Oshawa
—  City  —
Oshawa City Logo Oshawa City Logo
Oshawa Map showing Oshawa's location within Ontario
Coordinates: 43°54′N 78°51′W / 43.9°N 78.85°W / 43.9; -78.85
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
Region	Durham Region
Incorporated	1850
Government
• Mayor	John Henry
• Governing Body	Oshawa City Council
• MPs	Jim Flaherty (Whitby—Oshawa) Colin Carrie (Oshawa)
• MPPs	Jerry Ouellette (Oshawa) Christine Elliott (Whitby—Oshawa)
Area
• Total	145.68 km2 (56.25 sq mi)
Elevation	106 m (348 ft)
Population (2011)
• Total	149,607 (Ranked 31st)
• Density	1,027.0/km2 (2,660/sq mi)
Time zone	Eastern (EST) (UTC−5)
• Summer (DST)	Eastern (EDT) (UTC−4)
Area code(s)	289 / 905
Website	oshawa.ca

Oshawa (2011 population 149,607;^[1] CMA 330,594)^[2] is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the Lake Ontario shoreline. It lies in Southern Ontario approximately 60 kilometres east of downtown Toronto. It is commonly viewed as the eastern anchor of both the Greater Toronto Area and the Golden Horseshoe. It is now commonly referred to as the most eastern part of the Toronto CMA. It is the largest municipality in the Regional Municipality of Durham. The name Oshawa originates from the Ojibwa term aazhaway, meaning "the crossing place" or just "(a)cross". ^[3][4]

Oshawa is as of 2011, the "Automotive Capital of Canada".^[5] The automobile industry, specifically the Canadian division of General Motors Company, known as General Motors Canada, has always been at the forefront of Oshawa's economy. 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, is a National Historic Site of Canada, and a backdrop favoured by numerous film crews, and has been featured in many movies including Studio 54, Billy Madison, Chicago, and X-Men.^[6]

Oshawa was 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 part of the ever expanding population of the Greater Toronto Area.

Oshawa will also be the hosting the Boxing, Shooting (shotgun) and Softball events for the 2015 Pan American Games.

History[link]

Historians believe that the area that would become Oshawa began as a transfer point for the fur trade. Beaver and other animal pelts were trapped by local natives and traded with the Coureurs 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. Most notably, one of the fur traders was Moody Farewell, an early resident of the community who was to some extent responsible for its name change.

Flag of the United Empire Loyalists

In the late 18th century 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. Oshawa and the surrounding Ontario County were also the settling grounds of a disproportionate number of 19th century Cornish immigrants during the Cornish emigration which emptied large tracts of that part of England. 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 Oshawa.

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 approximately 800 m east to the southeast corner of this intersection; as his store became a popular meeting place (probably because it also served as the Post Office), the corner and the growing settlement that surrounded it, were 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. Moody Farewell was requested to ask his native acquaintances what they called the area; their reply was "Oshawa," which translates to "where we must leave our canoes." Thus, the name of Oshawa, one of the primary "motor cities" of Canada, has a name meaning "where we have to get out and walk!" The name "Oshawa" was adopted and the post office named accordingly. 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, and implement works, tanneries, asheries and wagon factories opened (and often closed shortly after, as economic "panics" occurred regularly). In 1876,Robert Samuel McLaughlin,Sr. 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. He constructed a two-story building, which was soon added to. This building was heavily remodelled in 1929, receiving a new facade and being extended to the north using land where the city's gaol (jail, firehall & townhall)had once stood. The village became a town in 1879, in what was then called East Whitby Township. 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. Rail service had been provided in 1890 by the Oshawa Railway; this was originally set up as a streetcar line, but c. 1910 constructed a second "freight line" was built slightly to the east of Simcoe Street. This electric line provided both streetcar and freight service, connected central Oshawa with the Grand Trunk (now Canadian National) Railway, as well as the long-defunct Canadian Northern (which ran through the very north of Oshawa) and the Canadian Pacific, built in 1912-13. The Oshawa Railway was acquired by the Grand Trunk operation around 1910, and streetcar service was replaced by buses in 1940. After GM moved its main plants to south Oshawa in 1951, freight traffic fell and most of the tracks were removed in 1963, although a line to the older remaining "north" plant via Ritson Road remained until 2000.

Start of the car industry[link]

In 1907 the McLaughlin Motor Car Company began to manufacture with Buick motors automobiles under the McLaughlin name. This resulted from talks between Col. R. S. McLaughlin and "Billy" Durant a 15 year contract at cost plus(the entrepreneur who with McLaughlin's contract in 1907 had created General Motors in the U.S.in 1908). 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 in 1918 McLaughlin was Director and Vice-President of General Motors Corporation (from GM archives), 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. In 1924, 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 Samuel 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 and tours are offered as well.

Strike: 1937[link]

On April 8, 1937, disputes between 4000 assembly line workers and General Motors management led to the Oshawa Strike, a salient event in the history of Canadian trade unionism. As the weight of the Great Depression slowly began to lift, demand for automobiles again began to grow. The workers sought higher wages, an eight hour workday, better working conditions and recognition of their union, the United Auto Workers (Local 222). The then-Liberal government of Mitchell Hepburn, which had, ironically, been elected on a platform of being the working man's friend, sided with the corporation and even brought in armed university students to break up any union agitation. Fortunately, these much-derided "Hepburn's Hussars" and "Sons of Mitches" were never needed as the union refused to be drawn into any violent act. The union and workers had the backing of the local population, other unions and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, and on April 23, two weeks after the strike started, the company gave in to most of the workers' demands, although—pointedly—it did not recognize the union.

