Thank you for the question.
First of all, I must say that I am not a specialist in international trade law. There is another branch in the Department of Finance that deals specifically with these issues. Perhaps they could send a more specific written response to the committee. I do not want to interfere with the trade policy of my country by making a statement on subjects that I am not capable to speak to.
That being said, there is a little technical point that I can raise. The automatic increases to keep inflation under control in future years are inherently the same as the 2% increase proposed in this budget. How would one element be more problematic than the other when it comes to trade policy? That remains a question mark in my mind.
As part of the overall analysis of the measure, the fact that it is relatively small has clearly been taken into account. As I said earlier in my presentation, we are talking about 5¢ per case of 24 bottles of beer, 1¢ per bottle of wine and 7¢ per bottle of 750 millilitres of 40% alcohol spirits. These are relatively insignificant measures, even if inflation were to persist for several years.
I should add that, meanwhile, provinces often seek their money by imposing profit margins expressed as a percentage. They increase automatically, without adjusting to inflation.