Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to join with my colleagues in congratulating the member for Châteauguay for the excellent speech he just made here, in the House.
I am also pleased to speak to Bill C-47. As I have said a few times, when I say that I am pleased to take part in a debate, it does not mean that I am pleased with the provisions set out in a bill, Bill C-47 in this case, on the contrary.
I considered very carefully whether I should address this bill. Why? Because I wanted to avoid taking part in a partisan debate that could have a demagogic undertone. However, I happen to have in my riding a small microbrewery called La Seigneuriale, which is in a rather unusual situation, since it was bought by Sleeman, a major brewery, a few years ago.
It is a situation that most microbreweries will have to face pretty soon. They will either have to close down or let their fierce competitors, the large breweries, take over. This competition amongst the large breweries does not exist only at the counter, in the corner stores, the groceries and the liquor stores. It even exists here on the floor of this House. It does because the large breweries go as far as trying to influence the decisions of the lawmakers that we are to put the microbreweries in a more than precarious position.
The amendment moved by my colleague from Drummond is simply an attempt to make the government take a step back from a bill that has obviously been prepared very quickly—I am trying to be polite here. However there are those who would say that it was prepared taking certain interests into account.
If the government believes in our role to preserve the general interest and not the special interests of lobbyists who generously contribute to certain campaign funds, it has to acknowledge the amendment proposed by my colleague from Drummond, put things into perspective, review the whole issue and come back with a formulation that will be much more acceptable, taking into account the general interest.
This bill is fundamentally flawed in that the excise tax provisions excluding for example small wine producers do not apply to small beer producers. We have to wonder why some small scale producers of certain spirits would be excluded but others would not. Why? I believe we have given in the last few days a number of explanations as to why the government has chosen to exclude microbreweries from Bill C-47.
Now, there surely is an explanation. As I was saying, Bill C-47, in its present form, has a major flaw that we tried to correct in the finance committee. My colleagues, the members for Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot and for Drummond, tried to correct this flaw in good faith, always in the public interest.
With public interest in mind, we came to the committee and said: “We will try to correct this flaw”. The chair of the committee then questioned the admissibility of the amendment. We must first ask why the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance refused the amendment. I will come back to this after question period, but this question about the motivations of the finance committee chair is fundamental.