A historic church in Oshawa

Post-war[link]

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 the Oshawa Shopping Centre (now the Oshawa Centre) fewer than two kilometres west of the "four corners" in 1956 struck a blow to Oshawa's downtown from which it has never been able to recover. The shopping centre was built on land which had been an unproductive farm; when its owner gave up on agriculture, this released a very large area of land for the construction of a mall. The Oshawa Centre is the largest shopping mall in Ontario east of Toronto. The opening of what later became Highway 401, then known as Highway 2A, shortly after World War II sparked increased residential growth in Oshawa and the other lakeshore municipalities of Ontario County, which ultimately led to the creation of the Regional Municipality of Durham in 1974. Oshawa was amalgamated with the remaining portions 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. Current industries of note include manufacturing of railway maintenance equipment, mining equipment, steel fabrication, and rubber products. Oshawa is also recognized as an official port of entry for immigration and customs services.

Economy[link]

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. Since Windsor, Ontario houses Chrysler Canada headquarters, the two cities have something of a friendly rivalry for the title of "Automotive Capital of Canada". Currently, Oshawa holds this title.^[5]

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 older southern neighbourhoods tend to be considerably less affluent than its more suburban 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 early 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, Newfoundland, rural Quebec and northern Ontario. The city was also a magnet for European immigrants in the skilled trades, and boasts substantial Polish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Croatian, German, Slovak and Russian ethnic communities.

Although the workforce at General Motors of Canada has shrunk dramatically in recent years, 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.

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 neighbouring Whitby and Clarington. Many commuters have been enticed to Oshawa by comparatively low housing prices and the regular rail service into downtown Toronto provided by GO Transit and Via Rail. The growth of subdivisions to house Toronto commuters will likely accelerate when the long-planned Highway 407 extension is built across the city's northern tier by 2013. 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. Significant helicopter support services are also provided for police, military, and HydroOne aircraft. 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 its importance to the community and local economy (injecting $52 million yearly). Additional aviation related construction is also taking place on the airport lands.

Climate[link]

Politics[link]

The dominant presence of General Motors (and its autoworkers) meant that Oshawa was well known as a bastion of unionist, left-wing support during the decades following the Second World War. The city played an important role in Canada's labour history, including the 1937 "Oshawa Strike" against General Motors and the considerable financial support provided by the city's autoworkers to the NDP and its predecessors.

However, Oshawa was part of the Ontario (County) riding when Michael Starr, a high ranking Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) and Cabinet Member in the Diefenbaker era served. Starr served the new Oshawa—Whitby riding for one term, before being narrowly defeated by future federal New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Ed Broadbent in 1968. Broadbent then represented the city in the Canadian House of Commons until 1989, and in the 1980s led the NDP to its greatest electoral successes.

By the end of the 1990s, the city's changing economy and demographics led many voters to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and the Canadian Alliance, a conservative party at the federal level. Conservative candidates have won recent provincial and federal elections, whereas from 1968-93 the city was a safe NDP seat in both the federal and provincial legislatures.

The city's shifting social and political dynamics were seen in the 2004 federal election - the riding of Oshawa (not coterminous with the City of Oshawa, but containing most of it) was the country's most competitive. The candidate of the new Conservative Party of Canada, Dr. Colin Carrie, edged out his NDP rival Sid Ryan by several hundred votes; it was an atypical and ideologically stark race that left Louise Parkes of the Liberals in third place.

In 2006, Whitby—Oshawa also became a Conservative seat; Jim Flaherty followed Starr (after over 40 years) into the Canadian cabinet as Minister of Finance.

Local government[link]

The Council of the City of Oshawa is made up of eleven members - one Mayor, seven Regional Councillors and three City Councillors.

The Mayor is elected at large by electors throughout the City, heads the Council of the City of Oshawa and is also a representative of the City on the Council of the Regional Municipality of Durham. Seven Regional Councillors are elected at large by electors throughout the City to represent the City on both the Council of the City of Oshawa and the Council of the Regional Municipality of Durham. Three City Councillors are elected at large by electors throughout the City to represent the City on the Council of the City of Oshawa.

City Council meetings are held every third Monday and the public is welcome to attend. There are four Standing Committees of Council: Finance and Administration Committee, Development Services Committee, Community Services Committee, and the Strategic Initiatives Committee.

Education[link]

Public education in Oshawa is provided via the Durham District School Board. As of late 2006, there were 32 elementary schools and six secondary schools. The Durham Catholic District School Board, which has its headquarters in Oshawa, oversees public Catholic education in Durham Region. There are 14 Catholic elementary schools and two secondary schools. The Conseil scolaire de district du Centre-Sud-Ouest operates one French Public elementary school, while the Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud runs one publicly funded French-language Catholic elementary school. Private schools include Durham Elementary School, Immanuel Christian School, Kingsway College and College Park Elementary School. The Durham Catholic District School Board decided to shut down several Catholic Elementary Schools in Oshawa in June 2008, due to shifting enrolment.^{[citation needed]}

Oshawa is home to the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, opened in 2003. The main campus of Durham College is also located in the city. The university and college share a campus and some facilities, but the two institutions are independent. Given the city's industrial heritage, the university's courses emphasize technology, manufacturing and engineering themes. It is the only university in Canada to offer degree programs in Automotive Engineering and Nuclear Engineering. Trent University also offers full-time programs at its campus near the Oshawa Civic Auditorium in the city's west end, which opened in September 2010.

