Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Essex for her question and for her advocacy in this chamber.
In terms of the winery economy, the vintners of Canada are an important aspect of our economy, as are all of our alcohol producers and alcohol distributers. The actual tax that is proposed in this budget will amount to a tax of what I understand to be 1¢ per bottle. That tax, while it may be significant, is not overall disproportionate to the amount of economic generation that will be created through that revenue generation, through that Excise Tax Act change.
Let us continue with the CTA. The efforts we are making with the Canada trade agreement to reduce interprovincial trade barriers will have an impact across the country, including on alcohol and wine distribution throughout the country.
With respect to the Excise Tax Act, I would actually underscore another change to be made to the Excise Tax Act, which I think benefits the exact same constituents who the member for Essex and I care about; for example, the people who are employed in the taxi industry. By changing the Excise Tax Act and how it considers ride-sharing services, such as Uber, what we are doing is levelling the playing field between Uber services and taxicab services so that all ride-sharing agreements are taxed in the same manner, which will again increase the equity that I think both of us agree should be pursued.