Meet Marit
The synchronized-swimming, Eminem-rapping, Newfoundlander-turned-Ontarian takes the helm of the NDP today
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about MARIT STILES — and the stuff you won’t find anywhere else — as she officially takes the reins of the NDP today.
Politics is sink or swim — something new NDP Leader MARIT STILES, who spent her formative years training as a synchronized swimmer, knows all too well.
“You’ve got to have discipline,” says BYRON MACDONALD, head coach of the University of Toronto’s Varsity Blues swim team and an expert on the competitive sport.
“Most of them train every day,” he says. “And you’re going to be judged — so when it doesn’t go your way, you’ve got to be able to roll with it. If you think you deserved an eight, and the judges gave you sixes or sevens — if that blows your mind and you can’t come back and keep going, you’re in trouble, right?”
I asked MacDonald what it takes to be a competitive synchronized swimmer, and as he laid out the qualities, there were a lot of similarities to Stiles and her come-up in the Ontario NDP.
“It’s basically performance on demand,” MacDonald went on to say. “For a politician, that’s pretty obvious. They’ve got to have the facts ahead of them, they’ve got to be able to speak, they’ve got to be calm. You’re the one everybody’s looking at — the spectators, the judges — and you’ve got to learn how to deal with that.”
Competition is something Stiles has been training for almost her whole life, since her pre-teen years on the East Coast, much of which was spent in the St. John’s pool.
After leaving Newfoundland for university in Ontario, she entered the political arena as a school trustee in Davenport, which she would later go on to represent at Queen’s Park from 2018, serving as the NDP’s Education critic. Before that, she cut her teeth in organized labour — an NDP-friendly endeavour — as the national director of research and bargaining at ACTRA, the broadcast media union.
“I’m a competitive person,” 53-year-old Stiles tells me, with a hint of boastfulness.
“From the time I was about nine ‘til I was 18, I was a competitive swimmer, and actually a synchronized swimmer for most of it. I used to compete at the national level, on the Newfoundland Aquarena Swim Team, and it was a long way to go to compete with anybody, frankly. But I would swim and train every day, on average four hours a day at least, for my whole middle school and high school. It was a serious thing for me.”
But this time around, in her bid to become the first new leader of the NDP in 14 years, she’s got no competition. Many have chalked that up to a lack of fresh energy and engagement in the party, which lost nine seats in the 2022 election but managed to hang on to Official Opposition status.
Stiles is flipping the script, framing the lack of competition as a sign of “unity” and the real fight as the one against the Progressive Conservatives in 2026.
“It shows MPPs and the party have confidence in me as the strongest contender to be the next premier of the province,” she says. “The leadership race is just step one. The real race is the race to defeat DOUG FORD.”
To do that, Stiles will have to play the “long game” — just like competitive athletes. A swimmer might hold back during training, but will give their final push to get over the finish line when it counts, MacDonald says, likening it to a politician preparing for Election Day.
Back in the political realm, it’s an unprecedented moment for the NDP, which, for the first time ever in provincial history, has been elected Official Opposition twice in a row.
Ahead of round three, Stiles will not only have to stave off a potential Liberal resurgence, but also poach seats from the majority-enjoying PCs, all while presenting herself and the New Democrats as government-in-waiting.
“It’s an extraordinary opportunity,” Stiles says. “As Official Opposition, we have to do the work of winning the battles that are before us right now, but also build that foundation for the next election. We’ve had a few years already as Official Opposition to start to establish that. Now’s the time when the rubber hits the road.”
One tactic from Stiles’s playbook: Tapping into the biggest issues for Ontarians, especially the ones that just happen to be super controversial for the Ford government.
“Despite the election results, I think there’s a lot of voter remorse out there right now,” Stiles says. “No one voted for tearing up the Greenbelt or for privatizing our health care system. And so I think we can win.”
To that end, don’t expect to see so much of Stiles in the House. While she’ll want to be seen flexing her legislative chops as Oppo leader and facing off with Ford in Question Period, another key strategy in Stiles’s playbook is to hit the road, so the downtown Toronto MPP can get to know all corners of a big and diverse province.
“Me getting out there and listening to people is a big part of that,” she says.
Just like with synchronized swimming, politics is also a team sport — and Stiles has already failed to save one of her caucus mates from drowning: LAURA MAE LINDO, the party’s Black caucus chair who recently stepped down as MPP for Kitchener Centre, citing a lack of child care as one reason. Lindo was considering running for leader, but never stepped into the ring.
“She will be missed by her colleagues and her constituents,” says Stiles, a mother of two daughters. “We’re also committed to looking at the barriers that make it harder to serve, including accessible and affordable child care. We need to make sure anyone can serve as an MPP.”
Lindo’s departure was the first major blow to Stiles’s tenure. The party is already down two MPPs, including ex-leader ANDREA HORWATH in Hamilton Centre. To save the NDP from sinking further, Coach MacDonald offered some advice, suggesting Stiles tap into her inner synchronized swimmer to withstand the critics.
“There’s always haters out there and people that are picking on you,” he says. “You’ve got to have thick skin and learn to be judged and still go forward.”
As a swimmer, Stiles recalls loss. “I’d go into something thinking I was going to be the Atlantic champion, and then that didn’t happen — in the end I came up second. I’d get flack about my practice and my training and everything, so I’ve had to learn to accept loss and make it drive you further.”
Stiles also has her fair share of wins. For instance, her complaints to the auditor general and ethics commissioner prompted a pair of formal investigations into the Ford government’s hotly-contested Greenbelt carve-up.
Ever the competitor, Stiles can be just as ruthless when she’s taking a break from the dog-eat-dog world of politics. When I asked her what she does to unwind from the stressors of the job, she boasted about picking the most popular read for her book club and rapping a mean karaoke version of Eminem’s Stan (“My favourite part is the Dido part”).
“We each take turns picking a book, and this time, it was my choice — What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad — and I actually finished it. These days, that’s not that normal,” Stiles says. “I was so excited. And then we actually had the book club at my house last week — I mean, I felt like I was winning, winning, winning.”
“But usually, we are a book club that is more about drinking the wine than reading the book.”
For now, the competition is playing nice, sort of. As Stiles was officially acclaimed NDP leader Saturday afternoon, Ford tweeted out his congratulations — at the same time the PC Party threw shade, saying in a press release that “Ontario is getting more of the same. She only says NO.”
Let the games begin.