I appreciate the effort, Mr. Chair. I wish.... Yes, I really do appreciate the effort.
In crafting this plan, we have come up with what we believe are staggered, transparent, and predictable targets for the country. We are using 1990 as a baseline to be perfectly consistent with Kyoto and also to work in harmony with most of Canadian society that's involved, most of the large industrial emitters, because they have, of course, been using 1990 as a baseline themselves.
We're looking to show a ramping up here in the short, medium, and long terms. The reason we believe it is possible to ramp up is that once we actually harness the technological know-how, the investment, and the reinvestment of the green investment account moneys being held in trust for each of the separate large industrial emitters, we believe we are going to unleash the full force and effect of the market in such a way that, as time goes on, we're actually going to be in a much better position to accelerate our reductions.
It's a question of capital stock rollover. It's a question of retrofits. It's a question of many measures that will flow from these targets, from the plan, and from the two previous amendments that connect with this third one.
We arrived at a 20% number because we believed it would be a realistic number for Canada, and we arrived at 35% for the same reason. We left a range of 60% to 80% to 2050, hoping that we would achieve an 80% reduction by 2050, but allowing for a margin after we actually, in a sense, shifted the ship of state in a different direction by harnessing the full power of the market, which is unstoppable once it gets going.
We think that by giving the 20% and 35% targets and then giving 60% to 80% as a range for 2050, we're really putting transparent and predictable targets here for the country and for each of the actors that would end up with their own individual carbon budgets.
I think we would have some difficulty, Mr. Chair, in increasing this number, for fear that it would not fit with so many of the achievable outcomes that we heard about from different expert witnesses. I know Mr. Cullen mentioned there were some witnesses who spoke about more aggressive targets.
In closing, I will say that we thought there was some importance in holding fast to the 20% number for 2020 because of all our discussions with the European Union officials and the new measures launched by the United Kingdom. The European Union has achieved a negotiation outcome in Europe, in the EU, of a 20% reduction by 2020 spread across all 26 member states, so we wanted to keep this number symmetrical with the European Union market.
I asked the Minister of the Environment to give us some indication when he came to another committee recently, Mr. Chair. I do believe there was talk at the G8+5 of holding to the 20% target by 2020, although the minister was not capable of revealing that to us and did not table any documents to indicate what he had talked about there.
That's the reason, Mr. Cullen, that we have kept to these numbers. We think it is an achievable number and we think these are predictable and transparent and in lockstep with the international community.