Photo: The Canadian Press

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during question period in the House of Commons, Tuesday.

The Senate voted Tuesday to delete a so-called escalator tax on booze from the federal government's budget, defying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's insistence that only the elected House of Commons has authority over budgetary matters.

Senators voted 46-32 late Tuesday to accept the report of the Senate's national finance committee, which earlier in the day passed a series of amendments aimed at removing the government's plan to increase the federal excise tax on beer, wine and spirits automatically by the rate of inflation each year.

The amendments came one day after the Senate narrowly defeated a motion that would have carved out provisions dealing with the creation of a new infrastructure bank into a separate bill.

The committee — whose membership includes independent Sen. Andre Pratte, author of the motion to split the bill — did not propose any changes to the infrastructure bank provisions.

The bill will now go Wednesday to third reading debate in the upper house, during which individual senators could opt to propose additional changes, followed by a final vote.

The House of Commons would have to concur with any changes approved by the Senate, something Trudeau has made clear is not in the cards.