He held the seat through four successive elections until resigning his seat on May 27, 1980, when he was asked by then Premier of Ontario Bill Davis to serve as chairman of the Ontario Worker's Compensation Board. He misunderstood Davis's request and recalled: "I said the Premier, 'do you think this is going to give you the black vote around here, the vote of the visible minority ...?' I will never forget his look; he was extremely angry. I shouldn't have said that."