Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister, thank you for being here.
If I go back, the first question I ever had a chance to ask in Parliament when I was elected in 2019 had to do with the Australian WTO challenge to the 2006 excise exemption on 100% Canadian-made wine.
Flowing from that decision was the need to create a replacement program, and $101 million was first committed by the government in budget 2021. That was then raised in 2022 when the formal trade-compliant replacement program was created.
The problem, Minister, is that it's only a two-year program, and the sector is looking for certainty. Budget 2022 showed that the government, because of the elimination of the excise exemption, would be generating $390 million over a five-year period.
My question for you right now is from my stakeholders, the grape and wine growers and the industry producers. They are looking for certainty to see whether our trade-compliant program will be extended past those two years and whether the government will commit to extending that $390 million to the producers and growers.