over the Attorney General's office, staffing the ministry with bureaucrats to which he was ideologically incompatible. However, Walkom has also noted that Hampton supported Rae's decision to impose a Social Contract of wage restraints and cost-saving measures on Ontario public servants. Following a cabinet shuffle on February 3, 1993, Hampton was demoted to Minister of Natural Resources, responsible for Native Affairs. Marion Boyd replaced him as Attorney General. The NDP was defeated in the provincial election of 1995, and Hampton was re-elected over Progressive Conservative Lynn Beyak by only 205 votes. Cabinet posts Ontario NDP Leader After Rae retired from provincial politics, Hampton became the leader of the NDP on June 22, 1996, beating Frances Lankin, who was seen as a Rae ally and whom many had considered the front-runner, on the third ballot. Leadership candidate Peter Kormos and his support generally went to Hampton rather than Lankin, which was seen as important to Hampton's victory. Tony Silipo also ran for the leadership and would become Hampton's Deputy Leader until 1999. In the 1999 Ontario election, some progressives and union leaders, who had been a crucial source of NDP support before 1995, attempted to defeat Mike Harris, the Progressive Conservative premier, by abandoning the NDP for the Liberals. This tactical voting, commonly called "strategic voting," did not succeed in ousting the Harris government, but nearly decimated the NDP, as they took just nine seats and 12 per cent of the popular vote in their worst election showing since the 1950s. As Hampton was not judged to have been at fault, he stayed on as leader. Hampton himself faced a challenging re-election; the Harris government had reduced the number of ridings in Ontario from 130 to 103, and Hampton faced off against Frank Miclash, the Liberal MPP for the adjoining Kenora riding, in the amalgamated riding of Kenora-Rainy River. Hampton defeated Miclash by 3,000 votes. Hampton endorsed Bill Blaikie in the latter's unsuccessful bid for the federal New Democratic Party leadership in 2002. This decision was unpopular with some other members of his caucus, including Deputy Leader Marilyn Churley who was a leading supporter of Jack Layton. In Harris' second term, the government unveiled plans to privatize the public electricity utility, Ontario Hydro. Hampton quickly distinguished himself as an advocate of maintaining public ownership of the utility, and published a book on the subject, Public Power, in 2003. Harris' successor as