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He said his support for new pipelines was well-received by his host. “It’s a priority of mine to address that issue domestically. We hope to provide India with the energy it needs,” he said.

Scheer is open about his desire to develop Canada’s natural resources, with its inevitable spike in greenhouse gas emissions.

Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press/File

Yet in the week when the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report saying Canada would have to cut its emissions in half over the next 12 years to avoid catastrophic results, Scheer is less clear about what a future Conservative government would do on the environment.

“I believe Canada should play a meaningful role in reducing global emissions,” he said. But he no longer says he will commit to the Paris Agreement targets of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. “I commit to having a plan,” he said.

During Scheer’s absence overseas, the domestic news agenda has been dominated by Harper’s new book and its blue-print for conservative populism.

Scheer said he hasn’t read the book but accepts the premise that left-liberalism is disconnected from the day-to-day challenges facing Canadians who are anxious about making it to the end of the month.

Harper said his government had been populist. Scheer was not prepared to go that far. “I’m worried less about labels and more about policies that will work.”

But he echoed Harper’s contention that it is important to be pragmatic, and not to be “just blinded by ideology” about the costs rapid change imposes on people.

If this is populism, it is a particularly Canadian variety: polite, cautious, with its shirt tucked into its underwear.

• Email: jivison@postmedia.com | Twitter: IvisonJ