Nystrom was first elected for
Yorkton—Melville in
1968. At the age of 22 years and three months, he was the youngest MP in Canadian history, a record he held until
Claude-André Lachance was elected at the age of 20 in
1974. He was reelected without serious difficulty until losing to
Reform challenger
Garry Breitkreuz in
1993. In 1992, he was appointed to the
Queen's Privy Council for Canada. He returned to Parliament in
1997 in the riding of
Qu'Appelle, succeeding fellow New Democrat
Simon De Jong. Nystrom faced a strong challenge for re-election in the riding, renamed Regina—Qu'Appelle in
2000, after the
Progressive Conservatives unexpectedly failed to nominate a candidate. However, Nystrom managed to eke out a narrow victory over
Canadian Alliance challenger Don Leier. In
2004, Nystrom lost to the
Conservative candidate, future
House Speaker and
Leader of the Official Opposition Andrew Scheer. Scheer won by a margin of 861 votes. The NDP renominated Nystrom to challenge Scheer at the next federal election in 2005; in the
2006 election, he lost again, this time by a larger margin of 2,712 votes. Nystrom ran for the leadership of the federal NDP three times, placing third in each. In
1975, he finished behind winner
Ed Broadbent and runner-up
Rosemary Brown. Twenty years later, in
1995, Nystrom ran again but placed behind
Svend Robinson and winner
Alexa McDonough. His final attempt to win the party's leadership was in the
2003 election that ultimately selected
Jack Layton; Nystrom finished in third behind Layton and
Bill Blaikie. ==Career outside Parliament==