2007 Ontario general election and he stepped down as leader in 2009. Andrea Horwath replaced him after she was elected leader at the 2009 leadership convention in Hamilton. Under her leadership in the 2011 Ontario general election, the party elected 17 MPPs to the legislature and in the 2014 Ontario general election, the party elected 21 MPPs. Under Horwath, the party achieved its second highest seat count (other than forming government in 1990) when it formed the Official Opposition with 40 MPPs after the 2018 Ontario general election. This dropped to 31 MPPs after the 2022 Ontario general election, with Horwath announcing her resignation as leader. History Origins as the Ontario CCF The NDP's predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), was a democratic socialist political party, founded in 1932. The Ontario CCF in turn was indirectly the successor to the 1919–23 United Farmers of Ontario–Labour coalition that formed the government in Ontario under Ernest C. Drury. As the Ontario Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section) under Ted Jolliffe as their first leader, the party nearly won the 1943 provincial election, winning 34 seats and forming the official opposition for the first time. Two-years later, they would be reduced to 8 seats. The final glory for the Ontario CCF came in the 1948 provincial election, when party elected 21 MPPs, and again formed the official opposition. They were even able to defeat Premier George A. Drew in his own constituency, when the CCF's Bill Temple won in High Park, even though the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario won another majority government. The breaking point for the Ontario CCF came in 1951. They were reduced to two MPP's in that year's provincial election, and never really recovered. In the two remaining elections while it existed, the party never had more than five members in the legislature. Jolliffe resigned as leader in 1953. End of the CCF/New Party and revival Donald C. MacDonald became leader in 1953, and spent the next fifteen years rebuilding the party, from two seats when he took over the party's helm, to ten times that number when he stepped down in 1970. Delegates from the Ontario CCF, delegates from affiliated union locals, and delegates from New Party Clubs took part in the founding convention of the New Democratic Party of Ontario held in Niagara Falls at the Sheraton Brock hotel from 7–9 October 1961 and elected MacDonald as their