Liberals laughed at Ontarios new NDP leader. Whos laughing now?
Meet Marit Stiles.
Marit who?
The incoming leader of Ontarios Official Opposition is a veteran of politics. Yet she remains a political unknown.
The NDP is hailing its new chief as a premier in waiting. Yet how long that wait will be remains utterly unknowable in politics.
The only certainty, after a formal coronation Saturday, is that Stiles is the New Democratic Partys unchallenged leader literally. For there were no challengers in this most anticlimactic race in the Ontario partys history.
Four months ago, Stiles declared her candidacy in front of a handful of supporters in the back patio of an empty Bloor Street restaurant. As the front-runner in a race with no one else running, she never looked back.
The NDPs one-person non-event provoked much mirth in the rival Liberal party, where veterans contrasted it with their own leadership race (which boasted several worthies as of last month). Proof, these Liberals asserted snootily, that the NDPs top prize wasnt even worth a fight.
As we now know, their mockery has been turned on its face and the Liberals are looking red-faced.
Last week, a group of long-time Liberals issued a peculiar online appeal for the leader of another party Mike Schreiner of the Greens to rescue theirs. It amounted to a public repudiation of the veterans already actively campaigning for the Liberal leadership and has been denounced as a Hail Mary, fumble, turnover and own goal in one.
Today, Stiles is having the last laugh. At the moment of her ascension, the Liberals have descended into self-immolation.
The first to stand for the NDP leadership, she is the last woman standing while the Liberals are left squirming. Her anointment is no accident, so lets give credit where credit is due.
Stiles sewed up the race before it could even open up lining up organizers and fundraisers, building up support in caucus and among the grassroots. She achieved a formidable lead so fast that her aspiring rivals never made it to the starting line.
Stiless triumph is a testament to her competitive edge, but also a winning personality.
Whether those elements will ever add up to a winning party with a persuasive platform that connects with the public is as unknowable as her vision which still remains hard to see clearly. One of the casualties of having no competition is that there wasnt a single leadership debate to test her ideas, or put forward fresh thoughts. No serious policy proposals, no deep think or rethink.
Few doubt Stiles will energize a party that lost its mojo after 13 years under Andrea Horwath. But personality and imagery will only get you so far, while policy alone wont get you where you need to go.
Politicians need verve but also vision and a visceral connection to voters who can smell inauthenticity no matter how many times you lapse into scripted message tracks and references to ordinary folks. Perhaps Stiles is biding her time, for she has yet to offer the big reveal.
Three years out from the next election, Stiles has room to grow as a leader beyond her polished poise as a longtime party apparatchik, TV talking head, union activist, school trustee and MPP. Like other progressive movements that thrive on social media but sometimes miss the mark with mass media, the NDP of Stiles has to strike a better balance to grow its audience and voter pool.
Its not just about diversity, but the adversity faced by all working Ontarians or those without work who once looked to the NDP for answers, not just questions and criticisms. New Democrats cannot define themselves solely as the party of the woke class without losing the working class and the union movement that co-founded the party decades ago.
Otherwise, the NDP will continue to lose in its former strongholds in working class Windsor and Timmins, and its toeholds in multicultural Brampton and Toronto, where Doug Fords Tories are on the march with a message about affordability. Will the NDP fight Ford head on after losing to him in the last two elections, or will it continue to obsess about first taking on the rival Liberals?
In 2018, the NDP lost its best chance to win power against a supposedly unelectable Ford and seemingly unlikeable Liberals. Horwath heralded the consolation prize of Official Opposition status as a moral victory, rather than a voter morass.
And in 2022, Horwaths NDP was the only major party whose share of the popular vote went down by a devastating 10 percentage points to 23.7 per cent. The Liberals under an unpopular Steven Del Duca still grew their share more than four points to 23.9 per cent nosing out the NDP to finish second in the popular vote.
The good news for Stiles is that she won the NDP leadership unchallenged. The bad news is that the lack of a challenger has deprived the NDP of the dramatic relaunch it was hoping for.
Stiles has inherited a party that peaked in popularity two elections ago. Even with a new leader, more of the same wont get the NDP where it wants to go.
In other political news: Ill be hosting Two Women in Power Still Fighting for Fairness at the Democracy Forum at Toronto Metropolitan University on Feb. 9 with the federal and provincial ministers responsible for the status of women, Marci Ien and Charmaine Williams (registration is free).
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Liberals laughed at Ontarios new NDP leader. Whos laughing now?