Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's my pleasure to ask you some questions about this very important bill.
I always like to tell a story. I live in British Columbia, and my parents live in Ontario. They used to come out every summer, and there was a particular sparkling white that was very special to them. I remember that when they were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, we desperately wanted to have a few bottles of it at their wedding celebration, because it was so important. It turned out to be absolutely impossible. My sister looked at bringing it in through the distribution branches. We went through many avenues to see if we could provide this sparkling white that was special to them on their 50th wedding anniversary, with no success.
I always look at that and think there has to be something wrong in Canada when there are such barriers between British Columbia and Ontario that you can't share a special bottle of champagne on a special occasion.
Certainly that helped frame my thinking. Living next to Kelowna, I recognize what a great wine country we have there. Perhaps one day I'll get to Nova Scotia and also be able to enjoy some of the up-and-coming wines that are there.
I know that FreeMyGrapes.ca calculated a very minor percentage of impact in liquor board revenue. I think it was 0.001%. I know we'll have some witnesses later, and perhaps they'll have an opportunity to address that issue. The calculations I've seen have shown impacts very minor in nature.
You mentioned the red tape commission. I was a member of that commission. If you could bring those two pieces together—how your bill fits our government's goal in terms of red tape—that would be great.