After making a spirited entrance with a drum line procession and delivering a rousing speech to over 1,000 delegates, Andrea Horwath, NDP MPP for Hamilton East, won the Ontario NDP Leadership in Hamilton, Ontario Saturday, March 7th. Horwath became the first female Ontario leader of the New Democrats.

She beat out three other caucus members, Peter Taubuns, Gilles Bisson, and Michael Prue following the third round of voting with 60.4 percent as reported by The Canadian Press.

In her candidate’s speech, Horwath expressed her experience as a community organizer in achieving social change in Hamilton and conveyed her understanding of and sympathy for the Canadian auto industry as her father worked in that trade. Horwath previously served in Hamilton municipal politics before moving into the arena of provincial politics.

Horwath said of her notable win as the youngest of the candidates and as the sole female, “The NDP has needed an opportunity to re-brand and to refresh, and I think with this leadership contest now over, with a new kind of face at the front of the party, it gives us opportunity to pre-engage with people and talk to them about their issues.”

Though Irene Mathyssen, NDP MP for London-Fanshawe, endorsed Peter Taubuns, MPP for Toronto-Danforth and former executive director for Greenpeace Canada, as the Federal NDP critic for the Status of Women and chair of the NDP women’s caucus, she says that “Horwath will bring the renewal that this party and that the province has been looking for as first female provincial leader.”

Further, Mathyssen said of Horwath that “she can be a leader, that she is a leader, and that she should be our leader.”

When envisioning the party a year from now, Mathyssen discussed a federal-provincial partnership of the New Democrats to champion and usher in a much needed new energy economy for the province and country. “This kind of change is one that Dalton McGuinty [Ontario Liberal Leader] and the Liberals are not up for making. From them, we can expect the same old same old.”

In her acceptance speech, Horwath reiterated the need to keep the province’s Liberals in check, “[the] first order of business is holding Dalton McGuinty to account in question period on Monday.”

Horwath is Howard Hampton’s successor. Hampton resigned as the provincial NDP leader, a role he had served for 13 years.