Aisaka Taiga

Aisaka Taiga (born May 21st, 1964) is a Canadian politician and the current Deputy Prime Minister of the Canadian government. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served as MP from Ohio and as the Democratic Whip before assuming the office of Vice Prime Minster with Peter Osterfield.

Taiga was born in Akron Ohio, however only two years after being born her family decided to move back to Osaka, Japan. Misfortune would hit her family as only four years after resettling in Japan, her townhouse was destroyed by the devastating wildfires of 1970. Her family quickly became divided over if they should continue to live in Japan or move back to Ohio, as they still had Canadian Citizenship. Despite only being 7 years old, Taiga had to make the painful decision to move back to Canada with only a portion of her total family. By 1972 she had reintegrated back into her Akron community and had started to get comfortable with her community, even has her divided family sparred over their choice to move back. In Middle School, Taiga became more interested in politics and government, and held several Student leadership positions in Middle and High school. In her Senior year, Taiga decided to apply for a job at a local steel manufacturing plant. Her dedication attracted the local Steel Workers' Union and she quickly found herself in a leadership position managing Union expenses. Her membership in the steel union opened the world to Canadian politics, where she quickly was pushed by her coworkers to run for the Canadian Parliament. In 1988 she was successfully elected to the Canadian Parliament. There she quickly gained recognition from Democratic lawmakers as a competent and well educated member, practically in economics. In 1990 she was appointed Shadow Deputy Prime Minister under Peter Osterfield. She quickly gained national attention as someone well versed in economics and union rights, taking monthly visits to unionized factories to praise their work and dedication.

In the 1993 election, Taiga played a vital role in increasing massive turnout from unions and working class, manufacturing Canadians. Using her Youthfulness to her advantage, she spent weeks at a time campaigning across the rust belt. from the iron fields in northern Minnesota to Shipping manufacturing in Boston and Baltimore. During her time she gained the nicknames "Peter's union girl" and "Ai-talk-a Taiga," as she would spend hours at a time railing against the Conservative and Progressive Establishment in campaign rallies. Her and the Democratic Party's hard work paid off, as the 1993 election ended up being a yellow wave with Democrats ousting the sitting government. Shortly after the election she was confirmed to be the new Deputy Prime Minister of the new Democratic Government.

In 1994, after debating for years on if she should marry or stay in a civil union, she decided to marry her long time boyfriend Ryuuji Takasu. Not wanting to create too much media attention, she had her marriage in her Akron apartment without press coverage. Ryuuji and Taiga had been in a civil union since 1981, with them meeting each other in Highschool. Ryuuji's occupation had been that of a local Librarian, however he quit his job a few years after Taiga was elected as a MP in the Canadian Government.

Birth
Born in Akron, Ohio on May 21st, 1964, Taiga spent her first two years in a apartment building on North Howard street, in the dead center of the city of Akron. While living there, her parents worked at a local Japanese language business that they operated with other members of the Japanese community. As a baby, Taiga was known to be quiet but inquisitive, taking interest in simple puzzles and games while ignoring playground type areas. While talking to the press during the 1993 election, her parents joked about how her personality rapidly changed form when she was a toddler, "She was more quiet as a baby and infant than she is now! Hell, if we saw her campaigns in 1965, we would assume that the person on stage is completely opposite to our little girl."

Life in Japan
In 1970 her parents, who had Japanese and Canadian citizenship, moved back to Japan to seek reconnection with their extended family. They had settled in the city of Osaka, a port and commercial city, and got employed as train conductors. living in Sakai, a suburb south of Osaka proper, Taiga was able to visit to beaches that aligned with the Osaka bay regularly. Initially her parents struggled finically, however by 1968 they had stabilized their expenses and were enjoying steady wage increases. despite success finically, both Taiga and her parents felt isolated socially. Due to being originally from Canada, they found some hostilities with local Japanese residents, being accused of not being real Japanese and just opportunistic due to Japan's booming economy. This lead Taiga to have few friends in pre-school and elementary school, and generally be socially distant within her classes.

