Chris Bennedsen was part of a great influx of immigrants who settled in Toronto after the Second World War. After 1951, changes to the city’s ethnic makeup accelerated as waves of immigrants, many of whom were Italian, and their offspring transformed the heart and soul of Toronto.

Post-war Toronto was a boom town. New immigrants, the concentration of national wealth in the downtown core, and a huge growth in suburbanization fuelled an unprecedented construction boom. Development in the 1950s and 1960s transformed the business and commercial districts of the downtown.

In 1951, the population of greater Toronto was one million; a decade later, it was over a million and a half. By 1976, Toronto had surpassed Montréal to become Canada’s most populous city. There was a tremendous growth in public spending on roads, sewers, schools, subways, and airports, as well as expansion of manufacturing through American branch plants and new suburbs.