The reviews are in

John Geddes:

Environment Minister Jim Prentice’s remarks today to the effect that it will be years—years!—before the Canadian government implements regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions have to be crushingly discouraging for anyone who regards climate change as an urgent problem.
...
It’s fair enough to point out that Canada is part of a big, complicated world. But what’s stopping the Canadian government from proposing decisive measures on the international stage, even implementing some bold ones at home, to prove its seriousness? Instead, the tone of the Conservative government is passive to the point of being inert.

In the run-up to next month’s global climate change summit in Copenhagen, Prentice continues to repeat the government’s pledge to cut emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020. But what does that commitment (tepid as it is by world standards) mean if all the details around how to achieve it are left to the leadership of other countries?

I'll quibble only with the description of the Cons' policy as "passive" or "inert" rather than actively obstructionist. But it seems beyond doubt that while three consecutive ballyhooed environment ministers have claimed to want to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, the Cons' track record looks far more like that of a party run by climate change denialists than that of a government which saw a problem worth solving. And it's only getting worse as time goes by.