Thank you, Chair.
Committee members, clause 10 talks about baselines and when the government will have to publish its reductions, targets, and everything going forward over five years. This amendment establishes an addition to clause 10 to allow for greater clarity to confirm within the bill and to the government what baseline must be used, so there's a consistent reference point going forward.
It would seem that if governments in the future need to be more accountable for their climate change targets and performance, allowing the baseline to be absolutely or totally clear will give both the Canadian public and civil servants something to benchmark.
I will read the particular amendment, so that everyone is on the same page. It proposes adding a new paragraph 10(1)(c):
(c) the level of Canadian greenhouse gas emissions in each of the following ten years to be used as a baseline to quantify the reductions referred to in paragraph (b).
So what this does is say that there will be a moving target—depending, of course, on what the reductions were in the past—and that the baseline is confirmed and public, and there's no dispute about it. We've had too many conversations about baselines in this country and not enough about the action required.