time lost to John Cannis. Campaign for mayor In 1985, he ran for mayor of Scarborough, but lost to incumbent Gus Harris. Out of office, he worked as a real estate agent, first for Royal LePage and then for his own company. In 1988, he decided to again run for mayor, but this time lost by over 4,000 votes to Joyce Trimmer, the first woman elected mayor of Scarborough. Return to Council In the 1994 municipal elections, he was elected to the Metro Toronto council from ward 14 Scarborough Wexford, defeating Michael Thompson. He emerged as one of the most right-wing members of the council, most noted for his attempt to eliminate all funding for multiculturalism programs during a mock council. Kelly took this stance as he views multicultural programs to further segregate rather than integrate diverse members of the Canadian community. The National Post newspaper once endorsed him, perhaps somewhat in jest, as "a solid anti-communist. Toronto needs his representation as a bulwark against the left." He also became one of the earliest advocates for merging the City of Toronto with five of its suburbs, an idea he pushed as Chair of the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. When the "megacity" was created, he was elected to the new Toronto city council. In the 2000 municipal election, redistricting merged Kelly and Tzekas' wards, leading to a bitter election battle between the two, which Kelly easily won. A firm ally of the new city's first mayor, Mel Lastman, his relations with Lastman's successor, David Miller, were less friendly. Kelly was one of five Councillors removed from the Toronto Transit Commission board by council in March 2012 because of his support of mayor Rob Ford's subway plan as opposed to council's preferred LRT plan. Acting mayor of Toronto Kelly was made deputy mayor of Toronto, succeeding Doug Holyday in 2013 after Holyday resigned from Council to contest a by-election for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Following the controversy surrounding Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's admitted substance abuse and further allegations of inappropriate conduct, the Toronto City Council voted on November 15, 2013, and November 18, 2013, to remove the non-statutory mayoral powers from Ford and grant them to Kelly for the remainder of Ford's term. This was unprecedented as the deputy mayor's role is typically largely ceremonial. On May 1, 2014, Kelly took over the remainder of Ford's duties when Ford entered drug rehabilitation