Madam Speaker, my colleague's point about housekeeping changes was right on. This is the time to identify problems and deal with any problems associated with the bill. Time is of the essence, but on the other hand, we do not want to put something through which has errors in it.
In the spirit of that, no pun intended, I wonder if he would discuss the general definition of spirit drinks. If I can give him some thoughts, then perhaps he could give me some thoughts back.
After consideration of this matter, the feeling is that this legislation focuses on specific products. It does not focus on spirit drinks in general. We do not need a general definition in the legislation because it deals with specific ones. If a definition were put in the bill, it would not affect the protection of the specific ones because they are listed in the bill, but it might affect further negotiations or the names and other geographic indicators, which we might want in Canada. By putting a general definition in the bill, we affect the effectiveness of future negotiations.
Another point that has been made is that most of the stakeholders, the producers and processors, the people in the retail business, sufficiently understand for the purpose of this legislation the definition of a spirit drink.
Those are the arguments on the other side. I know my colleague was making the point that there might well be a general definition as well. For the sake of the record and the people who are following this debate, I wonder if he would give us his thoughts.