Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has easily survived a vote on her leadership at the party's convention in Toronto.

Horwath got the support of 77 per cent NDP delegates after making a last-ditch plea for support in a passionate speech to the convention Saturday morning.

She captured 811 votes while 244 delegates voted for a leadership election.

Many of the delegates had openly expressed anger at the party's third place finish in the June 12 election, when the NDP also lost the balance of power because the Liberals won a majority.

"We took lessons from both the challenges of that campaign as well as the victories," Horwath told reporters after the vote.

"I feel very buoyed by the support from our delegates," she added. "I think that they sent a message here that says 'We’re prepared to go forward with you as leader and do the hard work that we need to do to be ready for 2018.'"

Delegates had earlier voted to delay the leadership balloting by eight hours instead of proceeding with it as scheduled right after Horwath's keynote address.

Most of the 21 elected New Democrat caucus members had supported Horwath and there were no open challengers to her leadership.

Core NDP values

In her Saturday morning speech Horwath talked about core NDP values such as building a society that is socially and economically equal.

"Our cause is a province that cares about the air our children will breathe, the land they will walk and the water they will drink," she said. "A province with a living minimum wage, to that the very concept of working poor becomes a part of the past."

...a 20-year fiscal drunken orgy... - NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

Horwath predicted an NDP win federally next year and in Ontario in four years, and rejected suggestions from those on the political right that New Democrats can't be trusted with the public's money.

"People who have treated themselves and their friends to a 20-year fiscal drunken orgy financed by debt and service cuts, to pay for billions of dollars in tax cuts for people who need them the least, have no business lecturing us about the budget," she said.

Horwath also went after the Liberal plan to sell off Hydro One's local electricity distribution business, and warned it would force rates even higher while private investors in the utility get rich.

"Essential services like electricity [should] stay in the public sector and aren't eaten like oysters in a Bay Street bar for somebody's else's profit," she said.

Horwath got polite applause when she attacked the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, especially when she went after Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but there was an awkward moment when supporters tried to get a standing ovation going but most delegates did not rise to their feet.