
Jamie Bradburn
Jamie Bradburn is a Toronto-based writer/researcher specializing in historical and contemporary civic matters.
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For most of the decade prior to the Civil War, the American abolitionist made southern Ontario her home base — and helped other escaped slaves do the same.
In 1966, the government unveiled what would become the Ontario Student Assistance Program. It didn’t take long for the protests to begin.
As the world’s first permanent IMAX theatre, the Cinesphere has an important place in film history — but when it opened, it was the future of cinema
In 1919, the concept of plucking your own products from grocery-store shelves was pretty out-there. But an Ontario man named Theodore Pringle Loblaw saw promise in it.
From the mid-1970s until the mid-1990s, it was against the law for Ontario stores to open on December 26. In one city, it still is.
In 1965, goaltender Johnny Bower recorded “Honky the Christmas Goose” — and challenged the Beatles for record sales.
All jobs have special qualifications — and Santa is no different. So what gave some candidates the edge?
Many shoppers at Scarborough’s Morningside Mall were shocked to discover that its Santa was a woman. And many Ontarians were appalled when she was fired.
How bejewelled French hens and melting Santa heads became part of the city’s holiday lore.
General Motors has announced that it will close its plant in the city — marking the end of an era that goes back almost 150 years.
After Canada entered the First World War, small towns and big cities across Ontario stepped up — thanks in no small part to government propaganda.
Street parties broke out. Effigies of the kaiser were burned. But in Kitchener, the celebrations had a darker side.
Provincial parks came into being 125 years ago — but they really hit their stride after the Second World War, when Ontarians went wild for the wilderness.
The day James Pliny Whitney took the oath of office, his delighted Tory supporters took to the streets.
Furious with the NDP and unimpressed with the Liberals, voters elected Mike Harris’s tax-cutting, government-shrinking Progressive Conservatives.
The party’s unexpected 1990 election victory stunned everyone — including leader Bob Rae.
After 42 years in power, the Progressive Conservatives found themselves on the ropes in the bitterly contested election campaign of 1985.
The Liberals crumbled, the CCF drew fire, and the Conservatives won power — and wouldn’t be forced to give it up for another 42 years.