Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague opposite. We could have listened to him for 40 minutes. One wonders if he is serious. Since 1997, the repercussions on microbreweries have been looked at and studied. In five years, we have lost 39 of the 89 microbreweries. Would he not agree that it is urgent that we look into this situation? All one has to do is look at the tax rates throughout Europe, in the United States and here. The time has come to stop saying, “Yes, we need to help the microbreweries”. The time has come to do it.
Now we are about to amend the law on excise and excise tax, and we are not even using this opportunity. People are forced to come together and establish the Canadian Council of Regional Brewers. They appeared before the committee here. They were stunned to see that the amendments were dismissed. We are all aware of this. All day long we repeated how this happened and why this amendment, introduced by the member for Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot was dismissed. We need to talk about this and settle the microbrewery issue. We need more than letters and lip service.
On two or three occasions today, I heard someone say “Yes, we are aware of that”. Stop being aware and start doing something. It is time to act. We are at third reading and we could postpone it to work on some provisions to include beer, along with all the other things that are covered in this interesting and necessary legislation. It is urgent to act. If 38 microbreweries out of 89 have shut down, how many will be left in five years? Will this situation please Labatt and Molson? There are not just breweries in the riding of Lasalle—Émard. There are also people and microbreweries that want to be in operation.
Let us not forget one thing. Five years ago, microbreweries held 5.5% of the beer market. Now, they only hold 4% of it. Do people realize how much money is going into the pockets of large breweries because of that? They are pocketing a net amount of $17 million. We fully understand why they want to delay the introduction of a new bill to reduce that tax for microbreweries. We can perfectly see why.
You have used an incomprehensible and truly undemocratic ploy. We saw with Motion No. 2 what this government is capable of. Why oppose Motion No. 2? If you really care about microbreweries, you should stop engaging in totally meaningless rhetoric and take action. You have been intending to do so for five years. The bill has now been introduced.