Rousing speech turned the tide,

Sandra Pupatello was never ahead of Kathleen Wynne by enough at the Ontario Liberal leadership convention that the other candidates would have to go to her.

When the first ballot results were announced at Maple Leaf Gardens on Saturday, Pupatello led Wynne by only two votes, 599-597, or onetenth of a percentage point, 28.7 to 28.6 per cent.

Those were not bandwagon numbers. As the front-runner, Pupatello needed at least a five-point spread back to Wynne. She needed separation and didn’t get it.

Pupatello needed to be in the 30s, not the high 20s. And on the second ballot, Pupatello needed to be into the 40s, but she was just short with 817 votes and 39.4 per cent, to Wynne’s 750 votes and 36.2 per cent. Which left Gerard Kennedy and Charles Sousa, in third and fourth place with 13.7 and 12 per cent, free to walk to Wynne on the third ballot, without any fear of the consequences.

Game over at one of the most exciting conventions of the modern era, and probably one of the last delegated conventions to be held in Canada. Preferential ballots have become the new normal, with people voting online — and those conventions are as boring as the rain.

They have little of the colour, to say nothing of the drama, of a delegated convention, with arm-twisting, deal-making and, in this case, queenmaking.

By moving first, surprisingly to Wynne, Sousa got to be queenmaker. By the time Kennedy went to her a few minutes later, as expected, it was a done deal.

Kennedy’s only other choice was to stay in for the third ballot and then release his delegates, leaving him with no influence on the outcome and no leverage on the new leader. To say nothing of the fact that he doesn’t have a seat in the legislature and no one could ever figure why he was in the race in the first place.

And so Ontario has its first openly gay premier in history, and only its fourth from a Toronto riding.

The gay factor was an elephant in the room and Wynne killed it in her rousing speech, quite the best of the day, after delegates voted on the first ballot on Saturday.

But it’s not the gay thing that Wynne will have to battle so much as what she, herself, in her acceptance speech, called the “Toronto thing,” the 416 factor.

The last premier from Toronto was Bob Rae, and before that you have to go all the way back to George Drew in the 1940s.

There’s such a thing as a tide, or at least a current, of history. And the history is against her. Not to mention inheriting a minority government in its third term of office, and in third place in the polls.

But to give Wynne her due again, she confronted the Toronto thing head on in her spirited acceptance speech. “Can we just get this Toronto thing out of the way?” It was not so much a question as a declaration. “I’m going to be premier of all the province of Ontario.”

It’s not as if people in the rest of Ontario hate Toronto the way they do in the rest of Canada.

‘Can we just get this Toronto thing out of the way? I’m going to be premier of all the province of Ontario.’

KATHLEEN WYNNE

Ontario premier-designate

But neither do they love Toronto in the Niagara region, home of Conservative leader Tim Hudak. Or in Hamilton, home of NDP leader Andrea Horwath. Or in Ottawa, home of outgoing Premier Dalton McGuinty. Or in northern Ontario, where North Bay is the hometown of Mike Harris. Or in London, home of David Peterson and John Robarts. Not to mention Brampton, which Bill Davis made famous. And so on.

Sorry, Madam Premier-Designate, but that’s a big historical hill, not a coincidence.

And then as Wynne noted in her acceptance remarks: “Believe it or not, this was the easy part.” You got that right, Kathleen. Starting with the teachers, marching by the Gardens in protest against Bill 115. They were really pissed. They are not voting for the Libs anytime soon. They’re going to the Dippers, which doesn’t hurt the Cons.

Then, the cancellation costs of two gas power projects, costing $230 million and counting. Wait till the Leg gets back. Kaboom.

Finally, the NDP was in first place in a Forum poll in the Toronto Star on Saturday, with the Tories a very competitive second, and the Liberals very much in third, the only party in the 20s.

And Wynne thinks the opposition will work with her, when it’s in both their interests to have a spring election?

Or as Gordie Howe used to say, elbows up in the corners of the Gardens: “Welcome to the NHL.”