Only 10 caucus members endorsed Wynne during the three-month leadership campaign. Most threw their support behind runner-up Sandra Pupatello, who was leading the race until three other leadership candidates went to Wynne’s camp.

On the way in to her first caucus meeting as Liberal leader, Wynne dismissed suggestions of rifts within the party.

“There are no hard feelings,” she said.

“That’s one of the reasons that I wanted to have a caucus meeting as quickly as possible because I don’t think we should allow any potential rifts to widen.”

“I think it was a very positive and constructive leadership campaign. I want to just put that whole notion to bed,” Wynne said.

Wynne said she plans to talk to the opposition party leaders in an effort to make the minority government work and avoid an election, and still plans to bring back the legislature on Feb. 19.

On Monday, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath called on Wynne to hold a public inquiry into the cancellation of two Greater Toronto Area gas plants.

Wynne said she would like to discuss the idea of an inquiry in private with Horwath before responding publicly.

She declined to say who would be in her cabinet, but agreed she would keep her commitment to appoint herself as agriculture minister for at least one year —  although it may not be this year.

Glen Murray, who dropped out of the leadership race and endorsed Wynne, said he hasn’t been offered a specific cabinet post, and dismissed suggestions he could become education minister.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan denied reports he’s already accepted a private sector job, but said he intends to resign his seat.

“The party needs to renew itself and therefore, people like me really do need to step aside,” Duncan said.

On Monday night, Wynne spoke with Mayor Rob Ford at a board of trade dinner.

Wynne said transit and addressing gridlock in the GTA is a priority.

“Transit is a huge priority,” she said.

“I think it is a number one condition that we need to get right in terms of economic growth.”

She said she expects to meet with Ford soon.

McGuinty, who said he plans to stay on as an MPP until the next election, did not attend Tuesday’s caucus meeting.

The Conservatives and New Democrats said they want to work with the premier-designate but have their own demands.

Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said he wants Wynne to immediately announce spending cuts to help slash the province’s $12-billion deficit.

“I am concerned that the first 48 hours are sounding too much like the last nine years,” he said.

“We need to focus not on more spending and bigger government but on reducing spending and getting our economy going again.”

“I think people are looking for a very different direction in this province so hopefully, I’ll convince her to that.”

Hudak said he is willing to work with Wynne and defended the attack ads his party launched, which called her “another Liberal Ontario can’t afford.”

“I said I’m going to use every channel available to sound the alarm bells that we need to, to reverse this course,” he said.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said she wants Liberal leader Wynne to call a public inquiry into the cancellation of two gas plants in the Greater Toronto Area.

“If this legislature is simply paralyzed once again — by the whole issue of the gas plants — then how far are we going to get?”

“Let’s face it. If there’s one thing about public inquiries — they’re prorogue-proof.”

Horwath said she is giving Wynne an opportunity to address the controversial issue that had dominated the legislature and bogged down other work prior to the prorogation in October.

“I think we can get some results for people. I’m prepared to do that and I hope that Ms. Wynne is prepared to work with me to make that happen,” she said.

But Horwath said she will not force an election if Wynne does not go the inquiry route.

Wynne said Sunday that she hopes the parties can work together to keep the minority government alive and prevent an early election.

Outgoing premier Dalton McGuinty welcomed her for a one-hour meeting in his office, which is soon to be Wynne’s.

“I’m very proud of my new leader,” he said. “Good luck to you”

Wynne won the Liberal leadership race Saturday and is set to become the province’s first female premier.

Former education minister Kathleen Wynne won the race with 1,150 votes with Sandra Pupatello finishing second with 866 votes.

“This was the easy part,” Wynne told the crowd of cheering delegates at the former Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto after she was declared winner.

“Now we have the challenges ahead of us and we’re going to need all of us working together.”

Wynne is also making history as Canada’s first openly gay premier, a subject she confronted head-on in a dynamic speech that wowed delegates Saturday morning.

Watch the speech

Ontario is ready for a gay woman as premier, Wynne told the crowd earlier in the day.

"The province has changed, our party has changed. I do not believe that the people of Ontario... hold that prejudice in their hearts,'' said Wynne, who is married to Jane Rownthwaite.

