TORONTO, Ont. – Former Windsor-West MPP Sandra Pupatello emerged as the front-runner in the race to replace Dalton McGuinty as Ontario premier and Liberal leader after a weekend of delegate selection votes across the province.
Pupatello, who quit politics in 2011, captured 504 committed first-ballot delegates (27.44 per cent) to the leadership convention in Toronto Jan. 25-27, according to official results released at 2 a.m. Monday.
Former education minister Kathleen Wynne, who represents Toronto Don Valley-West, was a close second with 463 (25.2 per cent) after a weekend of voting to select 1,837 delegates who will be able to cast ballots for the new Liberal leader.
Former MP Gerard Kennedy, who lost the 1996 leadership race to McGuinty and also lost a 2006 bid for the federal Liberal leadership, was third in the weekend voting with 257 committed delegates (14 per cent), followed by former government services minister Harinder Takhar with 244 (13.28 per cent).
Former labour minister Charles Sousa finished fifth with 198 delegates (10.78 per cent), and former children’s services minister Eric Hoskins finished in last place with 104 (5.66 per cent).
About 44,000 Liberal members, most of whom were signed up by the candidates after McGuinty’s surprise resignation Oct. 15, were eligible to vote to elect 16 delegates from each of the 107 ridings. Delegates were also elected from Liberal campus group’s and women’s clubs.
Voting was held Saturday and Sunday in different regions of the province, with Pupatello maintaining a lead both days with Wynne always a close second.
The weekend results were the first real confirmation that the two women are the front-runners in the leadership race, with just two weeks to go to the convention.
There were also 67 delegates elected as independents, many of whom had supported former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray until he dropped out of the race last Thursday to support Wynne.
The delegates will be joined by about 600 former MPPs, MPs, party executives and other “ex-officio” Liberals eligible to vote for the new leader, who will automatically become Ontario’s next premier.
As with the delegate selection results, Pupatello had the most high-profile endorsements and support among her former Liberal caucus and cabinet colleagues heading into the weekend, followed by Wynne.
Pupatello, who served alongside McGuinty in opposition and in the last government as minister of economic development and trade, did not seek re-election in 2011 when the Liberals were reduced to a minority, and like Kennedy she does not have a seat in the legislature.
She has promised to recall the legislature as soon as possible and said she will run in a byelection rather than calling a general election in 2013. Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has offered to give up his Windsor seat for Pupatello if she wins the leadership.
The race was triggered by McGuinty’s surprise resignation and decision to prorogue the legislature until a new Liberal leader was selected, which also killed hearings set to begin the next day into the decision to cancel two gas plants in government-held ridings at a cost of at least $230 million.
Gas Prices
680News Android App
Weather Guarantee
Advertiser Directory
My concern is with her family obligations. With her husband Jim Bennett an MLA in Newfoundland, will this divide her attention as premier in Ontario?
Whoever wins has their work cut out for them. Ontario is starting to feel like Greece, run by powerful unions (OPSU, CAW, teachers unions, police services, etc.) which ignore economic realities but have politicians in the palm of their hand. We ended the year with Provincial debt topping $238 BILLION. You cannot tackle a structural deficit exceeding $15B in good times by not making some tough choices on the public sector size and payroll. Ontario has some of the highest paid teachers, police officers and civil servants on the CONTINENT, but we don’t the tax base to pay for them. When you have top graduates from our Universities aspiring to Government jobs because they will make 2 or 3 times what they would make in the private sector which generates jobs and real GDP growth, you know you have a massive problem. Just ask the Europeans.
appoint a female leader when your party is poised to fall= it’s called the Kim Campbell effect!!