He was born in Burritt's Rapids, Ontario, the nephew of Edward Kidd, and was educated there and in Kemptville.

He won the Conservative nomination in Kingston after the incumbent Conservative, William Folger Nickle, resigned from the cabinet of Howard Ferguson in order to protest the government's decision to run for re-election on the platform of repealing the Ontario Temperance Act and allowing government controlled liquor sales.

Kidd defeated Nickle who ran as a Prohibitionist candidate in the 1926 provincial election.

Kidd was re-elected in the 1929 provincial election and served as Speaker of the Ontario Legislative Assembly from 1930 until 1934.

He resigned from the provincial legislature to run unsuccessfully for the House of Commons of Canada in the 1940 federal election but won on his second attempt in 1945.