 Gilchrist subsequently moved to the Cobourg area.He turned to local politics and has been elected to the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board since 2001 and on which he has held a variety of positions, including Chair of the Program Committee and Chair of the Discipline Committee.On 7 March 2008, several groups including the Kawartha Muslim Religious Association held a press conference in which they demanded Gilchrist's resignation after a letter of his was published in a local newspaper stating that "most" immigrants don't understand Canadian values and "bring their old-country feuds and hatreds to be paraded and re-fought on Canadian soil."