After 17 years of municipal politics, Sooke Mayor Maja Tait is ready to make the leap into the federal arena.
“It’s a very exciting time to get involved,” said Tait.
Her candidacy comes on the heels of former Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke NDP MP Randall Garrison's decision to step down. Tait maintained a strong working relationship with Garrison, who inspired her to face this new challenge.
“He really lit the path for me,” said Tait.
“I first got involved because I wanted to help people, I was a community volunteer my whole life, I wanted to get to know my community.”
Now she sees federal politics as a new way to do that.
“There’s orders of government that need to step in and realize we have people that are really falling.”
First elected to Sooke council in 2008, Tait served two terms before being elected mayor in 2014.
A longtime member of the Union of B.C. Municipalities – Tait sat on the board from 2016 to 2022 and served as president in 2019 and 2020 – this is one of her proudest achievements. Non-politically her proudest moment came when she cared for her parents in their final days, and having her son during her first term as mayor.
The daughter of immigrants, with a Japanese mother and Danish father, she was raised in Bragg Creak, Alta., a small town that instilled a sense of volunteerism that has driven her since – eventually attracting her to Sooke.
As a half-Japanese woman in politics, Tait has faced her share of discrimination. Today, she says the encounters with racism that once discouraged her now motivate her.
“While I don't like it in the moment, it keeps me going, because it's not the future that we want for children, and it's certainly not the Canada I've grown to know,” Tait said.
“Before, maybe I just endured it. Now I call it out because that’s how it stops.”
Tait lived in Calgary for a time and moved to Japan for a year to connect with her mother's heritage. After Japan, she moved to Vancouver Island where she met her husband. The pair travelled around the world, an experience that motivated her entry into politics.
“I’ve seen a lot of really hard poverty, and it’s heartbreaking,” she said.
“I can't help people that are living this rough, but I can go home and try to help people in my own community, in my own backyard.”
Her travels also instilled an appreciation for the comforts of home, something Tait finds in rediscovering hockey at her sons' games, spending time in nature, hosting family and friends, or working in her garden.
“It’s rewarding to feel the sun on your face, there’s gratitude every day for something blooming in my yard,” she said.
Lately, she’s been reconnecting with music by playing piano, but the truth is she grew up playing the accordion for “a long time” although she doesn’t play much these days.
“With practice it comes back to you, but it makes my dog bark, and I don’t know if its complimentary, but it is kind of funny.”
