Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's question because it gives me the opportunity to mention something that I feel is important to bear in mind. We too, in the Lanaudière region, have several microbreweries. In Joliette, we have L'Alchimiste, of which we are very proud. This measure announced in the previous budget, as I mentioned, has greatly benefited that company.
I want to point out, because it is quite remarkable, that the microbreweries are the ones that fought for an excise tax reduction on the first 700,000 hectolitres produced. The major breweries opposed such a reduction for many years, and their lobby was unfortunately tied in large part to the Liberal government at the time.
It is fascinating to see how the Conservative government has gone about getting this passed. By granting the same reduction to both microbreweries and major breweries, it has bought the silence of the major breweries in order to help the microbreweries. This is really twisting things. Obviously, the competition for microbreweries comes first and foremost from imported beers, cottage brewery beers from abroad. In a rather unsubtle way, the meaning of the measure the Bloc Québécois had been calling for in recent years got twisted. I think that it will nonetheless help our microbreweries grow and further define part of our heritage identity.