My name is Mathieu Bourgeois. I'm a tax policy officer at Finance Canada, for the sales tax division.
To respond to your question, basically it's all based on the fact that alcohol excise duty rates have not been adjusted to account for inflation in the last almost three decades, and in that sense it has lost some of its value over time. The change we would introduce today would be to ensure that the effectiveness of those rates will be maintained going forward. It's purely a matter of maintaining the effectiveness of those rates.