Let's talk about the amendment. The amendment talks about, in proposed paragraph 15.1(2)(b), “an assessment of the impact of those sections on domestic alcohol producers, including on small and medium-sized brewers.”
The point I want to talk about is small and medium-sized brewers. The point I was trying to make before I was interrupted was the importance of small and medium-sized businesses on the economy and why it's so important that this amendment is supported by this committee.
We're elected to do a job where we're not supposed to represent corporate interests as parliamentarians. We're supposed to represent Canadians. That includes representing small businesses and those who work in these businesses. We know that small and medium-sized businesses employ the majority of those workers. Before I was interrupted, we were talking about small and medium-sized businesses.
I'll get back to the point that I was making earlier about the high-priced lobbyists who are able to get that sort of corporate welfare that small and medium-sized businesses never seem to get. I talk to businesses all the time in my riding—the great riding of Richmond Hill South. They always ask why the supports that the Liberals announce never seem to reach their way. They're the ones tightening their belts. When they need timely information, they aren't able to get it from the government. It seems like they're paying so much in taxes, but when it comes to saving for a rainy day, they're on their own and those supports always end up going to large enterprises.
The point is very relevant, actually, because we're talking about how to support small and medium-sized businesses. To say that it's not relevant.... I mean, should we talk about large businesses? That's what the Liberals have been doing for the past year and a half. They've been giving these big corporate cheques to large businesses and using all these buzzwords like “sovereignty” and “buy Canadian” and all that. I think the whole buy Canadian concept that the Liberals have tried to introduce has been quite a joke. You don't even need to hire Canadian workers or have full Canadian ownership when you use that label.
Today, we're talking about the small and medium-sized brewers. Can we agree that this is an important concept? We have brewers all over the country and all across Ontario and the GTA. They don't have access to that information or the impacts that affect.... Lobbyists always print these nice glossy brochures. The Liberals like to call them stakeholders, but they're really registered lobbyists, a lot of times. I've been here for a year now and I've realized that even the people who appear at these committees don't have the best interests of Canadians....
They can't hire lobbyists and they can't hire the consultants. Who, then, are Canadians going to count on? They're going to count on parliamentarians to stand up for them. That means that as parliamentarians we have to advocate on their behalf so that we can make the common-sense amendments that we need in these bills..
Bill C-30 is a very important bill. It's talking about the spring economic update, but some people are calling this an update of Liberal-managed decline. That's what it's really about.