1:30 p.m. — The ballots are being counted as Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks to interim Liberal leader John Fraser on the convention stage.

Results are expected within the next hour.

Fraser gave a shout-out to Amanda Simard, the former PC MPP who sat as an Independent before recently moving over to the Liberal party, representing Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.

12:31 p.m. — Kate Graham told the crowd that the “moment calls for us to do something extraordinary … How does the Ontario Liberal Party win back the people of this province? How do we give them more? How do we restore people’s faith in us and in politics and what it can mean in our lives? Because that’s what we have to do. We have to give them more.”

She said “we have to give them more than just platitudes and policy planks. We have to do more than trade-in favours and crank up the machinery of party politics. We have to do more than fundraise using fear. We have to restore trust — in us, in politics, in what’s possible.”

Graham, a political science professor at Western University, said it’s important for the Liberals to “do politics differently.”

She said the party needs to focus “more on the well-being of people than polling numbers. We can be the party that makes Ontario carbon neutral. We can be the party that once and for all gives kids with autism the services they need … that builds social support systems that lift people out of poverty, that doesn’t nickel-and-dime our children’s education.”

She also spoke of the barriers for women in politics — including how people would “write her off” after she announced her run for leadership, and then that she was pregnant.

“Not are only are women electable, they absolutely must be elected if we want to fix any of the big things that really matter,” she said.

11:45 a.m. — Michael Coteau, a former cabinet minister in the Wynne government and one of the handful of Liberals to be re-elected in 2018, told the crowd that “Liberals have achieved great successes in our history when we worked together for the common good.”

He said “these chapters in our story remind us of our ability to reimagine Ontario and bring people together … a long history that many thought ended on June 7, of 2018. But look around: a new chapter is being written right here today.”

Coteau then turned his sights on the Ford government, saying, “Conservatism in Ontario is no more than short-sighted, reactionary politics … that usually causes more harm than good. I don’t want the angry, messy, chaotic state of politics in Ontario today to continue. When I talk to organizations, businesses and members of our communities, they tell me we need to return to a state of stability. We don’t need an agenda controlled by the extreme right ... or radical left. We need to return to balance and moderation.”

He called on Liberals to “come together around a new vision of Liberalism. A new approach to politics that captures the challenges and opportunities of today and produces the best outcomes for citizens, by getting our core services delivered in the best way possible.”

Coteau said the Liberal vision of Ontario is “constructive, not destructive. Progressive, not regressive.”

It is, he added, “very different than that of our current premier, who finds more ways to divide us than unite us. You see, we are the opposite of the Ford Conservatives. I believe it’s a vision I share with all of you gathered here today, and with people in every part of Ontario.”

11:24 a.m. — A late entrant and a long-shot in the race, Ottawa lawyer Brenda Hollingsworth said she took a chance because the Liberal party needed a fresh voice with her business and legal experience.

Taking the stage to the Motown classic “Ain't No Mountain High Enough,” Hollingsworth explained why. “I felt an urge to step out of my very comfortable life,” she told the crowd.

“People around me told me you’re making a big mistake, you’re not a politician ... but my heart was simply not going to take no for an answer.”

11 a.m. — Alvin Tedjo, a former senior policy adviser on post-secondary education, is a father of three who was vice-president of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care and part of a successful effort to push for improved paternity leave across Canada.

He told the convention that while he spent a lot of time away from his family during the leadership campaign, he said “funny enough, my kids are what I talk about most on the campaign trail, and what we as parents hope we can achieve for them, and prepare them for in the future.”

Tedjo also pledged to implement a basic-income program to help fight poverty.

He also spoke of his controversial proposal to merge the Catholic and public education systems into one.

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“I don’t think we can ignore the fact that the way we deliver public education in Ontario, is not accessible to everyone,” he said. “If you are a student, or a teacher, and you’re not allowed to study or work at a publicly funded school because of your religion, that’s discrimination.”

He said Ontarians “want that status quo to change. I know not everyone agrees with me on this. But I also know that a lot of you do, but you’re worried about the politics.”

He said, however, that the Liberals need to take that bold step.

“We should never again be afraid to do the right thing,” he said.

10:06 a.m. — Former education minister and Scarborough-Guildwood MPP Mitzie Hunter — one of two leadership candidates with a seat in the legislature — took the stage after a children’s choir from her riding performed two songs.

Saying Liberals have “punched above their weight” since their “crushing” defeat in the 2018 election, Hunter recalled in a rousing speech how her mother financed her father’s first dump truck by working in an auto assembly plant.

“I’m here today because of hard work, education and dreams,” Hunter, who has a master’s of business administration degree, told hundreds of delegates. She added that she wants “everyone in Ontario” to have the type of opportunities she enjoyed.

Hunter accused Premier Doug Ford of leading a “polarizing” government and mocked his double-blue licence plates in Progressive Conservative colours as symbolizing how he is governing for himself and his friends.

“It’s hard to say you are for the people when you are not from the people,” she said to cheers.

Prior to the convention, Hunter placed fourth in the delegate count behind Del Duca, MPP Michael Coteau and political newcomer Kate Graham, who teaches at Western University in London.

9:30 a.m. — As the Ontario Liberal leadership election got under way at the International Centre, front-runner Steven Del Duca reminded the 2,000 delegates of their “proud legacy of delivering progress.”

“David Peterson ended (more than) 40 years of Conservative rule, banned extra-billing by doctors, introduced pay equity, and stood up for a united Canada because he knew it was the right thing to do,” Del Duca said of the former premier who governed between 1985 and 1990.

“Dalton McGuinty helped us rediscover how to win again, and again, and again so we could close coal, create the Greenbelt, introduce full-day kindergarten and create a world class public education system,” he said of the man who led Ontario from 2003 until 2013.

And he praised Ontario’s first female premier, who was in power from 2013 until Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives toppled the Liberals in 2018.

“Kathleen Wynne blazed a trail and led us to victory in 2014 so we could push for national pension reform, we launched the basic income pilot, we fought systemic racism, homophobia and misogyny, and we bridged towards authentic reconciliation with our Indigenous peoples.”

BACKGROUND — Delegates of Ontario Liberals will choose a new leader today. Delegate selection meetings suggest former cabinet minister Steve Del Duca is the overwhelming favourite to win the leadership at the Mississauga convention. Del Duca, who lost his Vaughan riding in the Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative landslide in June 2018, has the support of 1,171 elected delegates as well as scores of ex officios.

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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