He was immediately elected chair of the Standing Committee on Resources Development and he was named a parliamentary assistant to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing in 1997.

Shortly thereafter, he was appointed as co-chair of the Red Tape Commission and as a Commissioner on the Board of Internal Economy, the all-party committee that oversees the operation of the Ontario Parliament building.

While serving as a cabinet minister, Gilchrist was responsible for co-ordinating the forced amalgamation of municipal governments in Ottawa, Hamilton and Sudbury.

[1] Gilchrist was elected as Chair of the Standing Committee on General Government and, on April 25, 2002, he was appointed as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy and Environment.

On June 28, 2001, Gilchrist was put in charge of a Select Committee tasked with the goal of reviewing alternative, i.e. "green", fuel sources.

[3] The bill would have required anyone obtaining a provincial license or health card to complete an organ donation form and would have prevented any other person from overturning the decision of the donor, after death.

He became the Vice-President of Canadian Hydrogen Energy Company, the world's largest manufacturer of hydrogen-based emissions reduction and fuel saving devices.

In 2007, he was elected as a director of the National Hydrogen Association, in Washington, D.C., and has served as a special advisor to the board of Skypower Ltd., one of Canada's largest wind and solar power companies.

In March 2008, Gilchrist announced that he was stepping down as the candidate in order to return his full attention to his alternative energy business interests, including a proposed waste-to-energy facility in Ghana and an advanced recycling technology for municipalities in Canada.