Political circumstances couldn’t be much worse for Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, who faces a competitive election in October. Not only has Canada entered a recession, but Harper’s prize ally—the tar sands industry—has suffered a string of setbacks. Low oil prices have suppressed industry profits, President Barack Obama’s rumored to reject the Keystone XL pipeline any day now, and a socialist party won a recent election in Alberta (the oil capital of Canada). Nor does it help Harper that he's turned his country into a petrostate that's become the world's leading antagonist on climate action.

All of these factors have helped Harper’s more progressive opponents make unexpected headway. On paper, his opponents—Tom Mulcair of the socialist New Democratic Party (NDP) and Justin Trudeau of the center-left Liberals—look more aggressive on clean energy and the environment. But even if one of them wins, Canada's climate stance probably won't change dramatically. The oil industry simply has too strong a hold on the country.

The NDP has put forward the most aggressive goals for greenhouse gas emissions, proposing a cap-and-trade system to get to 34 percent lower emissions by 2025. Liberals, meanwhile, have been short on detail. While Trudeau has insisted on doing something about Canada’s growing carbon footprint, and says Canada should do its part to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, he hasn’t proposed a policy or target. One thing Trudeau and Mulcair have in common is they both have called for a new approach to review pipeline applications in order to better account for their environmental impact. Harper, meanwhile, has proposed a target to cut carbon emissions by 14 percent by 2030, or 6.5 percent by 2025. Yet Canada has missed earlier targets under Harper and is now on track to miss its 2020 goal (as opposed to the U.S., which made a similar commitment and is on track for success).

In many ways, though, all three parties are still trying to compete to be the energy industry’s best friend.

In August, NDP Toronto candidate Linda McQuaig acknowledged something that’s probably obvious to observers: To meet climate goals, “a lot of the oil-sands oil may have to stay in the ground,” she said. That's in line with scientists' warnings about tar sands crude, which require roughly 17 percent more emissions to produce than other oil. But in Canada's political scene, McQuaig's statement was considered a gaffe. Mulcair quickly distanced himself from McQuaig, insisting her statement was not representative of the party’s official platform. “It’s possible” to both develop tar sands and cut greenhouse gas emissions, he said days later. “You have to put in place that sustainable development legislation and enforce it.”