Health care[link]

Oshawa is the site of Lakeridge Health Oshawa, formerly Oshawa General Hospital. This 437-bed facility is the major regional hospital for the area and also houses the R.S. McLaughlin Durham Regional Cancer Centre.

Emergency services[link]

Policing in Oshawa is provided the Durham Regional Police Service. There are two police stations in Oshawa — one at 77 Centre Street North in the downtown area, and a South Oshawa Community Policing Centre on Cedar Street. EMS/Ambulance services are also operated by the Region of Durham. Oshawa Fire Services - operated by the city - operates from five fire stations located throughout the city.

Oshawa was the first city in Ontario to provide Paramedic services. In 1979 a group of 16 ambulance attendants were given specialized training to treat cardiac related problems in the pre-hospital setting. The program was called the "Pre-hospital Cardiac Care" program or PHCC program. From this single service, paramedic training was expanded to Toronto, Hamilton and the Provincial air ambulance service. The program has been the source of all paramedic programs in Ontario. Three of the original paramedics are still certified in 2011.

Media[link]

Oshawa has few media outlets of its own due to its proximity to Toronto. The city has one AM station, CKDO (1580) which is rebroadcast on 107.7 FM, and one FM station, 94.9 CKGE. Both stations are owned by Durham Radio, which also owns CJKX, which is licenced to the nearby community of Ajax, although all three stations are operated from the same studios at the Oshawa Airport.

Oshawa also has a CBC Television affiliate station, CHEX-TV-2 (Channel 12), which airs a daily supper hour news and current affairs program specially targeted to Durham Region viewers. Although a larger city than Peterborough then and now, Oshawa was not granted a television station in the original 1950s assignments as it was geographically too close to Toronto, since the original spacings were set at 145 km (90 mi). Rogers Television, the local cable provider also serves the community with local television programming.

Oshawa is served by a number of community newspapers, including the Oshawa Express, an independent which publishes every Wednesday, and Oshawa This Week, published three times per week by Metroland. The long-standing daily newspaper, the Oshawa Times (also known at various times as the Oshawa Daily Times and Times-Gazette), was closed by its owner Thomson Newspapers, after a lengthy strike in 1994. John Short Larke was the proprietor of the Oshawa Vindicator, a strongly pro-Conservative newspaper, in the late 19th century.^[8]

Sports[link]

Hockey[link]

Oshawa is home to the Oshawa Generals of the Ontario Hockey League, the top level for players aged 15–20. Famous alumni of this team include Bobby Orr, Alex Delvecchio, Wayne Cashman, Tony Tanti, Dave Andreychuk, Marc Savard, Eric Lindros, and John Tavares. The team moved from the Oshawa Civic Auditorium into the new General Motors Centre in November 2006.

The Oshawa Generals have the dubious distinction of having their home arena destroyed by fire not once, but twice in the franchise history. In June 1928 the Bradley Arena was destroyed by fire. Then 25 years later, the Hambly Arena was also destroyed by fire.

Basketball[link]

The Oshawa Power of the National Basketball League of Canada began playing in October 2011. The Power plays home games at the General Motors Centre.

Lacrosse[link]

Oshawa was for many years one of the main centres for the sport of lacrosse and home of the Oshawa Green Gaels, one of the most storied teams in the sport. A player of note in the 1920s was Nels Stewart, who became a Hall of Famer in the National Hockey League. During the 1980s, when lacrosse seemed on the edge of oblivion in Canada, (the Green Gaels themselves having folded in the early part of the decade), lacrosse continued to be played in the neighbouring towns of Whitby and Brooklin, and many of the players were from Oshawa. However, since then, Clarington has taken over the Green Gaels association. With the rise of the National Lacrosse League the sport's survival seems assured and again, many players and others involved in the professional league are from the Oshawa area. Former Oshawa Green Gaels captain and Oshawa native, Derek Keenan, is the current coach and general manager of the Edmonton Rush.

Rugby[link]

Oshawa has been the home of Oshawa Vikings Rugby Football Club since 1959. Notable players from the club since its inception include Dave Thompson (Ontario Rugby Hall of Fame) and Dean Van Camp (Rugby Canada Men XV squad). The clubhouse (Thompson Rugby Park) is located in the Oshawa Hamlet of Raglan.

Soccer[link]

With over 3000 members The Oshawa Kicks Soccer Club^[9] is the largest Soccer Club in the City. The Club offers recreational programs for 2000 children as well as adult men's and women's leagues. In 2011 the Kicks were the first soccer club to operate children's and adult's winter soccer leagues in the new Civic Fieldhouse. The Club has a competitive program for both youth and adults, with an impressive history of Ontario Cup Championships, winning 7 provincial titles from 2000-2010. Founded in 1967, the Oshawa Turul Soccer Club had a sizeable role in the development of competitive soccer community of Oshawa. The club had 2 national championship teams, the first in 1978 and again in 1989.^[10] The Club was founded by Oshawa Sports Hall Of Fame Member, Nick Springer. The Oshawa Central Council of Neighbourhood Associations offers recreational soccer, softball and hockey leagues for children through its Neighbourhood Association Sports Committee.

Transportation[link]

Highway 401 in Oshawa.

