In the
1898 Ontario provincial election, he was elected to the
Legislative Assembly of Ontario for
Brockville, and re-elected in
1902 and
1905. In 1904, he was appointed to the
cabinet as
Provincial Secretary by
Premier George William Ross and served in that position until the Ross government lost the election of 1905. Graham was unanimously elected leader of the
Ontario Liberal Party by the party's caucus on January 25, 1907, following the resignation of George William Ross. On August 30, 1907, Graham was appointed
Minister of Railways and Canals by
Prime Minister Sir
Wilfrid Laurier and resigned as both leader and
MPP for Brockville in September. Ross won the
Brockville seat in the
House of Commons of Canada in a
by-election in 1907. He was defeated in the
1911 federal election that brought
Robert Borden's
Conservatives to power, but returned to the House of Commons in a 1912 by-election. He did not run in the 1917 election, but then was elected in
Essex South in 1921. In 1921, he served in a number of defence portfolios (
Minister of Militia and Defence and
Minister of the Naval Service from 1921 to 1922 and then as
Minister of Defence from January 1 to April 27, 1923) in the first cabinet of
William Lyon Mackenzie King. He lost his seat in the
1925 federal election, but was appointed to the
Senate of Canada in 1926, and sat in that body until his death in 1943. He was appointed as a member of the
King's Privy Council for Canada in 1907 and as a member of the
Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1925. ==Electoral record==