Mr. Speaker, I notice that the hon. member mentioned smuggling of alcohol. The price of a bottle of spirits in Canada is about $20 as opposed to about $10 in the United States. Eighty-seven per cent of the price of a bottle of spirits in Canada is made up of taxes. An estimated four million cases of 12 bottles are smuggled into Canada every year from the U.S. and about 13 million cases are sold legally in Canada.
Provincial governments and the federal government are losing billions of dollars in revenue as a result of this smuggling. I am wondering when the government is going to come up with a plan to reduce the taxes on alcohol because there is exactly the same scenario here. These cases are parallel in my mind.
I would like to ask the hon. member when she would recommend that taxes on alcohol be reduced.