Marit Stiles Falls Short In Leadership Review
The Ontario NDP leader secured only 68% in a leadership review at this weekend's convention
This weekend, the Ontario NDP met to discuss policy and to review Marit Stiles’ leadership as head of the party.
As of the writing of this article, Stiles has only reportedly earned 68 percent of her own party’s confidence in the leadership review, falling well short of the number required to maintain a hold on leadership.
Typically, leaders need to secure at least 85 percent to maintain the confidence of their party. Yes, they can technically pass with 60 to 70 percent confidence, but that is almost always a damning result when you can only win over seven in ten of the party faithful, never mind the standard voter.
As such, scoring under 70 percent means Stiles is likely heading for the door.
All of this comes off the heels of the Ontario Liberals giving Bonnie Crombie the boot last weekend after she failed to even break 60 percent with her own party. While the Liberals improved their standing in February, their terrible vote efficiency resulted in minimal gains, while the NDP held onto most of their seats despite dropping more than five points in the popular vote.
As I wrote this past week, there had been rumours that some within the Ontario NDP, specifically union voters, were jockeying against Stiles and her leadership after a poor result in February.
Stiles’ leadership was off to a poor start when she took over the party from Andrea Horwath years ago. The biggest concern many within the party had been the lack of transparency around her initial election to the position of leader, especially given the party never released the official vote count for that election.
The best guess is that she earned somewhere in the mid-60s, which would closely mimic the current leadership review. If that was indeed the case, and we are working off hear-say on this issue so take it with a grain of salt, then Stiles’ leadership was never going to fly with the party to begin with.
The Ontario NDP needed a full purge of its ranks following Horwath’s decade of control, which the party did not fulfill, and which Stiles showed little determination to reform during her stint as leader.
Now it is very likely that Stiles will be forced out as leader, if she has not already done so by the time this article goes up. In that situation, the Ontario Liberals and New Democrats will both be faced with leadership elections aimed at rejuvenating the parties in the face of Doug Ford’s stranglehold on the province, which has only been strengthened thanks to vote splitting between the NDP and Liberals.
An Ontario NDP leadership race would come at an inopportune time for members of the party, as the federal NDP are already launching into their own leadership race that saw the entry of Avi Lewis just yesterday, while Heather McPherson is almost certain to enter the race as well.
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Depending on how far out the Ontario NDP make a potential leadership race, it is entirely possible it will overlap with the federal NDP, only helping to sap resources from two parties that are already struggling in their own right.
Regardless, the Ontario NDP is facing an existential threat moving forward. While they remain the official opposition and still hold a couple dozen seats, the party has been struggling for years now, when the recent economic downturn should be a boon for a workers-focused party.
Perhaps it is unsurprising that the same party that birthed Jagmeet Singh’s terrible leadership, which saw the NDP completely crumble at the national level, is the same party that is getting kneecapped at the provincial level.
Horwath did a lot of damage to the internal structure of the Ontario NDP, something the party was never able to recover from and which has bled into the federal structure with the likes of their national director, Lucy Watson.
Whether the Ontario NDP will learn its lesson and do a hard reboot on the party remains to be seen. Yet if they fail to learn that lesson, perhaps the Ontario Liberals will finally get the boost they need to compete with the Progressive Conservatives in the next election.
Or perhaps Doug Ford’s eternal reign on Ontario will continue unimpeded as the centre-left parties continue to struggle.