Wynne delegate Alex Wilkinson, 24, said it's a significant milestone for the province and the country, which will have its sixth female premier when Wynne is sworn in.

"We can do it. You can be from Toronto, you can be a woman, you can be gay. You can do that and be premier at the same time.''

More

• Your reaction: It's a Wynne win
• Read a recap of our live blog covering the Ontario Liberal leadership convention

Wynne has vowed to recall the prorogued legislature by Feb. 19 and said she would immediately try to meet with the opposition party leaders in an effort to make the minority government work.

"We're going to need all the ideas that came out of this campaign, we're going to need to put them together,'' she told the crowd.

"We're going to need to weave together a platform because we're going to have ready at any moment to go into a campaign. But we're also going to need all those ideas to continue to govern.''

Pupatello, a Windsor native who served as economic development minister before leaving the government in 2011, appealed to the party faithful to come together in her concession speech.

"Tonight we made history: our final ballot had two women on the ballot,'' she said to deafening applause. "Two strong women on the ballot.''

Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulated Wynne on her win, and thanked Premier Dalton McGuinty for his service as premier.

"I look forward to working with Ms. Wynne on addressing issues that matter to Ontarians, and in particular the creation of jobs and economic growth,'' he said in a statement.

There were early signs that Wynne had momentum in the race, nearly tying Pupatello after the first ballot with just two votes between them.

Although Pupatello widened her lead over Wynne in the second ballot with a major boost from Harinder Takhar, Wynne received the support of third-place finisher Gerard Kennedy and Charles Sousa, who was fourth, after both dropped out of the race.

Pupatello took 817 votes on the second ballot and Wynne came in second with 750 votes, which set the stage for a two-woman contest in the third ballot.

Sousa's support surprised some observers, who believed the former banker and immigration minister would head to Pupatello's more right-leaning camp.

Sources say Mississauga's 91-year-old mayor Hazel McCallion helped convince Sousa — who holds a seat in the city west of Toronto — to cross the floor to Wynne. But Sousa said it was really about getting the legislature back.

Some speculated that Pupatello's desire to call a byelection to get a seat before bringing back the legislature may have turned the tide in Wynne's favour.
But her no-nonsense, professorial style — almost identical to McGuinty's — may have also been a factor.

McGuinty's "never too high, never too low'' mantra carried the Liberals through nine years of ups and downs, and Wynne may have tapped into a vein of Liberals who want to stick with the moderate, centrist style that's allowed them to ward off the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats.

Wynne insists she's different from McGuinty and the right leader for the times.

But as she takes the reins of power, Wynne will also have to deal with the baggage McGuinty left behind.

He's alienated a powerful ally the Liberals had courted for years — Ontario's public school teachers — by forcing a pay freeze to reduce the province's $12-billion deficit.

Public sector unions, who protested by the thousands outside the convention hall, have vowed to use their organizational might to defeat the Liberals in the next election.

McGuinty also left behind a trail of controversies, from the political decisions to cancel two gas plants in Liberal ridings — at a cost to taxpayers of at least $230 million — to a criminal probe of the province's Ornge air ambulance service.

]]> http://www.680news.com/2013/01/26/your-reaction-its-a-wynne-win/feed/ 15 http://www.680news.com/2013/01/26/voting-begins-today-for-new-ontario-liberal-leader-and-next-premier/ http://www.680news.com/2013/01/26/voting-begins-today-for-new-ontario-liberal-leader-and-next-premier/#comments Sat, 26 Jan 2013 08:00:55 -0500 The Canadian Press 1151879 TORONTO, Ont. – Following a tribute from his party, an emotional Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has said his final goodbyes at the convention that will choose his successor this weekend.

Surrounded by his large family, Canada’s longest-serving current premier thanked the Ontario Liberals for sticking by him through the good and bad, the years in opposition to their third straight election victory in 2011 — a feat the party had not accomplished in more than a century.

“You and I are now family,” he told a packed Toronto convention hall on Friday night.

“But don’t expect me to remember your birthdays,” he joked. “Just what a McGuinty needs — more family.”