Oshawa Train Station

GO Transit trains connect the city with Toronto, Hamilton and points between. GO Transit buses provide service from Oshawa along the Highway 401 and Highway 2 corridors in Durham Region and to Toronto and York Region. GO Transit bus service is also provided from Oshawa Train station to Clarington and Peterborough via the downtown bus terminal. The Oshawa Station is owned by the national rail carrier Via Rail, which operates a service along the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. Other services from the station include GO Buses, and the regional transit system Durham Region Transit provides local bus service, having replaced Oshawa Transit on January 1, 2006.

Private intercity buses are provided by Greyhound Canada (to Toronto, Port Hope, Cobourg and Belleville, as well as to Peterborough and Ottawa, and Can-Ar daily to/from Lindsay and Toronto.

Rail freight is carried on both the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways which traverse the city.

Other than Highway 2, which reverted to local jurisdiction (King Street and Bond Street) in 1998, the city had no provincially maintained highways until the original section of Highway 401 opened in 1947 (as Highway 2A). The highway originally terminated at Ritson Road, and was extended east through the remainder of the city to Newcastle in 1952. Oshawa was the only city that Highway 401 was built directly through, rather than bypassing. This resulted in the demolition of several streets and hundreds of homes in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Port of Oshawa is a major stop for the auto and steel industries as well as winter road salt handling and agricultural fertilizer. A marine rescue unit (COMRA) is also stationed at the port. A regional airport with on-site customs and immigration authorities also services the City (see above). On May 21, 2009, Canadian Transportation Minister John Baird announced that the status of Oshawa's port would be changed from a harbour commission to a full-fledged Port Authority. The creation of a federal port authority has caused some controversy as there are others who wish to see the port transferred to municipal ownership and recreational use.

Demographics[link]

According to the 2011 census, the population of Oshawa is 149,607, up from 141,590 (5.7 %) in the 2006 census. In 2001, 49.3% of the population was male and 50.7% female. Children under five accounted for approximately 6.5% of the resident population of Oshawa. This compares with 5.8% in Ontario, and almost 5.6% for Canada overall.

In mid-2001, 10.4% of the resident population in Oshawa were of retirement age (65 and over for males and females) compared with 13.2% in Canada, therefore, the average age is 35.8 years of age comparing to 37.6 years of age for all of Canada.

In the five years between 1996 and 2001, the population of Oshawa grew by 10.2%, compared with an increase of 6.1% for Ontario as a whole. Population density of Oshawa averaged 328.0 people per square kilometre, compared with an average of 12.6, for Ontario altogether.

According to the 2006 census, the Oshawa Census Metropolitan Area, which includes neighbouring Whitby and Clarington, has a population of 330,594.

The information regarding ethnicities at the left is from the 2001 Canadian Census. The percentages add to more than 100% because of dual responses (e.g. "French-Canadian" generates an entry in both the category "French" and the category "Canadian".) Groups with greater than 10,000 responses are included.

In 2006, 8.1% of the residents were visible minorities, 37.4% of whom were Black Canadians.^[12] The demographics of Oshawa are much different than that of neighbouring Toronto, for the fact that it has a comparatively low percentage of visible minorities. Only 12% of the city's residents are foreign-born (by comparison, 50% of Toronto is foreign-born).

Religious profile

• Protestant: 44.7%, Roman Catholic: 30.8%, other Christian: 3.3%
• Muslim: 0.9%
• Hindu: 0.4%

Oshawa is also home to the Canadian headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist church, who for many years maintained a college here, and currently operate a high school and elementary school.

Notable people[link]

• Philip Akin, actor
  

  

  Robert McLaughlin
• Sean Avery, hockey player (New York Rangers)
• Arnie Brown, NHL player
• Lloyd Chadburn, Canadian World War II fighter pilot
• A. J. Cook, actress
• Dennis Edmonton, songwriter Born to be Wild
• Jerry Edmonton, member of Steppenwolf
• John H. Foote, film critic
• Shalom Harlow, Canadian supermodel and actress
• Dale Hawerchuk, hockey player in the NHL
• Sandy Hawley, horse jockey
• Harry Hess, singer in rock group Harem Scarem.
• Kathryn Humphreys, sports anchor
• Greg Kean, actor
• Donald Jackson, figure skater who won the bronze at the 1960 Olympics
• John MacLean, NHL player
• Kevin McClelland, NHL player
• Robert Samuel McLaughlin ("Colonel Sam") founder of McLaughlin Buick, philanthropist, millionaire
• James Neal NHL hockey player for the Pittsburgh Penguins
• Andrew Nicholls, musician, writer, and producer
• John Part, World Darts Champion
• Wayne Petti and Paul Lowman, members of Cuff the Duke
• Suzie Pollard, actress
• Janice Tanton, noted contemporary Canadian artist, and cousin to jockey Sandy Hawley (above)
• Shawn Thornton, NHL player
• Barbara Underhill, figure skater
• Lori Yates, country singer and songwriter
• Darrell Vickers, musician, writer, and producer
• Tonya Lee Williams, actress
• Nigel Wilson, major league baseball player
• Lucas Raposo, Taught Micheal Jackson the Moonwalk and was the first person to pass "Go" twice in one turn in Monopoly. It was the most notable game of Monopoly in history, the game ended up in a angry brawl because someone kept stealing from the bank, this was the main cause of the 2008 recession.

