Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this amendment. Yesterday, I spoke about this bill before the amendment was put forward. The amendment reads as follows:
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 amendment, which was put forward by the member for Drummond, is an excellent one, because it corresponds exactly to the actual stage we are at in consideration of this bill.
We realized that the government deliberately decided to exclude from the review of the Excise Act anything to do with beer, except the definition, which was left in the bill. If the definition has been left in the bill, then somehow we should be allowed to address this issue.
When the Bloc Quebecois' proposed amendments were considered in committee, the committee chair used her authority in an unorthodox way, in response to very obvious influences, and decided not to accept the amendment. It was not defeated in committee, but simply rejected.
Since then, all the microbrewers have come forward and said that there were agreements. For example, they had the support of the federal Minister of Justice, who had said that it was a good idea to have this amendment in the bill, so that taxes would be reduced for our microbreweries. Suddenly, they are realizing that the government has decided to abandon them.
The answer probably lies in the letter Mr. Morrison sent Sue Barnes on April 12, 2002—