Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak again today on Bill C-47, more particularly on the amendment of my colleague from Drummond.
I would like to commend my colleague for her amendment. She has been insightful. Thus, she is allowing the government to get out of a mess that the committee chair put it in, and that it agreed to.
We know that, in the Standing Committee on Finance, government members suffer from the fish school syndrome. When someone on their side says something, they do not try to know what is happening; they follow, they follow the fish school approach.
I would like to read the amendment to the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-47, which my colleague from Drummond has moved:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
“Bill C-47, An Act respecting the taxation of spirits, wine and tobacco and the treatment of ships' stores, be not now read a third time but that it be read a third time this day six months hence.”
This is working seriously: working to solve problems that have been created since 1997. Those who acted in good faith did not expect this. As the Alliance member said earlier, the excise tax is a major source of revenue for the government. The Excise Tax Act mentions wine, spirits, tobacco, and beer as well. Since 1997, there have been talks about modernizing the excise tax. The Bloc Quebecois was in favour.
My colleague from Drummond said that in clause 2, on line 15 of page 2, beer is mentioned. However, we realized during the debate in committee that beer was not mentioned anywhere else in Bill C-47.
Yesterday, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance told me that this would be discussed later on, that it was not necessary to discuss it now. When a bill deals with a particular issue, we must talk about it. Why take a small part of an act and put it elsewhere saying that it is going to be discussed later? We never know what later means. To reassure everyone, we must do a complete study of everything that is included in a particular piece of legislation.
That is not what the Liberal Party is doing, nor is it what the finance committee and its chair did. As my colleague from Joliette, whom I congratulate on his remarks, was saying earlier, the issue of microbreweries is a regional concern.
In my region—I said it yesterday and I will say it again today because it is very important—we have a microbrewery called Brasserie de l'Anse, which is located in the small community of Anse-Saint-Jean. This small community needs small businesses to survive and to retain its identity. The Brasserie de l'Anse enables that community to do that. It is located in the riding of the member for Chicoutimi.
He rose in the House yesterday. I said to myself “He is finally going to say something to defend the interests of his constituents”. But I was very disappointed. He talked about public funding, about members of the Bloc Quebecois who are lingering in Ottawa and who are not doing anything. I never thought that I was not doing anything here. If he is only a liaison officer for the Liberal Party, then it is not surprising that he should behave this way.
I can say that we are here and that we are working very hard to defend the interests of our constituents. As a member of the Bloc Quebecois from the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region and as chair of the caucus of Bloc Quebecois members, I look after the riding of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.
I am very pleased to support the brewers in L'Anse-Saint-Jean, and I take their interests to heart. That is why I support the amendment moved by my colleague. The government should pause and reflect. It has left out of this bill an important part, and it affects the interests of workers and communities as a whole in the regions. It should do its homework once again, and undertake a new examination of this bill.
We are not asking for anything special. We are not asking for something that did not exist before. We simply want to abide by the Excise Tax Act. That is all.
I am very happy that my colleague moved this amendment. If the government is serious, it will rise to the occasion, and we will have a real debate on the microbreweries issue.
Microbreweries are found not only in Quebec, but throughout Canada. Our communities are proud of them. As my colleague from Joliette said earlier, I am very proud of my sense of belonging, and I am very proud of my own identity inside Quebec. I am very proud to say I am from the Saguenay region. A microbrewery is in touch with the identity that has developed within a specific area.
Mr. Speaker, you come from another region. You have another sense of belonging and other tastes, and you are proud to express them. Microbreweries are small or medium size businesses that represent a region and they also play that role.
I want them to keep on doing that. I want the government to remove its blinkers and say “Yes, we will look at the bill again. We will look into this excise tax business, which concerns everything we wanted to deal with at the beginning”. The government should review the matter seriously.
As we were saying, we agreed with Bill C-47 before our colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot realized what had happened. We could not let this go through as it stands; it was too important. The Bloc Quebecois members are here to defend their respective communities. This affects my province and other communities throughout Canada.
I am a sovereignist from Quebec, but I have always respected everybody else's sovereignty and identity. We want each and every element to have its proper place in this bill. We want to ensure that each person and each company concerned, whether by the beer or by the tobacco issue, and each association be taken into consideration. We want a serious review of this bill.
Let the government members remove their blinkers, recognize reality and say “Yes, we will do our homework”. The Excise Tax Act has not been reviewed for a long time. Let us update it. There will not be another review for a long time. We have to do our homework carefully. It is true that this is an important source of financing for the government. It is also true that small communities and the microbreweries, which are important in their area, need some help.
The ball is in the government's camp. It is up to the government to do something. I hope that all the members will support the amendment moved by my colleague from Drummond.