He represented Port Arthur in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1908 to 1911 and Thunder Bay and Rainy River in the House of Commons of Canada from 1911 to 1917 as a Conservative member.

He stepped aside in 1917 for his erstwhile protégé Donald McDonald Hogarth, but when the Port Arthur Liberal Association refused to accept Hogarth as the Unionist Party candidate, he gave way to Conservative Francis Henry Keefer who won the seat in the 1917 Canadian federal election for the Unionists.

Carrick came to Port Arthur in 1903 attracted by a real estate boom in anticipation of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway locating at the Lakehead.

He subsequently acquired and marketed a large number of subdivisions on the fringes of the Port Arthur town plot, the most successful of which was Mariday Park, named after his wife.

He launched the Port Arthur Daily News in 1906 to promote his political career and real estate business.