The Olympic flame is passed from one torch bearer to another in Oshawa on Wednesday evening. (CBC)

The Olympic flame has made its first appearance in the Greater Toronto Area after torch bearers carried it into downtown Oshawa on Wednesday night.

Scores of cheering people lined Oshawa streets as grinning torch bearers ran through the industrial city, located about 60 kilometres east of Toronto, between 5 and 6 p.m.

"It's very exciting. It's a great way to unite all Canadians, and it knits us together in that we are part of the Olympics, just like every other community that's had the torch run come through," said Oshawa Mayor John Gray.

"We invited everybody in from all the surrounding area. Let's have a great time tonight."

The CBC's Lucy Lopez, reporting from downtown Oshawa, said that a lot of people who braved the cold to cheer the torch were friends and family of the numerous torch bearers.

"But some of them are complete strangers who told us that this is one of those once-in-a-lifetimes opportunities. … They may not be able to go to Vancouver for the Olympics, and this is the closest they are going to get to that Olympic torch."

The torch began the day in Peterborough and was carried westward through a number of other communities, including Lindsay, Newcastle and Bowmanville.

The torch will stay at General Motors Centre — the town's stadium — overnight before being carried farther west, starting early Thursday. The flame will enter Toronto at around 2 p.m.

Torch bearers will carry the flame to Nathan Phillips Square in downtown Toronto for a 7 p.m. ceremony. The flame is scheduled to leave the Toronto area on Saturday.

Wednesday was the 48th day of the 106-day, 45,000-kilometre Olympic torch relay across Canada leading up to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.