He represented Last Mountain from 1964 to 1971 in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan as a Liberal.
Saskatchewan's 1964 general election saw the NDP government defeated by the Liberals.
The provincial wing of the Western Canada Concept movement won more votes than the Saskatchewan Liberal Party candidate in over a third of Saskatchewan's constituencies; in three ridings the WCC candidate captured more than 1,000 votes.
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The NDP vote fell to its lowest level since 1938, and the party lost 35 of its 44 seats in the legislature – the second-worst defeat of a sitting government in the province's history, behind only the Saskatchewan Liberal Party's 38-seat loss in 1944.
The Liberal Party – led by Lynda Haverstock – was able to attract a much larger share of disaffected Tory voters.
Eventually members of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservatives united to create the Saskatchewan Party.
The party's zenith was the 1982 provincial election, where the WCC won more votes than the Saskatchewan Liberal Party candidate in 23 of the province's 64 constituencies.
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On June 25, 2009, Bater announced his intention to seek the leadership of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party, after the resignation of David Karwacki.