1881. After only one year, 1873, on the Strathroy town council, he served as 13th Mayor of Ottawa from 1879 to 1881. Elected as a Conservative, he was returned as a Member of Parliament for the riding of Ottawa City in the House of Commons of Canada from 1882 to 1887 and again from 1890 to 1893. He was unsuccessful in contesting the constituency of Russell, Ontario in the 1887 Dominion election. He was appointed Lieutenant Governor of the Northwest Territories in 1893, serving in that capacity until his resignation in 1898. During his tenure of the territorial vice-regal office, he promoted a great Territorial Exhibition which was opened by His Excellency the Earl of Aberdeen, Governor General of the Dominion of Canada at Regina, district of Assiniboia, N.W.T., on 30 July 1895. For these services he was presented with an oil portrait of himself in August 1895. Following his vice-regency, he contested unsuccessfully the provincial seat of Rossland, British Columbia in 1900, and the riding of Kootenay, British Columbia in the Dominion general elections of 1900 and 1904, all in the Conservative or Liberal-Conservative interest. Later career In 1898, he became Canadian manager of the British American Mining Company, Rossland, British Columbia, later becoming a broker and financial agent in Victoria, British Columbia. In 1898, he sold the Le Roi mining property. In 1901, on behalf of the miners of British Columbia, he presented two unusual gold nuggets to King Edward VII and, his wife, Queen Alexandra. Character The Montreal Gazette described him as "a tactful, capable and experienced public man", while the Toronto Telegram declared him to be "warm hearted, amiable and altogether likeable". Interests and affiliations He was a life director of the Carleton County Protestant Home for the Aged in Ottawa, Ontario. In politics, he was a Liberal-Conservative, being noted as "an imperialist of no uncertain sound", and served as vice-president of the British Empire League in Canada. In religion, he was an Anglican. He was a member of two gentleman's clubs, the Union Club, Victoria, British Columbia, and of the Vancouver Club, Vancouver, British Columbia. Publications He was author of the Liberal-Conservative Handbook (1876), and wrote a prize essay entitled Potential Resources of British Columbia (1908). For the Canadian Magazine, he wrote various articles including one entitled, British America's Golden Gateway to the Orient. Family and death Mackintosh married in April 1868, Gertrude Niles Cook