Former Reform MP blasts Harper on environment

Conservative MP Bob Mills, shown in Ottawa on March 13, 2008, was environment critic during Stephen Harper’s tenure as opposition leader. 

The Globe and Mail:

Conservative politicians – including a former Reform MP who was his party’s environment critic when Stephen Harper was opposition leader – have joined more than 20 other former members in protesting the government’s decision to kill the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

Bob Mills, who represented the Alberta riding of Red Deer between 1993 and 2008, joined Mark Parent, an environment minister in a previous Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative government, and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May are among those who have written to the Prime Minister asking him to reconsider.

The National Round Table of the Environment Economy (NRTEE), which was established by the former Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney in 1988 to promote sustainable development, is among a number of groups that lost their funding in this year’s federal budget.

“I truly believe that the environment and the economy are tied. That they should be dealt with in a very important way, that that’s the life blood,” Mr. Mills told a news conference Thursday organized by Ms. May.

“I have been doing quite a bit internationally” he said, “and when I hear Canada mentioned it is quite often with a slur and I don’t like that. I am a proud Canadian and that’s what’s most important.”

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