Federal Politics
He left City Hall in 1978 to move to federal politics, winning a by-election as a Progressive Conservative candidate that gave him a seat in the House of Commons of Canada. Crombie served as Minister of Health and Welfare in the short-lived minority government of Prime Minister Joe Clark which was elected in 1979 but lost power the next year.
Crombie stood as a candidate at the 1983 Progressive Conservative leadership convention. He finished fourth and urged his supporters to vote for John Crosbie, rather than Brian Mulroney.
After Mulroney led Conservatives to power in the 1984 election, Crombie became Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, and later Secretary of State and Minister of Multiculturalism. Frustrated in Ottawa, as a Red Tory in an increasingly conservative government, Crombie decided not to run in the 1988 election, and returned to urban affairs as head of the royal commission on the future of Toronto's waterfront. Crombie tried to find an alternative to Red Hill Creek Expressway but the Hamilton city council dismissed his compromise proposal out of hand as being insufficient.
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