able to form a minority administration with support from the NDP (which did not join the Liberals in a formal coalition, but offered support on key legislative initiatives). Gigantes served as her party's critic for the Attorney General and for Women's Issues in this period. In November 1986, Gigantes proposed a gay rights amendment to a bill that sought to bring Ontario statutes into line with the new Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Her amendment proposed to protect gays from being discriminated against based on their sexual orientation. The bill, including her contentious amendment, was passed a month later by a vote of 64–45. At the same time during debate on another bill about pay equity, Gigantes was expelled from the legislature for calling Attorney General Ian Scott a liar. The Liberals won a majority government in the 1987 provincial election, and Gigantes lost her seat to Liberal Richard Patten by 1,087 votes. Between 1987 and 1990 she worked as a union representative for the National Union of Provincial Government Employees. In government The NDP won a majority government under Bob Rae in the 1990 provincial election, and Gigantes, once again campaigning in Ottawa Centre, defeated Patten by almost 3,000 votes. Gigantes remarked during the election campaign that the Liberals, who were widely seen as leading in the polls, were not in control of events. She said, "The election call has triggered a very cold look at the record of this government and people don't like what they see." As a result of her legislative experience, she was appointed to Rae's first cabinet as Minister of Health on October 1, 1990. In June 1990, the federal government narrowly passed bill C-43 that would have placed restrictions on doctors who performed abortions. In response to the bill, many Ontario doctors decided to stop performing abortions altogether. In November 1990, Gigantes announced that the province would set up fully funded free-standing abortion clinics to ensure that abortion services remained available. In January 1991, Gigantes and fellow cabinet minister Anne Swarbrick led a delegation that appeared before the legal affairs committee of the Senate of Canada that was discussing the bill. Eventually the bill was defeated on a tie vote in the Senate and the federal government never reintroduced the legislation. On April 19, 1991, Gigantes resigned from cabinet after inadvertently revealing the name of a Toronto man who had been sent