Family was a common refrain in his speech, the final act in an hour-long, humorous tribute hosted by his daughter Carleen and son Dalton Jr., filled with home movies of the massive McGuinty clan over the years.

The “Premier Dad” moniker actually came from the man himself, his son said, not from reporters remarking on his penchant for bans on pitbulls to pesticides.

During a particularly frustrating round of golf shortly after becoming premier, Dalton Jr. told his father that he’d reached his limit on do-overs.

McGuinty kept his cool, Dalton Jr. recalled.

“And he said, ‘As long as I’m paying for everyone’s golf, I think I’ll take as many mulligans as I like. And by the way, that’s Premier Dad to you.”’

When McGuinty later took the podium, he delivered a heartfelt thanks to his family and wife Terri, an elementary school teacher who raised four young children in Ottawa as the wife of a rookie MPP.

“You gave me the strength I needed by making our home a place where premiers and politics count for nothing, but where being a dad and a husband counted for everything,” he said.

Growing up in Ottawa as the eldest son in a large Catholic family, he helped his busy parents care for his nine younger siblings. He worked odd jobs through high school to help out, from hospital orderly to a counsellor at his father’s summer camp.

As premier, McGuinty would often draw from his childhood to impart a political lesson about the responsibilities of leadership.

He did so again Friday night, saying his desire to “to do good for others” was a result of the good things his parents did for him through hard work and sacrifice.

He jumped into politics 22 years ago after his father Dalton Sr., an English professor and provincial politician, died suddenly while shovelling snow.

“My only regret is that my dad never saw me enter public life,” McGuinty said.

Love for their children and families is what drives people to want to build a brighter future for the province, from better schools and health care, cleaner air, new jobs and a better trained workforce, he said.

It is “exacting, imperfect work,” McGuinty said.

“We can be proud we got the big things right while seeing with clear eyes there’s still much more to do.”

McGuinty delivered his swan song at the former Maple Leaf Gardens, the same spot where he managed an upset victory to become leader of the party despite finishing fourth in the first two ballots.

His uncanny ability to beat the odds became a common theme for the so-called “accidental premier” over the course of his career.

When he first arrived at the Ontario legislature in 1990, the awkward lawyer was a far cry from the polished politician he is today. It took seven gruelling years in opposition — and one election defeat — before McGuinty led the Liberals to victory in 2003.

Along the way, he honed a political style that saw the governing party through many of the obstacles they faced over the last nine years.

“Never too high, never too low” was McGuinty’s mantra, an extension of his straight-laced, father-knows-best image.

Time and time again, people told him that it couldn’t be done — that he couldn’t win a seat as a Liberal, that he couldn’t win the leadership, that he couldn’t win the election, he once remarked. Yet he managed to do all three.But he surprised everyone in October, when he decided to step down amid a series of scandals that seemed insurmountable, even for him.

He’d alienated a powerful ally he’d courted for years — Ontario’s public school teachers — by forcing a pay freeze to reduce the province’s massive deficit. The unions declared war, vowing to withdraw their financial support and use their organizational might to defeat the self-described “education premier” in the next election.

They made good on their threat in a Sept. 6 byelection McGuinty orchestrated in an effort to win the one seat he needed to regain a majority government, putting boots on the ground in Kitchener-Waterloo to elect a New Democrat for the first time in the riding’s history.

Adding to his troubles was a rare contempt motion over the cancellation of two gas plants in Liberal ridings — at a cost to taxpayers of at least $230 million — and a criminal probe of the province’s Ornge air ambulance service.

By tendering his resignation and shutting down the legislature, the 57-year-old premier bought time for his party to elect a new leader, mend its relationship with the unions and wipe the slate clean on the contempt motion.

McGuinty has defended his record, pointing out that he’s leaving the province with better schools and health care, and an economy that’s starting to get back on its feet.

But what McGuinty called progress also carried a heavy price, as government spending more than doubled and the red ink began to flow.
McGuinty has left a very strong legacy, said former Liberal premier David Peterson. He got the province’s biggest responsibilities — health care, education and the economy — right.

“He’s faced enormous challenges,” he said. “He’s survived in a very volatile period. He’s brought a decency to public life.”