Cultural resources[link]

• Canadian Automotive Museum
• Oshawa Military and Industrial Museum
• Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery
• Oshawa Downtown Murals
• Oshawa Little Theatre
• General Motors Centre
• Legends Centre (North Oshawa Recreation Centre)
• Heritage Oshawa
• Oshawa Community Museum & Archives [3]
• PFLAG Canada Durham, ON Chapter http://www.pflagcanada.ca
• Durham Shoestring Performers www.durhamshoestring.org

See also[link]

• Camp X
• Oshawa Car Assembly
• Oshawa Truck Assembly

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oshawa, Ontario

• City of Oshawa website
• Oshawa Chamber of Commerce
• Oshawa Turul Soccer Club
• Historic Oshawa Photos
• Downloadable 1:50 000 topographical map of Oshawa (map 30M15), by the Ministry of Natural Resources

		Scugog
	Whitby		Clarington
		Oshawa    East
		Lake Ontario

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Coordinates: 43°53′N 78°52′W / 43.89°N 78.86°W / 43.89; -78.86

The Residents are an American art collective best known for avant-garde music and multimedia works. The first official release under the name of The Residents was in 1972, and the group has since released over sixty albums, numerous music videos and short films, three CD-ROM projects and ten DVDs. They have undertaken seven major world tours and scored multiple films. Pioneers in exploring the potential of CD-ROM and similar technologies, The Residents have won several awards for their multimedia projects. Ralph Records, a record label focusing on avant-garde music, was started by The Residents.

Throughout the group's existence, the individual members have ostensibly attempted to operate under anonymity, preferring instead to have attention focused on their art output. Much outside speculation and rumor has focused on this aspect of the group. In public, the group appears silent and costumed, often wearing eyeball helmets, top hats and tuxedos - a long-lasting costume now recognized as their signature iconography. Their albums generally fall into two categories: deconstructions of Western popular music, or complex conceptual pieces, composed around a theme, theory or plot. They are noted for surrealistic lyrics and sound, disregard for conventional music composition, and the over the top, theatrical spectacle of their live performances.

History[link]

Origins[link]

The Residents hail from Shreveport, Louisiana, where they met in high school in the 1960s. In 1966 the members headed west for San Francisco, but after their truck broke down in San Mateo, California, they decided to remain there.

While attempting to make a living, they began to experiment with tape machines, photography, and anything remotely to do with art that they could get their hands on. Word of their experimentation spread and in 1969, a British guitarist and multi-instrumentalist named Phil Lithman^[1] and the mysterious N. Senada (whom Lithman had picked up in Bavaria where the aged avant-gardist was recording birds singing) paid them a visit, and decided to remain.

The two Europeans would become great influences on the band. Lithman's guitar playing technique earned him the nickname Snakefinger, after his frantic playing on the violin during the performance with the Residents at The Boarding House in San Francisco 1971, where his fingers' speed made them look like snakes in the eyes of the less-musically proficient, but imaginative Residents.

The group purchased crude recording equipment, instruments and began to make tapes, refusing to let an almost complete lack of musical proficiency stand in the way. Like all information pertaining to the early days of the band, this is provided by The Cryptic Corporation and may or may not be invented.

1969–1972: Residents Unincorporated[link]

In 1969 the group began to make the first of their unreleased tapes. Rumors have surfaced of two (of perhaps hundreds) unreleased reel-to-reel items titled Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor and The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger. The actual titles are in question (as is the notion that these were album-length recordings), but the first title has been confirmed by a former head of the now defunct Smelly Tongues fan club. Further evidence of pre-1970 recordings surfaced with the release of the song I Heard You Got Religion, supposedly recorded in 1969, and released originally as a downloadable track from Ralph America in 1999. Cryptic says there are lots of tapes dating back decades, but they were all recorded before the group had officially become The Residents so the band does not consider them to be part of their discography.

The album The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger has never been released in any form.^[2] "Uncle Willie", former Residents fan club president, wrote in his book Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated Guide to The Residents that, while searching through the band's archives, he came across "a suite named The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger," but not a complete album.

In 1971 the group sent a reel-to-reel tape to Hal Halverstadt at Warner Brothers, since he had worked with Captain Beefheart (one of the group's musical heroes). Halverstadt was not overly impressed with the Warner Bros. Album (He describes it as "okay at best" in Uncle Willie's Cryptic Guide to the Residents), but awarded the tape an "A for Ariginality". Because the band had not included any name in the return address, the rejection slip was simply addressed to "The Residents". The members of the group then decided that this would be the name they would use, first becoming "Residents Unincorporated", then shortening it to the current name.

The first performance of the band using the name "The Residents" was at The Boarding House in San Francisco in 1971. That same year another tape was completed called Baby Sex. The original cover art for the tape box was a silk-screened copy of an old photo depicting a woman fellating a small child. (Considered artistically rude at that time, it would be viewed as child pornography today).

In 1972 they moved to San Francisco and formed Ralph Records.^[3] By this time, The Cryptic Corporation was operating as a partnership and incorporated to take over the running of Ralph Records.

1972–1980: Album era[link]

Before the Santa Dog single and while recording Meet the Residents, The Residents undertook one of their first major projects: the ambitious Vileness Fats film project. Intended to be the first-ever long form music video, The Residents saw this project as the opportunity to create the ultimate cult film. After four years of filming (from 1972 to 1976) the project was reluctantly canceled because of time, space and monetary constraints. Fifteen hours of footage were shot for the project yet only about three-quarters of an hour of that footage has ever been released.

