Premier is ignoring Stiles, but she's focused on workers

The woman in the black toque clambers onstage in the mid-winter chill, flanked by union leaders braced for battle.

- MARTIN REGG COHN

Away from the crowds and the speeches, surrounded by family photos and political mementoes, Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles talks about her determination to change how the NDP does politics, Martin Regg Cohn writes.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles is introduced as “a friend of hospital workers” to hundreds of cheering protesters, many wearing the same black toques emblazoned with their rallying cry: “Save our Hospitals!”

Stiles starts with a chant — predictable but popular: “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Doug Ford has got to go!”

Followed by a boast: “We, the people of Ontario, we have managed to push this government over its heels over and over again.”

Followed by a promise: “Solidarity” with the workers of Ontario, “not just in good times but on picket lines, too.”

Know your audience. Wrapping up her pep talk, Stiles

returns to her perch at Queen’s Park just up the street. Sitting in her third-floor offices, the Leader of Ontario’s Official Opposition ponders her proximity to power.

She has never been so close and yet so far. Stiles sits directly above the Premier’s Office, yet is running far behind the ruling Progressive Conservatives in public opinion polls (while also trailing the rival Liberals).

Can she grow her audience? Away from the crowds and the speeches, surrounded by family photos and political mementoes, Stiles takes stock of Ontario’s political realities. In an interview marking her first full year since taking over the party leadership — unopposed, untested, unknown — she talks about her determination to change how the NDP does politics.