as near as was possible at that time), and implement works, tanneries, asheries and wagon factories opened (often closing shortly after their opening, as economic "panics" occurred regularly). In 1876, Colonel Robert Samuel McLaughlin moved his carriage works to Oshawa from Enniskillen to take advantage of its harbour as well as the availability of a rail link not too far away. The village became a town in 1879. Around 1890, the carriage works relocated from its Simcoe Street address to an unused furniture factory a couple of blocks to the northeast, and this remained its site until the building burnt in 1899. Offered assistance by the town, McLaughlin elected to stay in Oshawa, building a new factory across Mary Street from the old site (these sites are today home to McLaughlin Square (an condominium building) and the new YMCA. Rail service had been provided in 1890 by an electric line which provided both streetcar and freight service, connecting central Oshawa with the Grand Trunk (today the CNR) Railway. The Oshawa Railway was acquired by the Grand Trunk operation around 1910, and streetcar service was replaced by buses (built by GM) in 1940. After GM moved its main plants to south Oshawa in 1951, freight traffic fell and most of the tracks were removed after 1963, although a line to the older "north" plants via Ritson Road remained until 2000.
The Start of the Car Industry
In 1907 the McLaughlin Carriage Company began to manufacture Buick automobiles under the McLaughlin-Buick name, and in 1915 the firm acquired the manufacturing rights to the Chevrolet brand. Within three years his firm and the Chevrolet Motor Car Company of Canada merged, creating General Motors of Canada. Col. R. S. McLaughlin became the head of this new operation, and his factory expanded rapidly, eventually covering several blocks. The popularity of the automobile in the nineteen-twenties generated rapid expansion of Oshawa, which grew in population from 4,000 to 16,000 during this decade as well as in land area. Oshawa annexed the area to its south, including both the harbour and the community of Cedardale. This growth allowed Oshawa to seek incorporation as a city, which took place March 8, 1924.
With the wealth he gained in his business venture, in 1916 Robert McLaughlin built one of the most stately homes in Canada, "Parkwood." The 55-room residence was built using inexpensive labour, and designed by Toronto architect John M. Lyle. McLaughlin lived in the house for 55 years with his wife and 5 children. The house replaced an older mansion, which was about thirty years old when it was demolished; the grounds of the earlier home had been operated as Prospect Park, and this land was acquired by the town and became its first municipal park, Alexandra Park. Parkwood today is open to the public as a national historic site (for a paid admission) and tours are offered as well.
Post War Oshawa
In 1950, the city annexed a portion of East Whitby Township west of Park Road. Some of this area had been developed during the 1920s boom period, although it was not within the boundaries of the city proper. The opening of what later became Highway 401, shortly after World War II, caused another rapid expansion of Oshawa, as the annexed land was built up as new subdivisions and Oshawa became a bedroom community for both Toronto and its other suburbs as well as a manufacturing centre. With the creation of the Regional Municipality of Durham in 1974, Oshawa was amalgamated with the remaining poritions of East Whitby Township and took on its present boundaries, which included the outlying villages of Columbus, Raglan and Kedron. Much of Oshawa's industry has closed over the years; however, it is still the headquarters of GM Canada as well as its major manufacturing site.
Oshawa's Future
The opening of the Oshawa Shopping Centre (now the Oshawa Centre) barely a mile west of the "four corners" in 1956 struck a blow to Oshawa's downtown from which it has never been able to recover. For most of the last thirty years, the city has tried to promote the downtown core as a viable place to live and work. There have been multiple failed attempts to attract new business and other projects to the city core. Most of Oshawa's growth has occurred on the outer regions of the city. A law passed by the Ontario Government in 2005 now protects greenspace to the north of the city (the Oak Ridges Moraine) which will eventually prohibit any further expansion of the urban boundary. This will likely result in the redevelopment of Oshawa's many 'brownfield' sites, and may result in increased density.
Economy
Oshawa is headquarters to General Motors Canada, which has large-scale manufacturing and administrative operations in the city and employs many thousands both directly and indirectly.
The revenue collection divisions of the Ontario Ministry of Finance occupy one of the few major office buildings in the city's downtown, which continues to struggle despite business improvement efforts. The city's southern neighbourhoods tend to be considerably poorer than its northern sections, which are rapidly expanding as Toronto commuters move in. The southern half of the city consists of industrial zones and compact housing designed for mid-20th-century industrial workers, while the northern half has a suburban feel more typical of later decades.
High wages paid to unionized GM employees have meant that these workers could enjoy a relatively high standard of living, although such jobs are much scarcer today than they once were. During its post-World War II heyday, General Motors offered some of the best manufacturing jobs available in Canada and attracted thousands of workers from economically depressed areas of the country, particularly the Maritimes, rural Quebec and northern Ontario. The city was also a magnet for European immigrants in the skilled trades and boasts substantial Polish, Ukrainian, German and Russian ethnic communities.
Although the workforce at General Motors of Canada has shrunk in recent years (more reductions through attrition are planned), the company continues to make significant technology and capital investments at its sites in Oshawa. While the company's once essential role in the local economy has diminished, it remains the largest local employer. Many of its operations have been spun off to contractors. In most cases, new owners at the spun-off facilities are not bound by the collective bargaining agreements of the Canadian Auto Workers, and wages at such operations tend to be much lower than at General Motors itself.
Despite GM's troubles, Oshawa has become one of the fastest growing cities in Canada, although statements to this effect are often in reference to the Census Metropolitan Area, which includes fast growing neighbours Whitby and Clarington. Many commuters have been enticed to Oshawa by relatively cheap housing prices and regular rail service into downtown Toronto provided by GO Transit. The growth of subdivisions to house Toronto commuters will likely accelerate if the long-planned Highway 407 extension is built across the city's northern tier in the next decade. The trend suggests major social changes for Oshawa, which has long had a vigorous labour union presence and largely blue collar identity. Rising property values and the emergence of land speculation associated with suburban growth have created new dynamics for the local economy. While unchecked growth was largely accepted (even embraced)in the 1980s and 1990s, concern over urban sprawl has emerged.
In late 2004, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority announced a plan under which the Oshawa Airport would be closed and its traffic diverted to a major new Toronto reliever airport to be constructed in Pickering. The Oshawa airport handles occasional traffic related to General Motors (emergency spare parts and executives); GM has indicated that a move of its air traffic to Pickering would not affect its operations. The airport also handles significant General aviation, two flight training facilities, and numerous other aviation and non-aviation related companies, all of which would need to be diverted or relocated. The city has considered ambitious proposals to repurpose the airport lands, but as of January 2006 significant upgrade work is being performed on the main terminal building by the city itself, signalling that the city has no immediate plans to close the busy facility, understanding it's importance to the community and local economy. Additional aviation related construction is also taking place on the airport lands.
The University of Ontario Institute of Technology also operates commercial pilot training from Oshawa Airport in conjunction with the two resident flight schools, an agreement of which is aided by the central and close location of the airport in relation to the university lands.
Eductaion
Oshawa is home to Ontario's newest university, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, opened in 2003. The university shares a campus and some facilities with Durham College, although the two institutions are independent. Given the city's industrial heritage, the university's courses emphasize technology, manufacturing and engineering themes. Trent University also offers a full-time program at the campus.
Visit their website at www.oshawa.ca