Santa Dog is considered by The Residents themselves and their fans to be the "official" start of the band's recorded output. This is so because it was the first to be released to the public. Shortly after this release, the band left San Mateo and relocated to San Francisco. They sent copies of Santa Dog to west coast radio stations with no response until Bill Reinhardt, program director of KBOO-FM in Portland, Oregon received a copy. Santa Dog had the strange kind of sonic weirdness he was looking for and it was played heavily on his popular (Radio Lab) show. Bill met The Residents at their Sycamore St. studio in the summer of 1973 with the news of his broadcasts. They were overjoyed that they had finally got media acceptance and he was celebrated with the news that KBOO was the first station to play a Residents record on the air. Inviting him in and treating him like family, The Residents gave Reinhardt exclusive access to all their eclectic recordings, including copies of the original masters of Stuffed Trigger, Baby Sex and the Warner Bros. Album. He promoted these along with Meet the Residents regularly on his radio program. There was considerable resistance to the commercial viability of Residents material. To aid in their promotion, Bill was given 50 of the first 1,000 copies of Meet the Residents. Some were sent to friends, listeners and critics and two dozen were left for sale on consignment at Music Millennium Records where they sat unsold for months. KBOO DJ, Barry Schwam (Schwump, who also recorded with The Residents) promoted them on his program as well. Eventually KBOO airplay attracted many loyal fans and Portland became the epicenter of a worldwide cult phenomenon.

The Residents, at this time, were at a rough point in their career. According to official Residents lore, there was internal turmoil which resulted in a large, "embarrassing" food fight; they decided to resolve this tension in 1974 by recording what would later become Not Available —representative of N. Senada's Theory of Obscurity taken to its logical conclusion. The album was recorded and then placed in storage in order to be issued only when everyone had forgotten about it. However, contractual obligations related to the much-delayed release of Eskimo forced its release in 1978 after the band had almost forgotten about it. The Residents were not bothered by this deviation from their plan since the 1978 decision to release the album would not affect the philosophical conditions under which it was originally recorded.

The Third Reich 'n Roll came next, a pastiche on 1960s rock and roll with an overarching Nazi theme, represented visually on the album cover, which featured Dick Clark in an SS uniform holding a carrot, with a number of Hitlers dancing on clouds behind him. On each side of the record was a single composition, approximately 17½ minutes long, using recordings of classic rock and roll songs that were spliced, overdubbed and edited with new vocals, instrumentation and tape noises.^[3] The original songs were finally removed leaving entirely new and bizarre performances. The music video for this album was shot on the sets that were built for Vileness Fats.

Following The Third Reich 'n' Roll came Fingerprince, a particularly ambitious project not unlike the earlier Not Available recordings. The band's original intention with Fingerprince was to release it as the very first "three-sided" album – they had found a way to simulate a third side by arranging the grooves on one side of the vinyl album to play a completely different program of tracks depending on which series of grooves the needle was dropped on. However, this idea was dropped when the band discovered that the Monty Python comedy troupe had executed the very same idea three years earlier with their Matching Tie and Handkerchief album. The "third side" was later released as an EP titled Babyfingers, and the Babyfingers tracks have since been re-integrated into the Fingerprince album on the CD reissues.

The Residents followed Fingerprince with their Duck Stab/Buster & Glen album – their most easily comprehensible album up to that point. This album got the band some attention from the press (namely NME, Sounds and Melody Maker), and dropped most of their reliance upon the Theory of Obscurity.

Eskimo (1979) contained music consisting of non-musical sounds, percussion, and wordless voices. Rather than being songs in the orthodox sense, the compositions sounded like "live-action stories" without dialogue. The Residents remixed the "songs" in disco style, the results of which appeared on the EP Diskomo. Eskimo was reissued in surround sound on DVD in 2003. Eskimo's cover presents the first instance of the group wearing their signature eyeball masks and tuxedos, which would be featured in many subsequent releases, films, live appearances, and promotional materials.

Commercial Album (1980) consisted of 40 songs, each consisting of a verse and a chorus and lasting one minute.^[3] The songs pastiched the advertising jingle although the songs were not endorsements of known products or services. The liner notes state that songs should be repeated three times in a row to form a "pop song". The Residents purchased 40 one-minute advertising slots on San Francisco's most popular Top-40 radio station at the time, KFRC, such that the station played each track of their album over three days. This prompted an editorial in Billboard magazine questioning whether the act was art or advertising.

When MTV was in its infancy, The Residents' videos were in heavy rotation since they were among the few music videos available to broadcasters. The Residents' earliest videos are in the New York Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection and were eventually released together in 2001 on the Icky Flix DVD, which includes an optional audio track of remixes.

1981-1990: Performance art and concept albums[link]

The Mole Trilogy and The Mole Show (1981-83)[link]

In 1981, a trilogy of albums, starting with Mark of the Mole, was to be released.^[3] A tour ensued, and was narrated nightly by Penn Jillette. The Mole Trilogy is made up of parts I, II and IV. The performance featured The Residents performing behind a burlap screen, occasionally wearing disguises (such as their iconic eyeball masks), while dancers and actors appeared in front of painted backdrops used to help illustrate the story. Penn Jillette would come out between songs telling long intentionally pointless stories. The show was designed to appear to fall apart as it progressed: Penn pretended to grow angrier with the crowd, and lighting effects and music would become increasingly chaotic, all building up to the point where Penn was dragged off stage and returned, handcuffed to a wheelchair, to deliver his last monologue. During one performance, an audience member assaulted Penn while he was handcuffed to the wheelchair.

