Ontario NDP to elect new leader

By saturday evening the Ontario New Democrats will be crowning a new party leader in Hamilton, ON at their first leadership convention since 1996. Howard Hampton announced his retirement after 13 years as party leader earlier this week.

The four MPP’s vying for his job are:

Andrea Horwath (Hamilton Centre)

Peter Tabuns (Toronto-Danforth)

Michael Prue (Beaches-East York)

Gilles Bisson (Timmins-James Bay)

There are about 1,000 party members attending the leadership convention in Hamilton. The rest will be casting their ballots online. The first round of voting began at 3:30pm and there is expected to be at least two rounds of voting to determine a new leader.

56 year old Howard Hampton will stay on as MPP for the northern riding of Kenora-Rainy River.