The Liberal government won’t accept the Senate’s amendments to the budget bill and will send the original right back to the Senate, according to Liberal MP Wayne Easter.

Easter, chair of the Commons finance committee, said that senators “can’t fiddle with the budget.”

“I don’t see any movement on the Commons side on this action in the Senate,” he told reporters Wednesday morning before caucus.

Tuesday night, senators voted 46 to 32 to accept amendments that scrap the Liberal government’s plans to hike the federal excise tax for beer, wine and spirits.

Easter watched the vote in the Senate last night, and said that he thinks some senators were “expressing their frustration that they’re not in our caucus,” while suggesting others were wooed by a strong lobbying effort by alcohol manufacturers.

“Quite a number of former longterm Liberals had voted for the change, and others are expressing their opinions based on what some fairly strong lobbyists had pushed them to do,” he said.

Some senators have said that they have the right to amend finance bills, but Easter said those decisions are ultimately up to the Commons, not the Senate.

“They’re exercising their independence, and I think the House of Commons has to eventually show them that this is the elected body, this is the body that on financial matters is obligated under the Constitution to make those financial decisions. So we’ll have to do that and show this is the will of the House of Commons.”

Conservative finance critic Gerard Deltell said this at least opens up an opportunity for the Liberals to change their minds about a wrongheaded tax hike.

“This is an opportunity for the government to recognize that this tax is not good,” he said, citing concerns about linking the tax to an escalator.

“Year after year, the tax will climb up without any vote in the Parliament. This is all wrong. So this is an opportunity for the government to backtrack.”

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said the Senate highlighted an important principal by amending the bill: One government shouldn’t be able to make “one decision to raise taxes in perpetuity.”

“That’s really what the escalator clause is about. It’s about this government trying to be unaccountable … in future budgets and future votes in the House of Commons,” Scheer said.

Scheer was circumspect on the possibility of a World Trade Organization challenge over the escalator excise tax included in the budget – a prospect the Canadian Vintners Association raised at the House of Commons Agriculture committee in June. But he added that it’s not worth risking a WTO challenge over something that would make Canadian brewers less competitive.

“It’s one thing to have to go to the WTO because … the government’s put tariffs on other countries’ products … but when we’re making our own industries, our own producers less competitive, it makes no sense to me,” he said.

The prospect of the Senate amending the budget has been a major roadblock in the way of the House rising for the summer. Could a protracted back-and-forth mean that the House will have to sit past June 23?

“I guess we’ll have to see,” Easter said.