The 13th anniversary show (1985-86)[link]

After their Japanese distributor approached them for a two-week run in Japan, The Residents created the 13th Anniversary tour. While the musical performance was more mainstream, the stage show was another over-the-top spectacle, featuring inflatable giraffes, dancers in eye ball masks illuminating the darkened stage with work lights, and a lead vocalist who seemed to change costumes throughout the show from wearing his eyeball mask to wearing a Richard Nixon mask, and at one point wearing only a wig and fake ears. After the two-week run in Japan, the Residents took the show through the US. During the US leg of the tour the band encountered a few problems, including having the tour manager having to fan a member's keyboard because of overheating, being booked in a pool hall and having someone run on stage only to be thrown back into the audience.

Backstage at the Hollywood Palace show on December 26, 1985, one member's eyeball mask (Mr. Red Eye) was stolen, so it was replaced with a giant skull mask.^{[citation needed]} The eye was returned by a devoted fan who discovered where the thief lived and stole it back, although Homer Flynn said the person who returned the mask was most probably the thief. It was put into retirement because they said it was "unclean" and in a bad condition—a superfluous shell. After this, the lead Resident was known as Mr. Skull.^{[citation needed]}

The last show of this tour was in January 1987 at The Warfield in San Francisco, with a special appearance by Penn & Teller.^{[citation needed]}

Cube E (1989-1990)[link]

"Cube E" was a three-act performance covering the history of American music. It was a step up from previous shows, featuring more elaborate dance numbers and sets. It was also the first show composed exclusively of music written for the show. The show was almost entirely backlit, with blacklights highlighting fluorescent pieces of costumes and set.

They introduced the first part, which covered cowboy music, on German television as "Buckaroo Blues". It featured the singer and two dancers wearing giant cowboy hats around a glowing campfire. Part two was called "Black Barry" and focused on slave music and the blues. The act ended when a giant cube head rose from the back of the stage. Part three, "The Baby King," featured Elvis songs performed by an elderly Elvis impersonator for his grandchildren. The show ended with an inflated Elvis dying as a result of the British Invasion.

Other works[link]

In the late 1980s, they created the epic recording God in Three Persons, a story about the exploitation of two Siamese twins with healing powers by a male dominant force and The King & Eye, a surreal biography of Elvis Presley and the birth of rock and roll.

1991-97: Multimedia projects[link]

In the 1990s, they created Freak Show. This marked the beginning of The Residents' obsession with emerging computer technology in the 1990s.^[3] Much of the music was made with MIDI devices. Freak Show also served as the name for a CD-ROM released by the Voyager Company on January 1994^[4], shortly after Laurie Anderson's first multimedia CD-ROM experiment, Puppet Motel. Freak Show was also a stage performance by a theater company at the Archa Theater in Prague that premiered on November 1, 1995, and a comic book. Several of the songs were also performed live during the 1997 25th anniversary concerts at the Fillmore in San Francisco. After the CD-ROM's success, the album was re-released as The Freak Show Soundtrack with a different cover. A limited edition, The Freak Show Special Edition, was released in 2002 to mark their 30th anniversary.

Other multimedia projects by The Residents included The Gingerbread Man and Bad Day on the Midway.

1998-2008: Tours and storytelling projects[link]

Wormwood (1998-99)[link]

Based on Bible stories, Wormwood featured the Residents departing from pre-programmed music and again using a live band. The band wore ecclesiastical robes and performed in a brightly lit fluorescent cave. The male and female lead singers switched leads, depending on what characters they needed. Act one consisted of one-off stories about individual Bible characters. Act 2 focused on suites of songs about Bible figures such as Abraham, Moses, and King David. During a performance in Athens, Greece, Nolan Cook, their guitarist, had to leave the stage after taking a rock to the head from an audience member.

Demons Dance Alone and Animal Lover (2002-05)[link]

The Residents recorded the dramatic album Demons Dance Alone (also a tour and DVD in 2002) and Animal Lover in 2005. Singer Molly Harvey began as a Ralph employee but by the mid-90s contributed to virtually all of The Residents' many projects. The Residents' increased reliance on Harvey, essentially handing her half of the vocal duties since at least Demons Dance Alone, parallels their artistic revitalization. Nolan Cook, Carla Fabrizio, Toby Dammit, Eric Drew Feldman, and many other artists continuously worked with the band over the last five years, recording and performing live. The new artists helped to counter what Allmusic derided as a "sonic palette [confined to] factory presets from their new Macintosh audio" of the CD-ROM era.^[5]

In February 2005, The Residents toured Australia as part of the What is Music? festival, performing a two hour retrospective set titled the 33rd Anniversary Tour: The Way We Were. These shows saw a fairly minimal band; three eyeball-headed Residents (one on guitar and two laptop/sample operators), a "stage hand" performer, and a male and female vocalist in costumes reminiscent of the Wormwood Tour. Video projections and unusual flexible screens were added to the stage set, creating an unsettling ambiance. The performances on the Way We Were tour were recorded and were released on CD and DVD in 2005.

Storytelling projects (2006-09)[link]

Summer of 2006 brought the internet download project, River of Crime (Episodes 1–5). River of Crime was their first project with Warner Music Group's Cordless Label. Following the success of River of Crime, The Residents launched their weekly Timmy video project on YouTube. In 2007 they did the music for the documentary Strange Culture and also released a double instrumental album, Night of the Hunters. On the Fourth of July, 2007, the planned October release of their latest project with Mute Records, The Voice of Midnight (a music theater adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann's short story "Der Sandmann"), was announced on their website.

