He left his graduate studies, never to return, to take a job in Ottawa as an executive assistant in the office of Liberal Opposition Leader Lester Pearson, the future Prime Minister.
Edmonds ran in the Winnipeg-area riding of Charleswood in the 1969 provincial election but lost to Progressive Conservative candidate Arthur Moug by over a thousand votes.
[2] With PAI a success, Edmonds then took a job as senior policy advisor to federal Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark in 1977.
Edmonds returned as a senior policy adviser to Defence Minister Robert Coates when the Tories regained power in September 1984.
However, Coates had to resign in early 1985 over an ill-advised visit to a strip club in West Germany while on official business; this escapade constituted a security risk.