John Tory, the most moderate candidate for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, has won the leadership of his party on the second ballot.

The former CEO of Rogers Cable bested Jim Flaherty, a former cabinet minister in the Mike Harris and Ernie Eves governments and a standard-bearer for Harris's right-wing Common Sense Revolution, by taking 56 per cent of the votes on the second ballot.

Third-place finisher Frank Klees was pushed out of the race on the first ballot. His supporters' second-preference choices were allocated to the two remaining candidates.

Klees asked the audience to make it unanimous and Flaherty promised Tory his full support.

Tory turned his guns on Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty almost immediately.

"This guy is gone," he told cheering crowds at a Toronto convention centre during his victory speech.

Speaking to McGuinty, he said: "You made a lot of promises to get yourself elected. You have shown you know how to make them. You have shown you know how to break them. But we are not going to let you shake them."

While results started to flow around 5:40 p.m. EDT, they bogged down after about 60 constituencies. About 28 constituencies reported problems. Those were worked out in a 7:15 p.m. conference call.

However, the first-ballot results ultimately weren't announced until about 9:20 p.m. The final results weren't known until about 11:40 p.m.

The 50-year-old Tory, who has also served as commissioner of the Canadian Football League, has never held elected office.

However, he is a longtime backroom strategist for the party and once served as an aide to former Ontario premier Bill Davis.

In last year's Toronto mayoral race, he finished a strong second to left-leaning David Miller. Tory did well in suburban Toronto while Miller owned downtown.

During the leadership campaign, Flaherty tried to paint himself as a Tim Horton's kind of guy and Tory as a Toronto Starbucks one.

How voting worked

Bill Hutchison of Toronto's CFTO News offered some explanation on how the balloting process worked. Each constituency was worth 100 points. A minimum of 100 people are required to vote.

The each candidate gets a proportional share of the votes they captured. For example, if candidate A gets 80 per cent of the votes in a constituency, they would get 80 points, he said.

Whoever wins must capture more than 5,039 points.

The ballot was also preferential, so voters had to name a second choice.

Some 61,000 party members were eligible to vote, and 14,000 did so in advance polls.

Of the 103 constituencies, 21 are in Toronto, which was seen as Tory's base.

Tribute to Eves

While waiting for the voting results, the party paid tribute to its departing leader, former premier Ernie Eves.

Fellow Tory MPP Elizabeth Witmer praised him for his leadership and work for his riding in Parry Sound.

"He has built one of the most impressive resumes of any member. He has held just about every major caucus and assembly position," Witmer said.

"Ernie was -- and continues to be -- a very effective advocate for his constituents," she said.

Former Tory Premier Bill Davis noted Eves faced a tough choice to leave life on Bay Street back in 2002 to seek the party's leadership.

"It was not an easy decision for you to return to public life and I salute you," Davis said.

The Tories have been in a period of regrouping and rebuilding, after ending up with just 24 seats under Eves' leadership in the provincial election on Oct. 2, 2003. The Liberals wound up with a huge majority of 72 seats while the NDP were left in a distant third place with just seven MPPs.

For the Tories, it was a bitter end to more than eight years in government, which began in 1995 when they were swept to power under then leader Mike Harris and his "common sense revolution" of smaller government and lower taxes.

The party was returned to power again in 1999.

And, when Harris stepped down, the party chose Eves, his former finance minister, to replace him. Eves started out as moderate but seemed to veer rightward as the election neared.

What it means

CFTO News' Bill Hutchison followed the convention and has been a long-time Ontario Tory watcher.

"...The Tories now have a moderate leader, not someone from the right side of the political spectrum. The Liberals can't argue that any more," he told CTV Newsnet.

"It also means the Conservatives have a fresh face. The Liberals can't say, 'well, you guys did this under Ernie Eves and Mike Harris,' because John Tory's the new face. He says, 'this is a new era, this is a new party' under him."

There are some immediate priorities for Tory, Hutchison said.

"He has to unite the party ... get the Jim Flaherty and Frank Klees people on his side, so they all pull together.

"He also has to take care of a $9-million debt that the party has, and also he has to find a seat where he can run so he can get a seat in the legislature so he can lead the opposition."

With reports from CFTO's Bill Hutchison and Paul Bliss