Wildfire In Sakai and immigrating back to Canada
In 1970 Taiga's family was hit with massive misfortune. After years of forest mismanagement in the sounding areas of Osaka and Sakai, a fierce wildfire had tore through most of the suburbs surrounding the burning forests. Her family's house had sadly been in the crossfire of the raging fires, and the Taiga family ended up losing everything. Luckily the family's life savings had been stored in a bank, giving Taiga and her family the option of either going back to Akron or trying to find a new house in Osaka. Her extended family threatened to cut ties with Taiga's inner family, however after years of social isolation and hostility, her parents decided to move back to Canada in their home city of Akron. Following their decision, they were promptly cut off from most of the extended family, and their names stricken from any will they were apart of. Taiga's parents moved to Downtown Akron shortly after retuning from Japan, where they quickly re-integrated back with the local Japanese community. Taiga also found more success in school, as her classmates found her foreign background interesting and unique. Unlike in Japan, Taiga found herself with a healthy social life and a strong network of reliable friends. Her parents quickly found jobs in the Steel industry, however her mother would soon switch from Steelworks to teaching a Japanese Language Class in a local highschool. taiga's parents were able to quickly become finically stable, however still they would remain as lower middle class for the rest of Taiga's childhood.

Middle and High School
In September 1975 Taiga was enrolled in Perkins Middle School (PMS), west of Grace Park, and quickly became in love with the student government offered there. In 6th grade she spent her free time researching and understanding some of the issues her school was dealing with, and in her 7th grade year she attempted to unseat her grade representative in the "Grade President" election. The position had traditionally been more of a popularity contest, however Taiga ran a campaign upon policy and rhetoric, and while not nearly being as popular as the girl she was trying to unseat, she quickly became noticed as her campaign posters were ferocious in both attacking her opponent and spreading her campaign. She ended up winning the election 51% to 49%, and quickly went about trying to crack down on bullying and petitioning for lunch to be free. In 8th grade she easily won the Student President election and was able to successfully get food to be free at her school.

Her successes in Middle School set her up for highschool. Despite being a freshman, her past record in her middle school years gave her the opportunity to try to once again unseat a incumbent President. However unlike her last close election, Taiga changed her rhetoric to more of a pragmatic, sensible figure that simply wanted to solve problems with effectiveness, citing her previous record as evidence that she was competent enough to do so. She also had to appeal to the school's demographics, she was up against another girl, so she spent a large portion of her resources courting male students to vote for her. Instead of portraying herself as a "wish washy traditional girl," she portrayed herself as someone who didn't identify with stereotypes and instead of someone who wanted real change. This targeting allowed her to pull off a upset victory over her senior adversary, winning 50.5% to 49.5%. She was able to easily maintain her position as Student President for the remainder of her highschool and push for change in the student code of conduct, reducing bullying, and increase the amount of extracurricular activities the school provided.

Aisaka taiga graduated highschool in May of 1982 with a standard diploma, along with gaining experience working in a local steel mill. Due to her high paying job in Steelworks, she decided against going to college or a university, and had made plans to go to a trade school in 1990 after becoming finically independent. Due to saving up her money throughout highschool working both part time jobs and working for a Steel mill, Taiga was able to rent an apartment months after graduating from highschool.

Time at Akron Steel Treating Company
After turning 17 in May of 1981, Taiga quickly filed a job application to work at Akron Steel Treating Company, a steel treating plant in South Akron, directly south of the University of Akron. Shortly after being hired, she was invited to a local Union meeting where she signed up to be apart of a local steelworks union in her area. Taiga quickly became and active role in Union finances, first working with union managers on how to budget funds and show transparency within the wider union. Her transparency policies gave her an ever increasing presence within the local steelworkers' union, to the point where in 1984 she was appoint the head manager of union finances. Her work with finances also led to her interest in wider macro-economics, and her interest in politics. She had originally joined the Democrats in 1982, as her parents did in the 1970's when they moved back. While not agreeing with the democrats on all issues, she saw the plasticity of the party as a opportunity to increase union sympathies within the party. By 1987 her local steel union had rallied around her intentions to run for parliament, and in 1988 she announced her intention to run.

