Canada 1989 is the year you are still paying for, in both directions. Gas was fifty cents a litre. Groceries for a week cost your family eighty dollars. A house in Toronto was $273,000. The numbers are not a punchline. They are a before-and-after, and you are living in the after.

In Dryden, Ontario that same year, twenty-four people died when Air Ontario Flight 1363 went down. What came out of that investigation changed de-icing procedures for every winter flight that has taken off since. The tragedy had a consequence, and the consequence is still active every time a plane gets cleared for departure on a cold morning.

The internet was born that year too. So was the grunge sound that would take over the decade. Brian Mulroney was governing a Canada that cost a fraction of what it does today. 1989 built a lot of what you use and cannot afford.

Topics: Canada 1989, Air Ontario crash Dryden, cost of living 1989, internet history, throwback Thursday Canada

Originally aired on 2026-03-12