[4][3] Brett was married on June 26, 1878, to Louise T. Hungerford, and together they had four children, all four of whom predeceased their parents,[4] their eldest daughter, Genevieve, died as a four-month-old infant in October 1881 and is buried at Arkona Cemetery.

[3] After the railway was completed in 1885, Brett became the CPR surgeon for mining communities in the area and ran a small hospital in Canmore, Alberta.

[13] However, after a few years he divested from the Grand View Villa and focused his attention on the Sanitarium Hotel and medical contracts with the CPR.

Bathing and guest facilities were expanded, an attached drug store and theatre were constructed, and a bottling plant selling water from the springs as a tonic.

[16] The act abolished the 1st Council of the North-West Territories, which consisted of a mixture of appointed and elected seats, and formed a new primarily elected assembly; however, the assembly did lack aspects of responsible government in other Canadian provinces such as an Executive Council and control over federal grant spending.

[9] In 1889 Royal refused to allow the assembly to decide how the territorial grant would be spent, a decision which caused the Advisory Council, including Brett, to tender their resignations on October 29.

[16][18] Following the resignation, Royal attempted to govern independent of the assembly on the advice of two selected officials, but his decision was disallowed by Federal Justice Minister John Sparrow David Thompson.

[19] Brett continued to hold his position and, in 1891 with Advisory Council member John Felton Betts, travelled to Ottawa to advocate for constitutional change towards more responsible government.

[19][18] Brett and Betts left Ottawa believing they had failed to convince the government,[18] but after John A. Macdonald's death, the changes came in 1892 with amendments to the North-West Territories Act providing that the lieutenant-governor could only expend monies on the advice of the assembly.

[19] During the upcoming session Brett advocated for the assembly to choose the membership of the Advisory Committee rather than the lieutenant-governor, and the proposal was adopted a year later in 1892.

[19] In 1898 Robert Brett became the first Leader of the Official Opposition during a time in which the territorial legislature made a transition to party politics.

Judge Charles Rouleau of the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories, in the jurisdiction of Northern Alberta, found in favour of Brett by two votes.

He did so, and when Brett eventually arrived to give a speech nearly identical to the one Sifton had given on his behalf he was puzzled by the audience's amusement.

When Alberta became a province in 1905 Brett ran in Banff for the Conservative Party but was defeated by Liberal candidate and future Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Charles W.

Prior to this decision, Brett travelled to Ottawa to lobby the federal government to choose Banff as the new capital of Alberta.

[24] Robert Brett's term as lieutenant governor ended upon his successor William Egbert's appointment on October 29, 1925.