My name is Leo Finnegan. I am privileged to be mayor of the beautiful County of Prince Edward. I have with me this morning, Barry Braun, our commissioner of recreation, parks, and culture.
I'd like to first welcome you to our county. We're almost an island. We have 500 miles of shoreline here and we're connected by four bridges and a ferry. It's largely an agricultural community; however, in recent years...we now have 14 operating wineries, which started about 15 years ago. So wineries are attracting lots of attention. We have a provincial park here, the Sandbanks Provincial Park, which is well known. About half a million people visit the park each summer and about a million tourists go through this county every year.
As I said, it's largely an agricultural community. We have one of the best natural harbours on the north shore of Lake Ontario at Picton, which you're going to see later on today, I understand. And we also have a harbour at Wellington, which you're going to see also. So we're very proud of our community and we're anxious to see it grow. And it is growing. Many people find this county by boat. They're either sailing from Toronto, or whatever, and they sail into Prince Edward County and there's an expression, “They come for a day and stay for a lifetime”.
I'm going to turn this over to Barry Braun, our commissioner, and have him explain what happened as far as the divestiture of our docks is concerned.
Barry.