Akt(e) f146 - 1988 NDP Convention - Day 2 - Tape #12

After the official founding of the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation (C.C.F.) at Regina in 1933, the new party set out to establish provincial organizations. By the early 1940's, in Ontario, after a rough start, the Party had attracted a number of supporters and in the election of 1943 elected 34 members to the Legislature. For the next eight years the fortunes of the party fluctuated until in 1951 a snap election called by Premier Leslie Frost reduced C.C.F. representation in the Legislature to two seats. The decade of the 1950's became a period of revitalization in Ontario. In the meantime the national movement, which had suffered in the federal election of 1958, had agreed to enter into a more formal relationship with the trade union movement. The merger of the industrial unions and the craft unions into one central labour body (the Canadian Labour Congress) seemed to signal that the time was right to make an attempt to tie more union members to the party. Consultation between C.C.F and C.L.C. leaders resulted in the birth of the New Democratic Party (N.D.P.) in 1961. By 1967, with increased resources and more electoral sophistication the Party was once more able to emerge as a major force in Ontario politics, capturing 26 percent of the vote and securing 20 seats in the Legislature. In 1971, another provincial election was fought and for the first time the C.C.F.-N.D.P. was able to follow one relatively successful election, with another, retaining nineteen 19 seats in the Legislature under new party leader Stephen Lewis.

Maclean-Hunter Limited was renamed "Maclean Hunter Limited" in 1981. In 1982, the company acquired a controlling interest in Sun Media; ownership of the Financial Post was transferred to Sun Media in 1987 to facilitate the publication's expansion from a weekly to a daily newspaper.

By the early 1990s, Maclean Hunter's assets also included cable television services in 35 Ontario markets, 21 radio stations, television station CFCN in Calgary and a significant minority share in CTV.

Maclean Hunter was acquired in 1994 by Rogers Communications. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved the transaction, but required Rogers to divest itself of some of Maclean Hunter's individual assets to alleviate concerns about concentration of media ownership. Shaw Communications acquired some of the cable holdings and radio stations, Telemedia and Blackburn Radio acquired other radio stations, and the consortium of Baton Broadcasting and Electrohome acquired CFCN and the CTV shares. Sun Media was sold in an employee buyout in 1996.

Maclean Hunter also had cable holdings in the United States, which were acquired by Comcast in 1994.

Maclean Hunter lives on in the publication Maclean's magazine.

The former assets of Maclean Hunter was sold by Rogers to St. Joseph Communications in March 2019.