MONTREAL—Time will tell soon enough whether Friday’s climate march will have been a watershed event in the federal campaign and if so, to which party’s benefit.

But regardless of how last week’s pan-Canadian event plays out in the ballot box, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s pointed absence should go some way to clear the smoke that has apparently blinded some to the significant differences between the climate policies of the two main contenders in the election.

When it comes to addressing climate change, Justin Trudeau is — in the eyes of many — offering a half-empty glass, one whose water is clouded to boot by the nationalization of the Trans Mountain pipeline.

But the fact is that the man most likely by any realistic measure to replace Trudeau as prime minister after Oct. 21 is not promising to top up that glass. As one of his first acts in office Scheer has vowed to empty it and subsequently to restore more winning conditions for the building of more pipelines.

In a campaign, actions speak louder than words and his decision to take a pass Friday on an event that every other leader except Maxime Bernier attended could not but speak loudly as to the depth or lack thereof of his party’s commitment to tackling climate change.

While hundreds of thousands of Canadians were taking to the streets to demand more climate action, the Conservative leader spent most of the day on his campaign plane travelling from Montreal to B.C. to promise to build more roads.

The overwhelming evidence suggests that every new bridge, tunnel and/or highway results in more people taking the road in cars. One needs a serious dose of magical thinking to cast a commitment to increase Canada’s paved acreage as a carbon emission reduction measure.

But then, when it comes to the environment, magical thinking is not in short supply in the backrooms of the Conservative Party of Canada.

For months, Scheer has maintained his climate plan will deliver better outcomes than Trudeau’s at less or no cost to individual Canadians.

Most experts — including some with long-standing ties to the conservative movement — have debunked that dual contention.

The only outcome the Conservative climate plan has been successfully road-tested for is a political one.

Essentially, it is a Harper-era prop dusted off to dress the modest section of the Conservative campaign window devoted to climate change.

As with other Conservative party promises recycled from the party’s recent days in government, the reasoning behind the plan seems to be that if it worked in the past, it should work again next month.

After all, if a lack of environmental ambition had been an impediment to winning federal elections, Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper would not each have spent a decade in power. The last Canadian prime minister to leave office with an environmental record worth mentioning was Brian Mulroney.

But even if climate change has more electoral traction than it did in the not-so-distant past, the Conservative party is betting that voter support for more decisive action will split four-ways among the other mainstream parties, with the Liberals left holding the short straw.

Win or lose though, Scheer’s Conservatives may come to rue the day when they decided to try to make their way back to government without becoming more serious about climate policy.

Of all the issues in the balance of the upcoming election, climate change is the least likely to fade away.

Regardless of the outcome of next month’s vote, it will not only remain on the radar of the next federal government but also increasingly crowd out many of the issues the Conservative party currently deems more important.

Even if Scheer succeeds in outpacing mounting voter concerns over climate change to go on to win on Oct. 21, a Conservative minority government would be hard-pressed to hide from the political consequences of failing to raise its game on the environment.

Far from going home and leaving climate change to the politicians after the election, those who marched on Friday are likely to stay put and see their ranks continue to expand.

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Should Trudeau lose to Scheer on Oct. 21, the Liberal climate change record — as imperfect as it is — is more likely to look good in the rearview mirror of climate-conscious voters than the flimsy plan the Conservatives would present them with once in office.

In particular, that goes for the young voters of today and tomorrow whose support is lining up to be more conditional on decisive action on climate change than any past generation.

Over the next few years, treating the climate issue seriously is more likely to become an essential condition of electoral success in Canada — in the way for instance that choosing leaders who are proficient in both official languages has become a political necessity — than the opposite.

Chantal Hébert is a columnist based in Ottawa covering politics. Follow her on Twitter: @ChantalHbert

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