Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which has the highest number of microbrewers per capita in the country. One of the persons who started in the industry in the eighties said that back when he started there were about 20 or 30 microbreweries. In the first budget by the Harper government, Mr. Flaherty put in place excise tax relief. Now there are well over 600 of these microbreweries right across the country. They are also, obviously, subject to excise tax provincially.
When you add these costs to their structure—in addition to the money that they pay in corporate income tax and in addition to the GST, etc., that's generated and the income taxes by all the jobs—when you take more money out with excise tax, Minister, you're effectively making it more difficult for them to invest and grow.
What do you say to those microbrewers who've just gotten into the market and have invested their life savings to grow a business only to find out that many of them may not have the margins that they did to be able to grow?