Global Alliance Worldwide Chauffeured Services operates in the Greater Toronto Area of Southern Ontario, Canada. Although Global Alliance provides services around the world through our network of affiliates, the core of our services are performed in Toronto and its surrounding region. In this continuing feature, we will detail notable locations and communities in the Greater Toronto Area (or GTA) where we often provide limousine service. We will continue to the east of the GTA today with a stop in Oshawa.

Located along the shoreline of Lake Ontario about sixty kilometres east of Toronto’s downtown, Oshawa has a population of approximately 150,000 residents. Its name comes from the Ojibwa word for “the crossing place”, possibly a reference to the role of the region in the fur trade of colonial times. Settled, like much of Southern Ontario, by United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American colonies after the Revolutionary War, Oshawa was incorporated as a village in 1850.

A developing industrial centre throughout the late 19th Century, Oshawa was home to Robert McLaughlin’s carriage works, which grew into the McLaughlin Motor Car Company in 1907 to manufacture automobiles and eventually General Motors of Canada (whose headquarters and major manufacturing facilities remain based in the city). Oshawa was incorporated as a city in 1924, and despite a 1937 strike, the Second World War, and postwar deindustrialization, Oshawa has continued to thrive and expand into the 21st Century.

Oshawa is often referred to as the “Automotive Capital of Canada” (although citizens of Windsor, home of Chrysler Canada, may beg to differ), and many of its historic and cultural attractions are linked to General Motors’ operations. The Canadian Automotive Museum on Simcoe Street in downtown Oshawa displays many vintage historic cars in a period 1920s building that was once an auto dealership. The historic mansion of the McLaughlin family, Parkwood Estate, is a National Historic Site of Canada and its period 1920s and 1930s architecture and interiors are open to the public year-round. The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, a collection of contemporary art opened in 1967, received funding support from the General Motors founders and was named after the company’s Victorian founder. The General Motors Centre is a modern 5,000-to-7,000-capacity all-purpose arena and home to the city’s popular and successful OHL junior hockey team, the Oshawa Generals.

Please feel free to contact Global Alliance Worldwide Chauffeured Services for all of your transportation needs in Oshawa, Ontario.