It’s not every day a Quebec premier addresses Ontario’s legislature. The last time was 51 years ago — which makes Monday’s speech by Philippe Couillard a milestone worth noting, its message worth heeding.

Both provinces face environmental and economic challenges today that no one could have fathomed in 1964, when Jean Lesage last travelled to Queen’s Park. Back then, John Robarts invited his Quebec counterpart to open a direct channel on the future of federalism.

Wise to the exigencies of national unity, able to rise above partisan rivalries, Robarts (a Progressive Conservative) had the vision to hear out Lesage (a Liberal) at a time when Quebec’s Quiet Revolution was in full ferment and separatist tensions were bubbling up. All these years (and two referendums) later, Quebec has moved on.

Untroubled by petty provincial grievances, Couillard is more preoccupied by the rise of global warming — and the need for sub-national governments to play their role at ground level. The Quebec premier is a crusader against climate change and a proselytizer for putting a price on carbon.

Couillard warned MPPs against the “false choice” of environmental stewardship versus economic stimulus. Unless both of our economies adapt, we will all be left behind by a fast-changing world.

Ontario’s Liberal government is only now catching up — and listening up.

Premier Kathleen Wynne seems a recent convert to the cause. More precisely, she now seems willing, belatedly, to expend political capital on global warming — putting a price on carbon to raise money for transit infrastructure. Visiting Couillard last month, Wynne announced that after years of stalling, Ontario is finally ready to put our money where our environmental mouth is.

In his formal address to MPPs, Couillard hailed the “excellent news” that Ontario will partner with his province on cap and trade.

“I know that every parliamentarian here now understands the need for action, and shares this preoccupation.”

On that point, the visiting premier got it wrong.

Ontario’s official Opposition remains staunchly opposed to carbon pricing. Like his caucus, newly elected Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown is on record as opposing a carbon tax or any cap and trade regime.

Speaking on the floor of the legislature Monday, after Wynne had thanked Couillard, Brown made a curiously partisan intervention claiming that Ontario’s high energy prices stood in the way of environmental progress: “You are able to adopt a cap-and-trade policy because you have reasonable rates,” he lectured Couillard.

Targeting Wynne next, Brown suggested that “Quebec, similar to Ontario, is blessed with a natural abundance of hydroelectric power” — implying a natural energy equivalency that is simply laughable. If there were massive dams still to be exploited in Ontario for cheap hydro, one suspects John Robarts would have built them a half-century ago.

Still at the microphone, the new PC leader cited another Quebec premier, Jean Charest, as a personal role model. Except that Brown parts company with him, too, on cap and trade (which is strongly supported by Charest today).

But perhaps Brown’s off-key performance shows us how the partisan impulse can blind some politicians to bigger possibilities, while personal chemistry helps others to dissolve the obstacles.

Wynne and Couillard are on the same wavelength on climate change not just as Liberals, but as activist premiers with broadly progressive goals. Now, they may have company.

In Alberta, newly elected NDP premier-designate Rachel Notley may open up even greater potential for co-ordinated action that never seemed possible under that province’s just-defeated PC dynasty.

Alberta has long been a laggard on climate change, imposing almost meaningless targets on carbon emissions. Virtually all the benefit from Ontario closing its coal-fired power plants over the past decade has been cancelled out by rising emissions from Alberta’s oil sands.

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Can we imagine Alberta no longer as an environmental free-rider but a national leader? What if Notley keeps her campaign promise to raise that province’s corporate tax rate to 12 per cent (currently Canada’s lowest at 10 per cent today, which undercuts Ontario’s 11.5 per cent rate)? Will Alberta now swing its support behind an enhanced Canada Pension Plan, after resisting the push from Ontario for years?

After a half-century of stasis, the entente cordiale between Quebec and Ontario has gained fresh momentum. Now, after the defeat of a 44-year PC dynasty in Alberta, are we about to see an even broader pan-Canadian realignment?

Martin Regg Cohn’s Ontario politics column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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