"Legault’s acknowledgement of climate change is a welcome reminder that the abiding issue of our time doesn’t have to fall prey to partisanship. Unfortunately, his colleagues across the country and in Ottawa prefer to hew to a cliché of the do-nothing, climate change-denying conservative. It will soon hurt them. It has already hurt us all."

In North America, where environmental issues have been thoroughly politicized, the level of belief in climate science has hardened into political trope: liberals generally believe in it, conservatives less so.

A cursory look at Canadian politics bears this out. While Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer says he believes in man-made climate change, his party has yet to present its own carbon reduction plan.

Meanwhile, conservative provincial governments in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario have all bristled at the thought of a carbon tax, going so far as the courts in protest (unsuccessfully, in the case of Saskatchewan) of the federal Liberal government’s attempt to enforce such a thing.

This unfortunate cliché ends at Quebec’s borders. Here, the Coalition Avenir Québec has gone against the obstinacy of its supposed ideological cousins to become one of the few conservative governments to both acknowledge climate change science and wholeheartedly engage in a carbon reduction plan for the province. Along with the obvious environmental benefits, the CAQ’s somewhat surprising endorsement of what has long been considered a “liberal” issue is a reminder of the extent to which partisanship has stymied the fight against climate change in this country.

Last October, right around the time Jason Kenney and Doug Ford “joined forces” to protest the federal carbon tax, freshly-elected Quebec Premier François Legault was busy endorsing the carbon reduction plan of the previous Liberal government. Kenney called Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax “a failure”; Legault instead appeared on a stage with Trudeau, promising to spread the carbon reduction gospel to Doug Ford. (Spoiler alert: it didn’t work.)

Ford has spent his year in office doing what he does, which includes forcing his ministers to take pictures of themselves at the pump as they ostensibly suffer the consequences of the federal carbon tax. Despite having rode to power on similar waves of anti-Liberal animus, Legault has been decidedly less predictable than Ford.

Since his election, Legault has referred to Alberta bitumen as “dirty energy” and said there is “no social acceptability” for further pipelines carrying the stuff. In April he and his party voted for a motion, put forward by the proudly socialist Québec Solidaire party, reiterating Quebec’s fight against climate change and the province’s right to block any pipeline through its territory “regardless of any pressure from the rest of Canada.”

Of course, given how roughly 45 per cent of Quebec’s oil comes by way of this dirty energy, there is more than a little hypocrisy in Legault’s rhetoric. But he has a plan for that, too. A CAQ government, Legault announced in May, would reduce Quebec’s dependence on oil by 40 per cent by 2030, largely through electrification of vehicles, buildings and businesses. Legault further touted Montreal’s forthcoming Réseau express métropolitain, the 67-km light rail network linking Montreal to its suburbs and airport, and a host of other public transportation projects in the province, including an extension of the Metro and tramway projects in Montreal and Quebec City.

All told, the government hopes this electrification and infrastructure development will allow Quebec to lower its greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 40 per cent compared to 1990 levels. And by leveraging the province’s manufacturing sector and its hydroelectric reserves to produce and run all of this, Quebec’s “greenification” will be good for the economy.

Compare this bit of conservatism to, say, the Conservative Party leadership race of 2017, in which the vast majority of the 14 declared candidates were against the carbon tax. Michael Chong, one of the few candidates to favour such a thing, was literally booed when he dared defend a carbon tax as the most “conservative” method to reduce greenhouse gases. Chong finished fifth in that particular race — well behind Maxime Bernier, who believes carbon “isn’t pollution” and says carbon taxes are akin to “a socialist green new deal.” In many countries, institutional climate change denial is political suicide. In Canada, it constitutes a viable path to power.

The short-term gain from climate change denial — or the refusal to do anything about it, which is just as bad — will only haunt the bejesus out of conservatives in the long run. Legault is no idiot; though not particularly green himself, he realizes the environment is a continuing concern amongst those who elected him to office, conservative-minded or not. Three-quarters of Quebec voters said they support more stringent environmental laws even if this caused “an increase in prices,” according to CBC’s Vote Compass. This support hardly varied between age groups and was roughly the same amongst urban and rural voters.

Legault’s acknowledgement of climate change is a welcome reminder that the abiding issue of our time doesn’t have to fall prey to partisanship. Unfortunately, his colleagues across the country and in Ottawa prefer to hew to a cliché of the do-nothing, climate change-denying conservative. It will soon hurt them. It has already hurt us all.

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