In her acceptance speech as the new provincial Liberal Party
leader, Kathleen Wynne, 59, a former Ontario education minister,
thanked her partner, Jane, for her support during a three-month
campaign. Ontario was one of the first Canadian provinces to
allow same-sex marriage.

Wynne’s victory means Canada’s four most powerful provinces
will all be led by women. British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec
already have female premiers. Women are also at the helm in the
Atlantic province of Newfoundland and Labrador and in the thinly
populated Arctic territory of Nunavut.

Wynne replaces Dalton McGuinty, who said in October he was
stepping down as party leader and premier amid controversy over
costly cancellations of two natural gas power plants and battles
with teachers over provincial plans to freeze wages.

The center-left Liberals have been in power for nine years
in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and home to most of
Canada’s banks and a large part of its manufacturing sector. But
the party lost seats in the 2011 provincial election and needs
support from at least one other party to stay in power.

The left-leaning New Democrats are the natural ally for
Wynne, who has a reputation for seeking compromise and is viewed
as being to the left of other Ontario Liberals.

In her address to the party faithful, she invited leaders
from both opposition parties to work with her to advance the
interests of Ontario communities.

“But make no mistake. If that stops working, I will fight
them for every seat, for every poll, for every vote in the next
election,” she said.

Wynne will have her work cut out to hold on to power. The
next election is due in October 2015, but the Liberals lag their
rivals in opinion polls.

The Liberals are facing a C$12 billion ($12 billion) budget
deficit. They have vowed to curb growth in spending, as modest
economic growth hurts revenues, and say it will take five more
years to balance the budget.

Ontario accounts for roughly 40 percent of Canadian gross
domestic product and is among the largest sub-national borrowers
in the world, issuing bonds worth nearly C$35 billion in 2012.

In an interview with Reuters, Heins said RIM had identified $800 million of the $1 billion of savings it promised for the financial year ending in early March, and was confident of finding the rest as it gets ready to launch the new phones.

RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, is betting that the new smartphones will help it claw back the market share it has lost to the likes of Apple Inc’s iPhone and devices powered by Google’s Android operating system.

Both consumers and corporate customers have abandoned the BlackBerry in droves, even though the devices offer security features that rivals have been unable to match.

“There’s this high-level security that you cannot walk away from, and then there’s ‘good enough’ security,” Heins said.

But analysts remain skeptical, especially after the botched 2011 launch of RIM’s PlayBook tablet computer, which the company had hoped would compete with Apple’s wildly popular iPad.

RIM delayed the roll-out of the BlackBerry 10 phones to the first quarter of 2013 so as not to repeat the errors that surrounded the PlayBook launch.

Heins said the delay was the correct decision — the way to ensure the BB10 phones are a high-quality product rather than a rushed one that would not meet customer expectations.

“I think it’s all lining up. Sometimes you get the feeling that the universe is in disarray, and with BlackBerry 10 coming, I see the stars lining up,” he said in the interview, conducted at RIM’s sprawling campus in Waterloo.

He insisted that morale was high at the company, despite 5,000 job cuts and a rapidly sliding market share ahead of the launch of the new phones.

RIM’s share price is down more than 90 percent from a 2008 peak of about $148. It has fallen steeply even after Heins, a former Siemens AG executive, took over in January. The shares on Wednesday closed at $8.49 on Nasdaq.

“The message to our shareholders is that we understand this is and has been a difficult time for them and for us.” Heins said. “But with the development of the BlackBerry 10 platform we are truly convinced that we will create long-term value for RIM’s shareholders and investors.”

(Reporting by Euan Rocha and Janet Guttsman; Editing by Frank McGurty and Leslie Adler)