Nelson Riis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section is an autobiography, or has been extensively edited by the subject, and may not conform to Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page.

Nelson Andrew Riis (born January 10, 1942) currently a businessman and is a former Canadian politician and New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament (MP). Riis graduated from the University of British Columbia with a B.Ed, and MA( Geography). He is married to Penny with two grown sons, Nils and Jon.

A geographer and teacher by profession, Riis taught in public schools and at the post-secondary level. He taught at Thompson Rivers University and served as Chair of Social Sciences for ten years. He served as an alderman in Kamloops, British Columbia from 1973 to 1978, and as a school trustee from 1978 until 1980. He was director of the Thompson Nicola Regional District. Riis was very active in Kamloops and surrounding communities and was named as honorary member in many organizations. He is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society.

He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1980 federal election. He served as House Leader from 1986 to 1996, and as Critic for Finance for a number of years. He also served as caucus chair from 1996 until his defeat in the 2000 federal election.

On the conservative wing of the social democratic NDP, Riis was a contributing author to a report by the right wing Fraser Institute on how to spend the fiscal surplus. He championed small business concerns in the NDP and founded a small business caucus.

Riis was rumoured at various times in the 1980s to have been offered cabinet positions in the Brian Mulroney government if he were willing to cross the floor and join the Progressive Conservative Party.

Shortly after the August 9, 1988 trade that saw Wayne Gretzky be traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings, Riis emphatically demanded that the government block it.

He was only one of a handful of NDP MPs to survive the 1993 federal election.

From 2000 though late 2005, Riis was "Vice-President, Investor and Government Relations, Director" of Canadian Rockport Homes International, Inc.[1], a company that builds low-cost, quality, modular housing in developing nations. He resigned those positions on November 22, 2005 and now serves as Rockport's Global Ambassador and is focused on the Company's overseas expansion. [2]

His hobbies include canoeing, landscape painting, music, reading and travel.