Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada hopes to help build a consensus at the upcoming G8 summit in Germany and his environment minister was more explicit: Canada will support targets which the U.S. government has shunned.

The opposition had already begun to grill the government over its silence leading up to next week's three-day gathering.

They demanded to know whether the Tories would side with European countries, who are proposing emissions targets of 50 per cent below 1990 levels by the year 2050.