With the Ontario Liberal leader's popularity plummeting in the wake of controversial legislation impacting the wages of teachers and other public servants, the party will vote Saturday at its annual general meeting on whether to hold a leadership convention.

While MPPs will have the opportunity to listen to a variety of speeches and sit in on workshops dealing with health care and income security for retirees, all eyes will be glued to McGuinty's keynote address on Saturday and the vote that will follow it.

The confidence vote could send the party in a new direction, but not all provincial Liberals believe the party needs a leadership shake-up to maintain power.

On Friday, MPPs contacted by QMI Agency were maintaining a united front.

"I think his leadership is the right leadership," said Ottawa-Orleans MPP Phil McNeely on Friday. "I'm very, very much a McGuinty supporter, as much now as I have been all my 10 years (in office)."

McNeely said his party is doing everything it can to reduce the province's $15-billion deficit in as fair a manner as possible but understood that the new legislation would "create a lot of animosity."

McGuinty, and the party as a whole, has seen a significant drop in support thanks to controversial legislation eliminating teachers' right to strike and freezing wages.
But McNeely said the controversy is coming from outside the party, not within it.

"We've got a good, united caucus," he said.

Bob Chiarelli agreed. The Ottawa West-Nepean MPP said a leadership change is "absolutely not" needed.

"The premier and government has done an excellent job protecting Ontario (residents)," he said.

Chiarelli said he understands that public sector service is upset with the idea of wage freezes, but there are only so many ways to lead a province through a recession without wide-reaching layoffs.

"We're trying to preserve services coming out of this recession," he said.

While Chiarelli said the mood within the party going into the AGM "is very upbeat," it won't be all smiling faces downtown this week.

Outside of the convention, members of several unions - including OSSTF, ETFO, CUPE and the Ottawa District Labour Council- were expected to protest Friday night against what they see as the loss of their collective bargaining rights.

The convention runs until Sunday at the Westin Hotel and Ottawa Convention Centre where more than 1,000 delegates are expected.