Over its 25 year history, the NRTEE released dozens of reports on priority issues: forests, brownfield lands, infrastructure, energy, water, air, climate change, and more.
Its members, appointed by the federal government, were active in businesses, universities, environmentalism, labour, public policy, and community life from across Canada.
Environment Minister Peter Kent initially offered the rationale that the funding was unnecessary, because Canadians could by that time access climate change research through the internet, universities, and think tanks.
[1] In response to a question in the House of Commons, then-Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said that the government should not be funding the roundtable because it had issued a series of reports advocating a form of carbon pricing, which he said "the people of Canada have repeatedly rejected ...
"[1] The roundtable had released several reports that had concluded that the federal government would have to act more aggressively if it were to reach its Kyoto Protocol target of a 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2020.