“Yeah, there are barnacles on the ship of state, but there are barnacles on anybody’s ship of state.”

McGuinty has said he plans to stay on as the MPP for Ottawa-South until the next election, but hasn’t given much thought to what he might do next.

As for how he will be remembered, McGuinty said he’ll leave it to others to decide, that he’s simply grateful for having the opportunity to serve his province.

Whether the embattled Liberals can beat the odds once again without their longtime leader is another chapter for the history books that has yet to be written.

Age: 50

Riding: Currently unseated

Years as MPP: 16 for Windsor West

Former cabinet positions/notable portfolios:

• Minister of Community and Social Services, October 2003
• Minister of Education, April 2006
• Minister of Economic Development and Trade, September 2006
• Minister Responsible for Women’s Issues, late 2005
• Minister of International Trade and Investment, September 2008
• Minister of Economic Development and Trade, June 2009

Bio: Born in Windsor in 1962, Pupatello says she has been a loyal Liberal party member since 1974 and credits former federal MP Herb Gray with bringing her into politics. Her involvement in politics goes back before she graduated from the University of Windsor, she says. Her first political rally that she attended was one for her hero, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, at Windsor’s Caboto Club in 1976. She has won four elections beginning in 1995 and was a key player in McGuinty’s cabinet, leading the education, economic development and trade and international trade and investment portfolios, among others. But Windsor’s favourite daughter decided not to seek re-election in 2011, instead accepting the position of director of business development and global markets at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Toronto. Pupatello is married to Jim Bennett, a lawyer and former leader of the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Platform: Jobs and the economy have been Pupatello’s mantra since she entered the race in November. But she has been criticized for being short on policy details. Her Plan Forward focuses on six steps including: work locally, trade globally; keep Ontario open for business; and strengthen urban and regional communities.

On Toronto/GTA: She has said she’d ask for more funding from the federal government to help fix traffic gridlock in the GTA.

Quotes: “I don’t know,” she says on what she’d do if she loses the leadership bid. “Lick my wounds for a while but not for long.”

___________________________________________________________________________

Premier Dalton McGuinty’s successor will likely be a woman. The question is which one?

Former Windsor West MPP Sandra Pupatello and Toronto Don Valley West MPP Kathleen Wynne are in a virtual dead heat for the premier’s job, heading into the Ontario Liberal leadership convention this weekend.

According to the Ontario Liberal Party, Pupatello has a small lead with 27 per cent of delegate support, followed by Wynne (25 per cent) and former MPP Gerard Kennedy (14 per cent). The trailing candidates are MPPs Harinder Takhar (13 per cent), Charles Sousa (11 per cent) and Eric Hoskins (6 per cent), respectively.

“I feel great because I wasn’t leading going in,” Pupatello told CityNews.ca on Jan. 17.

A week earlier she appeared to have suffered a setback when Murray — the first to throw his name into the ring after McGuinty announced his surprise resignation on Oct. 15 — dropped out and threw his support behind Wynne.

But Pupatello was quick to point out that Murray’s decision didn’t hurt her because his campaign chair and several others on his team joined her campaign. What’s more, many of his supporters weren’t elected as delegates for the leadership convention because he quit before the delegate selection process on Jan. 12-13.

Pupatello’s slogan during the leadership race has been Sandra…for a change. Jobs and the economy have been her mantra since she entered the race in November.

“We’ve got to restore confidence. We’re got to focus on the economy — get the revenues coming in,” she says. “There are lots of priorities but jobs and economy always drive what a government is able to do.”

As minister of international trade and investment, Pupatello travelled overseas, selling Toronto to the rest of the world.

“Getting Ontario back to the top of its economic game involves Toronto and the GTA, big time,” she told a sold-out crowd at the Toronto Board of Trade on Jan. 18.

She wants Ontario to diversify its export market to the United States.

“We must focus more effort on fast-growing, emerging economies,” she told the Toronto Board of Trade crowd, adding that her government would assist exporters, particularly small and medium size businesses in China and India.

Her government will align Ontario’s export policies with Export Development Canada and make sure trade deals benefit the province’s companies, she said.

