Reid focused primarily on intellectual activities before running for public office, working as an author, journalist, researcher and lecturer.
In 2014, Reid and former Liberal MP Mario Silva co-edited a book, Tackling Hate: Combating Antisemitism: The Ottawa Protocol.
[6] While he does not endorse separation or partition, he argues that such a legal framework may be necessary to prevent the sectarian violence of Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia from surfacing in Canada, should Quebec voters choose to secede.
The Montreal Gazette ran a strongly negative review by George Tombs, who rejected Reid's calculations of the cost of official bilingualism as arbitrary and unreliable.
Denis Smith wrote in the Toronto Star that Lament was a "hard-headed, fair and devastating account" of the existing system of official bilingualism, adding that its recommendations were "sensible" and "very difficult to refute".
In a follow-up article written for the National Post in 1999, Reid argued that this approach would empower the Canadian electorate, and "reduce the power of the courts to make arbitrary judgments as to the meaning of vaguely drafted Charter rights".
[17] In the same year, Reid criticized Jean Chrétien's Clarity Act as failing to provide a clear framework for future referendums on Quebec separatism.
[22] The comment provoked an immediate reaction from Prime Minister Paul Martin, who warned that Reid's proposals reflected “the kind of Canada that Stephen Harper wants.
The Liberals were cut down to a minority government in the 38th Canadian parliament, and Reid remained on the Official Opposition front bench as his party's critic for Democratic Reform and for Fednor (Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario).
[26] In May of the same year, Reid brought forward a motion to prevent the Federal Ethics Commissioner from making public the identities of employers of dependent children of Members of Parliament.
He lost his seat on the Human Rights subcommittee, but retained his membership on the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, and was named Conservative critic for the Democratic Institutions portfolio.
Reid had referred to the legislation in a blog post as a "Henry VIII Bill" for allowing the executive to function without the approval of Parliament.
In 2001 he published an article in Policy Options arguing that the federal government should turn over to individual provinces the power to decide whether marijuana would be made legal within their own boundaries.
(Reid noted that this was how Canada had dealt with the issue of alcohol prohibition a century earlier, and maintained that this approach "would be the most effective method of reflecting in Canadian law our culturally based, and therefore evolving, views towards drugs.
[36] In 2001, he was one of four Canadian Alliance MPs to break party ranks and vote against the Chrétien government's Anti-Terrorism Act, arguing that it violated traditional civil liberties and should be time-limited by a "Sunset Clause".
[citation needed] Reid opposes both capital punishment and abortion,[37] but has voted on such issues based on the preferences of his constituents, rather than on the basis of his own views.
Reid voted against the Martin government's same-sex marriage legislation in 2005, after consulting his constituents on the issue (although he also argued that the bill infringed upon religious rights).
[38] During his first two terms as an MP, Reid became closely associated with efforts to end the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in the People's Republic of China.
A motion (M-236) drafted by Reid, which called upon Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to raise the issue of thirteen imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners with close family ties to Canada, was unanimously adopted by the House of Commons on October 24, 2002.
Reid responded that he would be "very disappointed" if Hillier were prevented from running, adding "I can't think of anything more dangerous to our prospects [of winning in this riding]".