Early Life

Peter Kent was born in Sussex, England in 1943,to very well-educated parents. His family moved to Canada to make Alberta, their new home. His father retired as ‘Calgary Herald’s associate editor and his mother was a member of Alberta’s Queen’s Bench. With a younger brother and wife both working as journalists in separate fields, it was no wonder that Kent too began his career as a radio journalist in the 60s.

First Career

From radio journalism, Kent switched to television to join Calgary station CFCN-TV in 1965. He worked for innumerable channels such as CTV, CBC Television, NBC, Global and Christian Science Monitor. The mid-60s saw him covering the Vietnam War in its entirety till the conclusive pulling out of American troops from Vietnam in 1973 and followed it by covering the establishment of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in 1975. Having worked as a freelance foreign correspondent all these years he joined the CBC network on his return to Canada. He left the Canadian network in 1978 only to rejoin it in 1982 as a founding producer and correspondent for one of its shows.

However, with America beckoning, Kent joined NBC in 1984 and got recognized for his efforts as a senior European correspondent by winning four Emmy nominations. Christian Science Monitor’s which was his next work area got him the Robert F. Kennedy Award for his feature report series on difficulties in America’s inside cities.

Returning home, Kent became the host of ‘First National’, a leading news program on Global News in Canada in 1992 and continued until 2001. His next step was hosting ‘MoneyWise’, a business news show on Global and Prime.

Foray Into Politics

Peter Kent entered politics through the 2006 federal elections but failed to win a seat. However, he was second time lucky in 2008 election as he defeated his opponent by 5200 votes. He got the post of Minister of the Environment during a cabinet reshuffle in 2011. But, during his reign of the Minister of Environment he had to walk the tight rope to achieve environment protection alongside economic development and received a lot of flak from opposition for some of his comments and actions.

His decision to let Canada withdraw from the Kyoto protocol, his pushing of the development of oil sands in spite of reports of contamination of the Athabasca River and many other decisions led him to not get a good reputation at being the Federal Environment Minister.

Others

Kent is a member of a number of organizations such as Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, Canadian Coalition for Democracies, board member of the much talked about media advocacy group called ‘Honest Reporting Canada’ which is pro-Israel. A founder supporter of Canadians for Defense and Security and co-chairperson of Ontario Cabinet for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights are other posts held.

The Radio-Television News Directors Association of Canada honored his efforts with the President’s Award in 2006. Peter Kent has a daughter Trilby who is also into this field with her first novel by the name, ‘Medina Hill’ being published in October 2009.