Jim Mills by over 10,000 votes in the Etobicoke riding of Humber. He was made a parliamentary assistant in 1983. Kells supported Frank Miller's successful campaign for the party leadership in January 1985 Premier Miller appointed Kells Minister of the Environment in his new government on February 8, 1985. Kells' time in cabinet was short-lived. He was not well respected by his staff, and made a rather serious public relations blunder in March 1985. Commenting on a major PCB spill in northern Ontario, he said, "If you're a rat eating PCBs on the TransCanada, you might have some problems." This was widely interpreted as reflecting a lack of concern for serious environmental issues, and did considerable damage to the Miller government. Early in his ministerial tenure, Kells had intended to announce a $100-million cash infusion for his ministry, with the money to be spent cleaning polluted dump sites and hiring new inspectors. The announcement was postponed, however, when the Miller government decided to de-emphasize social initiatives in favour of fiscal responsibility in the 1985 campaign. Kells would never get the chance to deliver this message. He lost to Liberal candidate Jim Henderson by almost 2,000 votes in the 1985 provincial election, in which the Tories were reduced to a minority. 1995–2003 In the provincial election of 1995, Kells ran as the Progressive Conservative candidate in the riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore, and defeated incumbent New Democrat Ruth Grier and Liberal Bruce Davis by a significant margin. He was reportedly annoyed at not being appointed to the cabinet of Mike Harris, however, and played only a limited role in the parliament that followed. He did not serve as a parliamentary assistant, and did not even serve on any committees after 1997. He did serve as a member of the Red Tape Commission of MPPs. Kells' riding was targeted by both the Liberal and NDP in the 1999 provincial election, but he managed to win re-election by a significant margin (defeating Liberal Laurel Broten by almost 5,000 votes). Once again, he played only a limited role in the parliament which followed. The Tories had lost much of their Toronto-area support by the time of the 2003 election, and Kells lost to Broten by just over 5,000 votes in a rematch from 1999. Federal politics Morley Kells was a candidate for the nomination of the Conservative Party of Canada in Etobicoke-Lakeshore on May 5, 2005,