The reality is that anyone who is looking to brew beer in the NWT is never going to do it with local northern labour and get to a price point anything comparable to the large producers in the South. There are simply too many input costs to be competitive. When we look at the generous discount, as the Minister frames it, the price per litre that we are taxing beer at that is locally produced in the Northwest Territories is still not comparable to Ontario's microbrewery rate, for example. We are taxing them at a higher rate so that that beer will never be competitive with the Molson Canadians of the world, an example, who I might point out are currently locking out their union.

I think one of the ways to fix this would be to allow locally produced beer to directly sell to restaurants. Right now, if you produce beer, you have to sell it to the liquor commission and then buy it back with those taxes. If you want to sell beer in a tasting room, you have to sell it first and then buy it back more expensively, at a price per litre that just is not competitive and really never will be, given the cost of labour and doing work in the North. My question to the Minister is: as part of this pricing review, can we allow locally produced beer to directly sell to restaurants without going to the liquor commission to be sold first?