![\"Catherine](\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.4298007.1505911218!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_620\/catherine-mckenna-fires-back-tweet-climate-barbie-sept-19-2017.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFormer MP Gerry Ritz has apologized for calling Environment Minister Catherine McKenna a “climate Barbie” on social media Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
The apology came about 20\u00a0minutes after McKenna and others responded, calling the comment sexist.<\/p>\n
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McKenna fired back Tuesday night, calling Ritz’s comments sexist. (@cathmckenna\/Twitter)<\/p>\n
On Twitter, the former MP for\u00a0Battlefords-Lloydminster\u00a0in Saskatchewan responded to a Yahoo Finance article with the headline\u00a0“No major advanced industrialized economy is currently on pace to meeting its Paris commitments.”<\/p>\n
“Has anyone told our climate Barbie!” Ritz wrote Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Later Tuesday night, McKenna said Ritz’s\u00a0“sexist comments” won’t stop women from entering politics, and asked whether he uses that kind of language with his family.<\/p>\n
Ritz later\u00a0deleted the tweet and apologized, saying the word Barbie “is not reflective of the role the Minister plays.”<\/p>\n
It isn’t the first time Ritz, a former federal agriculture minister,\u00a0has said something controversial.<\/p>\n
![\"Gerry](\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.4298010.1505911195!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_620\/gerry-ritz-tweets-apology-mckenna-climate-barbie-sept-19-2017.jpg\")
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An apology was tweeted from Ritz’s account later Tuesday night. (@GerryRitzMP\/Twitter)<\/p>\n
In the midst of a 2008 outbreak of listeriosis that killed about 20 people,\u00a0Ritz drew widespread condemnation for cracking a joke that the political damage from the issue was “like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts.”<\/p>\n
He later apologized for the remark, which then prime minister Stephen Harper’s office had called tasteless and completely inappropriate.<\/p>\n