MP David Anderson won't run again

Former environment minister David Anderson has announced he will not seek re-election as a member of Parliament in the next federal election.

"I believe it is now time for me to move on to other challenges," the 67-year-old Liberal MP for Victoria said in a brief release from his Ottawa office on Friday.

Anderson was a Canadian diplomat before he was first elected MP for the riding of Esquimalt-Saanich in 1968.

He switched to provincial politics in 1972 and sat in the B.C. legislature for three years as Victoria's MLA and the leader of the B.C. Liberal party.

After a stint as environmental consultant and adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, he was elected to Parliament again in 1993.

He served under prime minister Jean Chrétien in three different cabinet posts – national revenue, transport, and fisheries and oceans – before he was named environment minister in 1999.

Prime Minister Paul Martin dropped him from cabinet last year.