Mr. Speaker, that particular provision basically defers the payment of duty by small vintners selling wine on consignment in retail stores operated by an association of vintners until the wine is sold.
Effectively, if I understand it correctly, we are talking about the deferral of a payment which, for a small business, is very important because it helps cash flow. It matches cash inflows and cash outflows so that inventory is not being financed even though it is on a consignment basis.
I would say to the member that I do understand the benefit to small businesses, such as vintners, but if we were to take this to its logical conclusion, where all these little ways in which we can help businesses were all put into our legislation and have specific clauses with specifics for this one and that one, our legislation would explode. That is exactly what has happened to the Income Tax Act. It has so many exceptions, exemptions, et cetera that it has made it very complicated. As a matter of fact, for many it is too complicated to safely handle their own tax matters.
I guess that makes the accountants and the lawyers very well off. I suspect, if anything, they may save on the duty but it might be offset by the need to have an accountant to explain it all. In principle, I like it but with regard to the details, I think we must be extremely careful about the micro-administration of businesses through tax and excise tax acts.