On the May 21 they announced on their website that their first North America tour since Demons Dance Alone for a project titled The Bunny Boy was set to begin on October 9 in New York – later an earlier date was added for Santa Cruz. Soon, it was announced that the tour would also include Europe, starting November 13. On June 3, the Residents.com website boasted the planned release of The Bunny Boy which was released on September 1. The website had posted information in which Foxboro claimed this would be a Farewell Tour; it was later revealed that this was nothing more than a mistake by Foxboro.

November 3, 2009 saw three new releases. The Ughs! is a mostly instrumental album made up of music composed earlier in their career, which had been completely reworked for the Voice of Midnight album. Ten Little Piggies is a futurist compilation, ten songs from projects that may or may not be released in the future. Finally Is Anybody Out There is a DVD collecting all the Bunny Boy videos from the series posted on YouTube. The episodes are streamlined and not exactly the same as the originals.

2010-present: Talking Light and beyond[link]

In January 2010 the Residents began a series of tours titled Talking Light, touring North America and Europe. During the tours, which lasted until April 2011, The Residents appeared as a trio (with the explanation that the fourth member "Carlos" had grown tired of the music business and "gone home" to Mexico to care for his mother) and adapted new identities and costumes. The singer, Randy, wore an old man mask, and the other two, keyboardist Chuck and guitarist Bob, wore dread lock wigs and some kind of illuminated optical gear over their faces. The songs were stories about various characters' obsessions with ghosts, imaginary people and supernatural phenomena. One of these performances was featured as part of the edition of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival curated by Matt Groening in May 2010 in Minehead, England. The band released several albums related to the Talking Light concept, including the instrumental albums Dollar General and Chuck's Ghost Music, live album Bimbo's Talking Light, and studio album Lonely Teenager.

In October and November 2011, the Residents presented an early version ofSam's Enchanted Evening at The Marsh performance center in Berkeley, with the lead singer appearing as Randy Rose.^[6]. A new version of "Sam's Enchanted Evening" was subsequently performed in March 2012 at Henry Street Settlement in New York City in a production directed by Travis Chamberlain, co-starring Joshua Raoul Brody and Jibz Cameron (aka, Dynasty Handbag).

On January 10, 2012, The Residents released "Coochie Brake"; it focused on an ambient, slightly ethnic sound, with lyrics in Spanish spoken by, apparently, a new singer.

Identity[link]

Much of the speculation about the members' true identities swirls around their management team, known as "The Cryptic Corporation."^[7] Cryptic was formed as a corporation in California by Jay Clem (born 1947), Homer Flynn (born April 1945), Hardy W. Fox (born 1945), and John Kennedy in 1976, all of whom denied having been band members. (Clem and Kennedy left the Corporation in 1982, much to the chagrin of some fans.^[8]) The Residents themselves do not grant interviews, though Flynn and Fox have conducted interviews with the media.

Nolan Cook, a prominent collaborator with the group in both their live and studio work (as well as being a live member of I Am Spoonbender), denied in an interview that Fox and Flynn are the Residents, saying that he has come across such rumors, and they are completely false. However, Cook himself is considered a member of the band by some, as he is known to wear the same head coverings as the rest of the group during live shows, even wearing the trademark eyeball mask during the Wormwood tour.

William Poundstone, author of the Big Secrets books, compared voiceprints of a Flynn lecture with those of spoken word segments from the Residents discography in his book Biggest Secrets. After noting similar patterns in both, he concluded "the similarities in the spectograms second the convincing subjective impression that the voices are identical." He posited that "It is possible that the creative core of the Residents is the duo of Flynn and Fox." A subset of that belief is that Flynn is the lyricist and that Fox writes the music. In addition BMI's online database of the performance rights organization (of which the Residents and their publishing company, Pale Pachyderm Publishing (Warner-Chappell), have been members for their entire careers), lists Flynn and Fox as the composers of all original Residents songs. This includes those songs written pre-1974 (the "Residents Unincorporated" years), the year Cryptic formed.^[9]

Simon Reynolds wrote in his book Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 that "The Residents and their 'representatives' were one and the same",^[10] elaborating on one of his blogs that "this was something that anybody who had any direct dealings with Ralph figured out sooner rather than later." Reynolds quotes Helios Creed, who identifies The Residents as a keyboardist named "H", a singer named Homer, and "this other guy called John"; and Peter Principle of Tuxedomoon, who claims that "we eventually figured out that the guy doing the graphics and the engineer in the studio were in fact the Residents."^[11]

Cryptic openly admits the group's artwork is done by Flynn (among others), under various names that, put together, become Pornographics, but the pseudonym is rarely spelled the same way twice (examples: Porno Graphics, Pore No Graphix, Pore-Know Graphics); and that Fox is the "sound engineer" — meaning that he is the main producer, engineer, master, and editor of all their recordings. (Since 1976, the Residents' recordings have all listed their producer as "The Cryptic Corporation," presumably meaning Fox in particular.) Many other rumors have come and gone over the years, one being that 60s experimental band Cromagnon shared members with the band.

Most recently, the group's Facebook presence lists the members of the Residents as "Randy, Chuck and Bob." Furthermore, a synopsis for their 2012 stage production Sam's Enchanted Evening provides the name Randy Rose as that of "the Residents' lead singer." While it is clear that the Cryptic Corporation has chosen to share this information publicly, no further confirmation--nor any context as to the roles of "Chuck" and "Bob" in the group, or if these names are, indeed, the names of the group's members--appears to have been issued to date.

Discography[link]

References[link]