Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My name is Tony Van Bynen. I'm the member of Parliament for Newmarket—Aurora. I was the mayor of Newmarket for 12 years. I had some excellent opportunities to get engaged with our community. I'm wearing a blue jacket, and I have a noticeable absence of the blond hair I had when I was young.
Some things I am really proud of in our community are the way some service clubs are getting engaged with the seeing-eye dog initiative. I believe that Lions Clubs has been raising money to make seeing-eye dogs available for people who are blind. It also has an initiative that it asked me to be involved with, which was setting up a separate, leash-free dog park for service dogs. One barrier it has run into is that it inhibits the relationship between the service dog and the person it is taking care of. That project has not gone forward, so I'm taking advantage of your experience with the guide dogs to get your opinion on that.