From 1986 to 1991 he was CEO of the ExTerra Foundation, which conducted paleontological expeditions in China's Gobi Desert, Alberta's badlands, and the Canadian Arctic.

His professional career began in 1973 at the age of eighteen when Peter Lougheed's Progressive Conservative cabinet appointed him a member of the Alberta Health Facilities Review Committee.

Taft was the chief executive officer of the ExTerra Foundation from 1986 to 1991, where he oversaw a team that planned and developed the Canada-China Dinosaur Project.

Noble, who named the Foundation and lead the international team from 1983 to 1989, invited Taft to become a co-founding member of Ex Terra's Board in 1984.

[5] The project discovered several new dinosaur species and yielded a large number of scientific papers, including a special edition of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.

Taft consulted extensively with the Alberta Ministry Responsible for Seniors from 1991 to 1993, an experience that prompted him to write his first book, Shredding the Public Interest, in 1997.

[15] In large part because of this research, Edmonton's city council of the day eventually dropped its plans to sell Epcor in a narrow 7–6 vote.

[18] In December 2000, Taft announced he would seek the Alberta Liberal Party nomination for the next provincial election, "citing his frustration with Tory policies in health care and power deregulation".

Drawing heavily on economic data from Statistics Canada, the book challenges the notion that the Alberta government's spending on public services is far higher than other provinces.

Taft shows that total Alberta corporate profits are consistently double or more the rates in the rest of Canada or the United States.

In contrast, spending on public services in Alberta is in the normal range, and the government has failed to increase the value of the Heritage Trust Fund.

[40] Between 2011 and 2012, Taft, his wife Jeanette Boman and two other partners designed and constructed a three-home net-zero-ready infill residential project in Edmonton called "Belgravia Green".

[44] After his retirement from politics, Taft continues working as an author, consultant, and public speaker while volunteering substantial time in his community.

[citation needed] In 2014, Taft was invited to spend three weeks at the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University in Australia, to write and speak on the effects of the fossil fuel industry on democracy in the context of global warming.

In September 2014, he published the paper "Fossil Fuels, Global Warming and Democracy: A Report from a Scene of the Collision", in the Whitlam Institute's Perspectives series.

The book, written for a general audience, draws on numerous sources for a wide-ranging look at the effects of Canada's petroleum industry on democratic institutions such as the civil service, political parties and academia.