Provincial politics Mitchell was first elected to the
Alberta legislature as the
Liberal MLA for
Edmonton Meadowlark in 1986. Following his re-election in 1989, he was re-elected in 1993 and 1997 in the new riding of
Edmonton McClung. After placing second in the 1988 Liberal leadership contest to Edmonton mayor
Laurence Decore, he became leader of the party and
opposition leader in Alberta in 1994 and served until 1998, when he left provincial politics. He was succeeded as Liberal leader by
Nancy MacBeth.
Federal politics On March 24, 2005, he was appointed to the
Canadian Senate by
Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, on the advice of Prime Minister
Paul Martin, where he represented Edmonton. Mitchell served on three Senate committees: National Finance; Legal and Constitutional Affairs; and Agriculture and Forestry. He sat on the Senate committee for Human Rights and was deputy chair of the Senate Committee for Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. On January 29, 2014,
Liberal Party leader
Justin Trudeau announced all Liberal senators, including Mitchell, were removed from the Liberal caucus, and would continue sitting as independents. The senators referred to themselves as the
Senate Liberal Caucus even though they were no longer members of the parliamentary Liberal caucus. On May 2, 2016, he left the Senate Liberal Caucus to sit as an independent; the next day he was appointed
whip by
Government Representative in the Senate Peter Harder. As such, Mitchell acted as a liaison between the government and senators and tried to secure votes for government legislation. On November 29, 2019, the
Prime Minister's Office announced that Senator Harder would step down from his position as
Representative of the Government in the Senate effective December 31, 2019, and that Mitchell would step down as Government Liaison Mitchell retired from the Senate on April 24, 2020. ==Personal==