I think for most of us the torch relay was a spectacular event. For those of us who weren't at Expo 67 or weren't born at that time, Expo 67 is a source of irritation, because I constantly hear about it and I wasn't able to attend. I wasn't even being contemplated at the time. But for very real reasons, the torch relay has become a kind of expo for a lot of us.
I know in my hometown we had four events on one day. I have four different communities that I represent. I remember waking up that morning at 5:30, and it was minus 25. It was the coldest day, and I was thinking, “Oh, gosh, nobody's going to show up for this.” I put on layers and layers and layers, and I was about two kilometres from the downtown—Stouffville is a town of about 35,000 people—and the lineup had already started. I barely made it to where I was supposed to be to try to fight my way through the crowds.
Two hours later, in Markham, at the regional celebration, there were over 10,000 people there.
It was just a frigid, frigid day. We have one of the torches from that day on display at our city hall. The one thing that people always remember is that the entire town showed up for it. They remember everything that led up to it and just how cold it was on the day, and still, 30,000 people showed up in the downtown.
I wonder if you could tell me something. You've raised an awful lot of money through partnerships. Obviously when you go to a partner, one of the things that's important to them is the exposure they get out of doing something. What were some of the other challenges you faced? What were some of the other things your partners were looking for before they would commit to this type of an investment?