Davis won the contest, and initially retained Kerr in the Energy and Resources Management portfolio. In that role, Kerr oversaw the Ontario government's response to the discharge of about of mercury from the Dryden Chemical Company's chloralkali plant, into the headwaters of the -long Wabigoon River on Lake Wabigoon in the Kenora District of Northwestern Ontario from 1962 until 1970, which caused mercury contamination in the region's lakes and rivers. On April 6, 1970, he closed commercial fisheries and issued warning against consumption of fish in the area. According to a 2018 article in "The Guardian", in August 1970 Kerr had reassured the local community that the Wabigoon river would recover naturally within twelve weeks without government intervention or a clean up. In a speech to the Ontario parliament in 2010, MP Norman W. Sterling, said that Kerr had made up the estimate of twelve weeks, and quoted Kerr as saying, "If I had said it was going to be flushed out in one or two years, they would never have believed me." Sterling's words were "met with laughter in the Ontario parliament".