Prepare to wait until next year (at least) for the end of Oshawa’s ‘Prepare to be Amazed’ slogan

Oshawa has decided that the end of Prepare to be Amazed as a city slogan will have to be a problem for the next term of council to deal with.

Oshawa’s transition from a sleepy village to the industrial and commercial centre east of Toronto that it is today got its kick-start when General Motors opened for business just over a century ago, leading to its official status as a ‘City’ in 1924 and its largely unofficial slogan as Canada’s Motor City.

Inspiration from that automotive heritage led to official slogans of The City that Motivates Canada and The City in Motion, which was the slogan of record until 2006. That’s when Oshawa Council, recognizing the presence of a new university in town and the City’s growing expertise in non-automotive sectors such as technology and health sciences, went off the board with a new slogan: Prepare to be Amazed.

The popularity of the current slogan has been mixed, to put it generously, and Council had decided a new slogan is needed, to be created in time for Oshawa’s centennial celebrations in 2024.

The motion came before the Corporate Services Committee April 11 to have staff investigate and report back on “an inspiring process” to initiate a new city slogan, but with an election on the horizon this fall committee decided there simply wasn’t time to complete the process this year.

The last re-branding took 18 months and cost the City about $100,000, noted committee chair Bradley Marks, who said the decision will have to be left in the hands of the next council. “The timing is just not right.”

There isn’t a ‘re-branding’ committee at City Hall so the project would have to be outsourced, he said, but “if they bring it forward early in the term there will be enough time,” he pointed out, adding that if he is “lucky enough” to be re-elected, “you bet I’m supporting this.”

Committee members in the end voted to just receive the report for information.