August 20, 1982, and on November 4, 1983 was transferred to the Ministry of Employment Services and Economic Security, where he would remain until the fall of the NDP government in 1988. He was also given responsibility for the A.E. McKenzie Co. Ltd from June 29, 1983 to January 4, 1984, was Minister of Natural Resources again from January 3, 1986 to April 17, 1988, and held responsibility for Manitoba Data Services between September 21, 1987 and May 9, 1988. Evans faced a surprisingly strong challenge from PC candidate Jim Armstrong in the 1986 provincial election but was re-elected by about 1000 votes. He again defeated Armstrong by 653 votes in 1988, despite a sharp decline in NDP support in the rest of the province. Prior to the fall of the NDP government in 1988, Evans went on record as being one of the few MLAs in his party to oppose the Meech Lake Accord. He wanted to join with Elijah Harper in denying approval for the Accord in 1990 but declined so as not to detract from the issue of aboriginal rights (Harper was aboriginal, Evans was not). As a cabinet minister, Evans stopped the process of adopting aboriginal children to non-aboriginal families outside of the province, a process which many aboriginal activists had regarded as cultural genocide. Evans served as NDP Finance critic from 1988 to 1999. By now a respected "elder statesman" in the party, he had little difficulty being re-elected in the elections of 1990 and 1995. He did not seek re-election in the 1999 Manitoba general election; Drew Caldwell retained Brandon East for the NDP. As of July 2010, he was a member of the province's Public Utilities Board. In 2007, Evans was elected as president of the Association of Former Manitoba MLAs. He died on January 2, 2016, at the age of 86 after suffering a heart attack in the previous week. Electoral history References 1929 births 2016 deaths Canadian Unitarians Members of the Executive Council of Manitoba New Democratic Party of Manitoba MLAs Politicians from Winnipeg Simon Fraser University alumni