 He served until the 1977 election, when he was defeated by Mickey Hennessy.He returned to work for the city, unsuccessfully standing as a federal New Democratic Party candidate in the 1979 and 1980 elections for the electoral district of Thunder Bay—Atikokan.On his third campaign as a federal candidate, he was elected in the 1984 election, winning over Progressive Conservative candidate Ken Boshcoff by a margin of 2,675 votes.