But she has been criticized for being short on details when it comes to her platform. On Jan. 20, the Toronto’s Star’s Martin Regg Cohn wrote that Pupatello told him she needed more time to consider what the finance minister says is the most challenging issue facing the Liberal government: the issue of traffic gridlock which is hurting the economy in the GTA.

Pupatello has said that she would ask the federal government for more public transit funding, something the columnist said was a pipe dream.

One thing working in her favour is that Pupatello, who left politics before the 2011 election after 16 years as MPP for Windsor West, hasn’t been at the cabinet table so she can distance herself from the Liberals’ gas-plant scandal and teachers dispute — both of which have plagued McGuinty’s minority government.

“She has the benefit of that,” says Graham Murray, president of G.P. Murray Research Ltd., which publishes the newsletter, Inside Queen’s Park.

Another advantage is that unlike all the other candidates who hail from the GTA, Pupatello isn’t from Toronto, a city the rest of the province loves to hate. But she’s had a home here for 17 years.

Pupatello has been described as a firecracker and a pit bull when she was the Opposition deputy leader during the Mike Harris era in the late 1990s. She’s also fun. She told one interviewer recently she wished her campaign song was The Bitch is Back.

“She has a lively passionate approach to politics, someone who shakes the room up,” says Murray, who sat on a panel together with Pupatello.

But those same qualities may not serve her well if she takes the helm of a minority government.

“That kind of gutsy politician is exciting but nerve-wracking to others,” Murray says.

In the home stretch

With days to go until the leadership convention, Pupatello has been talking to her rivals listening to what roles they may want to play in her government if she wins, saying it’s important for her to know but adding that no promises of caucus jobs were made.

Under party rules, delegates are required to vote for their declared candidate on the first ballot at the convention but they can vote for whichever candidate they want in subsequent rounds.

Pupatello and her team of volunteers have been working the phones asking delegates, “if I’m not your first [choice], would I be your second?”

Of the 2,200 or so delegates, there are also some 400 ex-officios, who are former MPPs and candidates, and it’s been harder to tell who they’ll be supporting, Murray says.

There have been recent reports painting rival Wynne as someone who would seek a coalition with NDP Leader Andrea Horwath to avert an election. Both have denied such talk in other reports.

Pupatello ruled out a coalition government with the Opposition.

“I’m not the coalition candidate,” she says.

But she says she’d work with the NDP and PC leaders to get to work right away on jobs and the economy, the platform she’s been championing.

“My goal is to keep a government going as long as possible,” Pupatello says.

Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, says the next premier will be driven by the polls.

“If they get elected and they think, ‘Now we can win,’ you call an election,” he says.

If Pupatello wins, she will face some considerable obstacles. For one thing, she doesn’t have a seat in the House.

She has said that she wouldn’t reconvene Parliament, which McGuinty suspended in mid-October, until after she wins a byelection. Wynne has said she’d reopen the House as early as Feb. 19.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan — whose days with Pupatello go back to the early 1980s when the two worked for then provincial labour minister Bill Wrye and regard one another like siblings — has offered his seat in Windsor Tecumseh.

Pupatello wouldn’t say when she’d run in a byelection but she said “fairly quickly.”

Her immediate concern is winning the Liberal leadership race.

“I’m not taking second in any of this,” she says, adding she’s going into the convention “thinking I can win.”

Police officers stood behind a barricade and let delegates in and out of the former Maple Leaf Gardens in downtown Toronto while the crowd of public school teachers, other union members and community groups let loose an avalanche of noise punctuated by whistles and drums.

“What’s disgusting? Union busting!” a street full of protesters bellowed as police looked on.

The bulk of the protesters were public elementary and secondary school teachers, who were joined by other public sector unions, as well as the Canadian Auto Workers and United Steel Workers, among other labour members and community groups.

The demonstration started two hours earlier in a nearby park, where protesters listened to labour leaders and activists condemn the Liberal government’s decision to impose contracts on public school teachers. Speakers decried the move as a violation of workers’ democratic rights, and also railed against budget cutbacks.

Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation president Ken Coran said the next Liberal leader — who will become the province’s new premier — must negotiate contracts with public elementary and secondary teachers.

He had one key message for the next premier when it comes to dealing with unions.

“The lesson is simple. Be fair. Be respectful. And be democratic.”

Protesters, many of whom arrived in a fleet of chartered buses, then began a brief march to the nearby convention site.

Some delegates smiled as they walked by the spirited wall of protesters. Others were met with loud boos.

One supporter of candidate Kathleen Wynne leaned over the barricade to hand an apple, coffee and bag of chips to an older protester.

Teacher Craig Breen said he had to show his opposition to the imposition of teachers’ contracts.

“People here provide a great service to kids, and the reaction of our government to our fine service is to trample on our rights,” he said.

Gallery: Images from the Ontario Liberal leadership convention

Photo by: Diana Pereira

Six candidates are vying for the premier’s job at the Ontario Liberal leadership convention this weekend in Toronto.

Premier Dalton McGuinty prorogued the legislature in October and announced he’d stay on until his replacement was chosen by party members.

The next premier is widely expected to be a woman, either former Windsor West MPP Sandra Pupatello or Toronto Don Valley West MPP Kathleen Wynne.

We have full coverage of the convention all weekend beginning Friday morning.

Age: 59

Riding: Don Valley West

Years as MPP: 10 (elected in 2003)

Former cabinet positions: Minister of Education, Minister of Transportation, Minister of Municipal Affairs & Housing and Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.

Bio: Former school trustee and small business owner. Married to Jane Rounthwaite. Has three children and two grandchildren.

Platform: Economic challenges “are integrally related to our social justice challenges. We need a strong education system. We need big businesses to come, and we need to support small businesses with assistance with things like pay roll tax, because people need jobs.”

On Toronto/GTA: Investment in TTC through Metrolinx; was transportation minister when Toronto’s Transit City was approved and then cancelled by Mayor Rob Ford. Also helped to oversee the City of Toronto Act and was involved in the gas tax.

Hobbies/interests: Former runner.

In quotes: “I don’t think anyone believes there needs to be an election right now,” Wynne told the Toronto Star.

“If [NDP leader] Andrea [Horwath] is the leader who’s willing to work with us – and I haven’t heard [PC leader] Tim [Hudak] say that he’s willing – then I’m more than open to having that conversation.”

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Kathleen Wynne is slightly behind front-runner Sandra Pupatello going in to this weekend’s Liberal leadership convention in Toronto. But that might not be a bad thing.

Gerard Kennedy was in the lead back in 1996, when Dalton McGuinty was crowned the victor on the fifth ballot.

The placement doesn’t bother Wynne, who has racked up high-profile endorsements and earned more in fundraising than Pupatello. She said she plans to keep the momentum going until she’s elected premier at the next provincial election.

“If I don’t win, I’m still an MPP, and I’ll serve my constituents, and I’m ready to serve the premier in whatever capacity he or she requires.

“But that’s plan B,” Wynne said in a telephone interview with CityNews.ca.

During the leadership campaign, Wynne has gained the support of delegates and a slew of high-profile names, including former Liberal leadership candidate Glen Murray.

Murray abandoned his own leadership bid in early January and threw his support behind her. Murray, the former mayor of Winnipeg, announced his support the same day Wynne locked up John Wilkinson — a former minister who was rumoured to be leaning toward Pupatello.

Wynne also has the support of Health Minister Deb Matthews, Sheila Copps, Michael Bryant and Toronto city councillor Shelley Carroll.

“Wynne’s understanding of municipal issues and what the City of Toronto is facing at this interesting period in its growth is well understood,” Carroll told CityNews.ca.

“Her experience is not just as a resident – it’s in her portfolio,” Carroll said.

Toronto accomplishments

As a minister, Wynne helped to oversee the City of Toronto Act and was involved in the gas tax, Carroll said, adding her experience predates Wynne’s appointment as Minister of Municipal Affairs.

“She and I go way back to the Premier [Mike] Harris years. We worked together extensively to save the education system and mitigate the bill side effects of amalgamation…after that, she went off to the province and I went off to the city.”

