Thank you very much, Minister, for choosing to stay a little longer. I look forward to being able to plan for longer appearances in the future.
I have a few questions I'd like to ask.
One has to do with the excise tax.
One thing the budget implementation act does, as you know, is limit the increase in the excise tax to 2%. I think there were many critics of the notion, when it was first introduced, that increases in the excise tax would be tied automatically to inflation.
I'm wondering whether this year's exception has been cause for reflection on the part of the government, in terms of the idea of maintaining an automatic escalator going forward.