With the beginning of the Second Riel Rebellion in 1885, Minister of Militia Adolphe Caron asked Ouimet to raise a regiment from Montreal to join in the suppression of the uprising.

He was put under the command of Thomas Bland Strange who rejected Ouimet's proposal to negotiate safe passage for Riel.

Macdonald died in June 1891, and his longtime Quebec lieutenant, Sir Hector Langevin, was forced to resign from Cabinet due to a corruption scandal in August.

The issue split the party as English Protestant Conservatives rejected Bowell's proposal to create a new Catholic School Board in Manitoba.

Perhaps sensing that the Conservative government was doomed and that his prospects of keeping his seat were dim as Quebecers turned against the Tories, Ouimet decided not to run in the 1896 election.

He declined to serve in the short-lived Cabinet of the Sir Charles Tupper, the final Tory prime minister prior to the election.