Akron Campaign
In January 1988 Taiga started to campaign in her home city of Akron, holding small scale phonebanks and poster planting to spread the Democratic message. However she found her strength in campaigning when she attended a local canvas in Akron, where she spent hours passionately talking with her community and her neighbors on issues such as unions, the economy, and domestic issues. Local Democratic party officials quickly recognized her ability to speak and talk to the public and assigned her to hosting local rallies in both Akron and Cleveland. This only snowballed her career as a campaigner as she quickly became a household name in Akron as a both a clam and intellectual figure when talking about economics while also being a passionate defender of workers' rights and the role unions play in our society. The Democratic Party of Ohio quickly expanded her rallies, and by the end of the Campaign, she could be found doing rallies and events across all of Ohio.

Post Campaign
While 1988 wasn't a spectacular year for Democrats both nationally and in Ohio, Taiga was easily elected under the proportional system, and her status as a valuable campaigner was cemented as a freshmen Member of Parliament. Quickly after the election was over she head back to her home town of Cleveland, where her former coworkers and union colleagues celebrated her victory while reminding her of the topics she promised to fight for. However the most important part was her new found connections, notably with another rising star in her party, Peter Osterfield, who was informed of Taiga's potential by the Democratic Party of Ohio.

Engagement
After a hard fought campaign earlier in the year, In late May Taiga decided to return to her home in Downtown Akron to rest and prepare for her freshmen term in Parliament. What she did not expect was to see her long term boyfriend, Ryuuji Takasu, standing at her front door proposing to her. Takasu had been a life long friend for Taiga, they first met in middle school by sharing the math class, Takasu had always been the right hand man and logistical brain behind Taiga, serving as Vice Student President in highschool and organizing and planning canvases, phonebanks, and eventually rallies with Taiga. She accepted his proposal in a heartbeat, and instantly entered into a civil union. In 1990 after getting engaged, Taiga described the occasion on CBC news as this, "Whilst I understand that getting engaged is a huge step in peoples' lives, for me this is more of a conformation of step than anything else. Since I was a teen I knew that I loved this man, we worked perfectly together, we understood each other to the deepest extent, and I can trust my life with him. He could have proposed any time to me and I would have said yes."

Appointment to Deputy Party Leader
In 1990 the Democratic Party, under the newly elected leadership of Peter Osterfield, elected Aisaka Taiga, a relatively unknown MP from Ohio, to be the party's Deputy Party Leader. While initially a shock, Taiga proved herself with a compassionate speech in front of Parliament with Peter Osterfield behind her. In a make or break moment, Taiga was able to effectively define herself in front of the nation, and crush any idea that she was ill-experienced or ill-prepared for the job. Her appointment lead to a massive response from organized labor across the Midwest, while Democrats held their ground with union support, the election of a former member of a union and a staunch critic of Right to Work marked a massive shift in Democratic policy on Unions. Over the next several days Taiga's Parliament phoneline was crammed with hundreds of calls from union households congratulating her and asking her to defend unions.

NAFTA Vote
Although the Democratic Party supported free trade and NAFTA, Taiga and other rust belt Democrats had issues and concerns with how the trade deal would effect manufacturing. After Long hours with the Party Leader, Taiga and her rust belt caucus got approval to note down the Deal, while establishment Democrats supported it. In a shocking move, when the NAFTA vote came up in the Canadian Parliament, Taiga and rust belt Democrats broke from the party line and voted down the bill. While expected to cause a rift in the party, the inevitability of bill's passage meant that Taiga's defection didn't amount to much, and with Democratic support unnecessary, Democratic support with Unions didn't significant hardship following the vote. The vote also confirmed Taiga's commitment to her ideals, and her reputation as a creditable politician was bolstered, a local Akron newspaper describing her as, "someone who knows how to bark and how to bite."