Thank you very much, Madam Chair. As this is my first time appearing before the justice committee, I want to recognize the tremendous work that the committee has done on this very issue. I went back to the testimony of the last couple of meetings, and the amount of ground that you have covered is tremendous.
I also want to recognize the tremendous work of my colleagues MP Waugh and MP Masse in advancing this really important bill for our region.
The southwest region of Ontario—southwest of the GTA— is the second-largest horse-racing region in Ontario, and there are about 6,000 jobs locally here. That's about one-third of the employment provincially. There are eight racetracks, for example, in Sarnia, Dresden and nearby Leamington.
I had a chance to talk to Bob McIntosh, who is a legend in the horse-racing industry and is from a family of generations of breeders and trainers inducted into the hall of fame, both on the U.S. side and on the Canadian side. When you talk to him, he talks about horse racing as a real rich ecosystem. He talks about how the horse-racing industry is a very labour-intensive sector that really supports a lot of direct and indirect jobs.
I just wanted to ask you, Mr. Lawson and Mr. Ford, if you could maybe talk a bit about it. Give us a sense of what goes into horse racing, of what types of businesses and jobs are supported and what some of the costs of running those operations are. I really just wanted to underline that.