He was defeated in the 1975 election, losing to New Democratic Party candidate Ed Philip by 1,256 votes in the redistributed electoral district. He was elected a city controller on the Etobicoke City Council in 1982. He attempted a return to the provincial legislature during the 1985 election; he was a last minute candidate, as the York West Liberal constituency association could not find anyone to run against the Progressive Conservative incumbent Nick Leluk, who was also the Minister of Correctional Services at the time. Braithwaite lost by 821 votes, significantly closer than his constituency association originally expected, as they thought Leluk would win by a massive rout. Braithwaite did not run again, and neither did Leluk in the next election, two-years later.