Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
It is important to have absolute targets because it is crucial for Canada to have clear and definite targets, especially for the 700 largest emitters in Canada. These emitters belong to three major industrial sectors and they are seeking targets they can work with.
It also helps, because judging by the U.S. experience with their system of domestic trading permits established further to their Clean Air Act, absolute targets ensure certainty regarding prices—for example, the price of a tonne of sulfuric dioxide—and they also provide certainty for the big emitters of chemicals that cause acid rain.
It is also important because science is now telling us, especially in the wake of the Paris and Brussels meetings, that if we see even a 2° increase in temperature, as Sir Nicholas Stern has warned us, absolute targets are indispensable or we may see a 10% cost in our collective international global GDP. This is very serious business. Unfortunately, these numbers were not factored in by the government in last week's analysis.