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It would be hardly possible to eviscerate your own party with more precision than Andrew Scheer managed last week.

The Conservative leader is firmly ensconced as the leader of a Official Opposition that is united against a carbon tax.

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His problem is that, unless he can persuade voters he cares about the environment and has a plan for tackling climate change, he will still be the Opposition leader after the next election.

Scheer got a rousing reception from the ideological faithful at the Manning Networking Conference in Ottawa, when he said his first act as prime minister after the 2019 election would be to repeal the federal carbon tax.

But while most diehards at Manning were opposed to carbon pricing, voters – particularly the millennials the Conservatives need to win over – are not.

Conservative supporters remain steadfastly opposed to a carbon tax – either because they don’t believe in climate change; oppose taxation in principle; or because they don’t think changes in Canada would have sufficient impact globally.