Thank you.
In closing, I'm going to address another subject. What I'm going to talk about does not affect many people. It's really a minor detail compared to the economy as a whole and all the sectors, but it would really change things for craft producers of alcohol products from fruit, berries and maple syrup.
As a result of Australia's lawsuit, via the World Trade Organization, on the excise tax for producers of grape wine, and also because of Ottawa's definition of what constitutes wine, they were successful in exempting cider and mead producers from this excise tax. There were also other producers not targeted by Australia, which was only interested in producers of grape wine. I'm talking about pear cider and raspberry wine producers, for example. These craft producers, when they export their highly specialized products, have to pay the entire tariff, which reduces their competitiveness and can threaten their very survival.
Could your department look into this and try to harmonize the excise tax to accomplish the same thing for producers of cider and mead?