A better relationship with municipalities will be crucial for the new premier, Carroll said, and may have avoided the difficulties the Liberal government saw with the cancelled gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville.

“Working with communities is the way forward for the Liberal party,” Carroll said.

Wynne said she has worked with city, pointing to the “challenges” of being transportation minister in 2010, when Rob Ford’s October election scrapped the then recently-approved Transit City plan.

“It was a challenge and we got through it.”

However, she stressed that Toronto wasn’t the only municipality on her mind.

Wynne has been making strides to appeal to rural and small town voters, even promising to take on the role of agricultural minister for one year.

“I want people outside of Toronto to understand that I see this as a critical issue,” Wynne said.

“I want to have an impact on the agrifood business and the quality of life in small towns and rural areas in the province.”

Pupatello, a 16-year MPP who left politics before the 2011 provincial election to take a Bay Street job, might just have the edge outside of Toronto. Wynne lives and works in downtown Toronto and is seen as part of the party’s centre-left wing.

Pupatello, who is from Windsor but owns a home in Toronto, is the only leadership candidate from outside the GTA, and is on the party’s centre-right.

It’s a delicate balance for Wynne, who, despite her agriculture pledge, stresses she’s still attuned to urban concerns.

“We need to continue to invest in transit and we’re going to have to have a serious conversation about how to pay for it. Metrolinx will have recommendations in the next six months about the financial tools we need to build transit.”

“The Gardiner and the TTC are municipal concerns and the city has jurisdiction over those issues. We’re investing in the Spadina Subway, the Eglinton Scarborough cross town line, in refurbishing Union Station and in the Air Rail Link,” she said.

Priorities as leader

Wynne’s first priority as premier isn’t urban or rural, she said, it’s reaching out to the Opposition.

“I want to get a cabinet together, a throne speech and a budget that can pass,” Wynne said —standard issues for any premier.
What will be different, she said, is a promise not to introduce any new legislation that would impose collective agreements on government workers.

“There’s good evidence that we don’t need that,” she said, citing the tentative agreement between OPSEU and the government.

“I was at the Cabinet table as we made those decisions but my hope was that we would never need to use that legislation. I’m disappointed that didn’t happen — understanding, of course, that there’s no more money.”

Wynne was minister of education from 2006 to 2010 (she was preceded by Pupatello) and there were no strikes during her term.

“To be fair, it was a different time. There were resources on the table.”

She’s equally diplomatic when it comes to the gas plant controversy that — along with the Ornge air ambulance scandal — led McGuinty to prorogue Parliament and announce his surprise resignation in mid-October.

“All the parties agreed that the placement of those facilities was not right. We should have had a better understanding of community concerns.”

The province needs more energy infrastructure, Wynne said, and going forward, there needs to be a better consultation process in place.

“I want to go to willing hosts,” whether its gas, solar or wind or other infrastructure, like highways, she said.

When it comes to dealing with the federal government, Wynne said she has the experience.

Every ministry she’s headed, barring education, has involved liasing with federal counterparts.

“We need to be sure that Ontario’s getting a fair deal — in funding for affordable housing, in equalization payments — and I’m going to be raising those issues with the federal government.

“It will be my role as premier to articulate those concerns to the federal government and with other premiers across the country. It’s good for the country to have a dialogue.”

The biggest issue facing the province isn’t the urban rural divide or the relationship with the federal government. To echo a famous American president, it’s the economy — but Wynne puts a distinctly Canadian spin on the problem.

“Our economic challenges are integrally related to our social justice challenges. We need a strong education system. We need big businesses to come, and we need to support small businesses with assistance with things like pay roll tax, because people need jobs.

Wynne wants to make it easier for small businesses to access capital, and for foreign capital to reach small businesses.

“It’s the right thing to do, to close the gap between those who have and those who do not, but it also makes good economic sense. “

To that end, Wynne said that under her leadership, the province would continue to look for ways to keep expenses down.

“Particularly in the health ministry, there’s more health care that’s going to be needed and we need to do it in the smartest way possible. Home care is better than acute care.”

Before she can do any of those things, she’ll have to first win the leadership race.

That’s Plan A.