I'd like to thank the witnesses for their presentations today and their participation in this study.
We will be winding down the study on non-tariff trade barriers, and I'm really hoping that when we do get together as a committee we can put forward some recommendations and hopefully put some pressure on the government to act and maybe adopt some of these recommendations.
I'll start with Mr. Paszkowski.
I want to talk about the excise tax, which has been talked about quite a bit. The federal budget announced an excise duty increase on wine and spirits, so this will have an impact on the industry, on businesses, restaurants, hotels, a broad range. I wonder if you could talk about the negative impacts of this excise duty on the industry, and maybe make a recommendation to the committee.