There is a witness, and we totally forgot. We were conversing across the way here.
One thing that I think has really been forgotten in a lot of this debate is the health implications. It wasn't something that was raised by any of the witnesses until I had the opportunity, so it's something that's been absent from this whole debate. In fact, I actually heard one of the witnesses make the same arguments that big tobacco made many years ago, that we can't do this, that those studies are all fake, and they're not true.
At the end of the day, we know that alcohol has a huge impact on a lot of communities, and prices haven't gone up for a lot of these products. Maybe we need more witnesses to come to testify about the health impacts of alcohol on various communities, not only in Winnipeg Centre but also, I'm sure, in Quebec and in Alberta. I'm sure the effects of alcohol are very important to a lot of communities.
When I look at the excise tax and the escalator, the thing I see is stability. I see a way of offering businesses a long-term vision of what the costs are going to be for them, and they can calculate those. They won't have a new government showing up after 10 years, saying that they had forgotten to raise those excise taxes for the last 10 years and maybe they should increase them by 15% or 20% because they haven't kept pace with inflation and the cost of actually providing these services and ensuring how much it actually costs to calculate this, and the cost to society. I think that's really important.
I was reading in greater detail.... Perhaps they were unable to explain it. At the same time, you have a Canadian primary product—Canadian wheat or Canadian grapes used in these products—and you use Canadian labour and you produce it in a Canadian place; there is no excise tax, which is what I heard. At the end of the day, for instance, for a case of beer it's 5¢ on a case of 24. To me that doesn't seem like a whole lot.
I'm really supportive of this measure, because I think it's moving in the right direction.
Finally, there is this idea of taxation without representation. I disagree with that. We were elected and we're standing here right now, and I think we're offering a long-term vision. Every one of the witnesses who came here to testify to the finance committee had the opportunity—