formed government under Mike Harris in 1995, and Sterling was appointed Minister of Small Business and Consumer Services on June 26 of that year. On August 16, 1996, he was promoted to Minister of Environment and Energy. On October 7, 1997, he became Government House Leader and was given the re-titled post of Minister of the Environment. As Minister of the Environment, Sterling oversaw cuts of nearly 50% to the ministry's budget and privatized provincial water testing labs, which an inquiry found contributed to the Walkerton E. coli outbreak the year after he left the portfolio. During the public inquiry, Sterling testified he had not read the province's drinking water rules and that drinking water was not a major priority for the Harris government. He also took responsibility for failing to read a warning from the health minister about shortfalls in the water-testing system. In the provincial election of 1999, Sterling was returned for the restructured riding of Lanark-Carleton. He was appointed Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Government House Leader on June 17, 1999. Following a cabinet shuffle on February 8, 2001, he became Minister of Consumer and Business Services; he also served as Minister of Correctional Services from December 5, 2000 to March 8, 2001. Eves government On April 15, 2002, after Ernie Eves replaced Mike Harris as Premier, Sterling was appointed Minister of Transportation. After a cabinet shuffle on February 25, 2003, he was promoted to the position of Attorney General, with responsibility for Native Affairs. In opposition (2nd time) The Progressive Conservatives were defeated in the 2003 provincial election, although Sterling was able to defeat Liberal Marianne Wilkinson by about 6,000 votes. In the 2004 leadership race, Sterling supported Jim Flaherty's unsuccessful bid to lead the Progressive Conservative Party. In 2004, Sterling opposed parts of the legislation to create the GTA-area Greenbelt that did not allow easily removing protected status from designated land, and voted against the bill in 2005. Lanark-Carleton was redistributed prior to the 2007 provincial election, and Sterling ran for re-election in the newly created riding of Carleton-Mississippi Mills, which had been created out of the eastern two-thirds of his old riding. He won by a convincing margin, defeating Liberal Megan Cornell by over 7,000 votes. In the 2009 leadership race, Sterling supported the successful candidacy of Tim Hudak. However, the membership of his riding association supported rural-rights candidate Randy Hillier; Carleton-Mississippi Mills was