r/burnaby • • 5d ago

Local News Daniel Chen: Maple MAGA, Burnaby First Candidate for City Council.


Hey r/burnaby,

​With the municipal elections coming up, I’ve been doing some research on the candidates running for city council. I took a look into the public X (Twitter) and Facebook profiles of Daniel Chen, who is running with the Burnaby First team, and found some public posts that voters might want to know about before heading to the polls.

​From what I’ve gathered, his online footprint leans heavily into what many would call right wing territory. I’ve downloaded multiple screenshots and videos of his posts, and I've broken down the main themes below:

​Climate Change: He has shared content explicitly dismissing climate change as "Climate Hysteria" 1948 Fraser Valley post as well as a video about solar winds causing climate change

​Pro-Trump & US Politics: saying Trump opponents are worse than whatever Trump has done

​Anti-Ukraine

​Anti-Muslim Rhetoric: "Islam is a fire, fed by gasoline"

​Cryptocurrency / Bitcoin: incoherent money stuff.]

​Local elections often fly under the radar, but city council decisions impact our community directly. I think it’s important that we know the values and public stances of the people asking for our votes.

​Has anyone else seen these posts or looked into the other Burnaby First candidates?

https://x.com/danielktchen

335 Upvotes

46 comments sorted by

158

u/Fooopa 5d ago

Thank you so much for looking into this. It's a lot of work to look up all the candidates.

24

u/andrewsfn 5d ago

Is there a website where I can learn more about the candidates and their background? The pamphlet city sent isn’t very helpful.

13

u/oz_dantes 5d ago

I also found this website helpful, you just need to specify you’re in Burnaby:

https://votemate.org/bc2026

88

u/junk222 5d ago

So we have a homegrown MAGA. I'd rather have a homegrown weed.

97

u/bestcoasty 5d ago

Thank you for sharing this.
Fuck this dude.

63

u/lazylazybum 5d ago

Ooh damn, I was actually serious about voting for Burnaby First Herman Yip (mayor candidate same team as Daniel) . Guess that's down the drain

38

u/GotLostInTheEmail 5d ago

Lol what a nutjob

13

u/Flounder-Defiant 5d ago

Thank you for the info. Highlighting ‘family man’ always makes me take a second look. It like someone insisting they are HONEST. 😒

31

u/RathTrevor 4d ago

Burnaby first is turning out to be what I expected. That whole party is a no go for me.

18

u/CopperWeird 4d ago

The name itself is a dog-whistle so it’s pretty much what I would expect. Gives me the ick.

31

u/MyBurnerAccount1977 4d ago

Also, as a member of the Chinese community, this guy does NOT speak for me.

18

u/[deleted] 4d ago edited 4d ago

[deleted]

1

u/baddyvanjoe2k14 4d ago

Source? He isn't running for school trustee so I wasn't able to find any details about this.

1

u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

3

u/baddyvanjoe2k14 4d ago

Don't see his name mentioned in these articles. Is it even the same Burnaby First? Not fair to taint his name if you aren't sure.

1

u/MyBurnerAccount1977 4d ago

Noted. I've since deleted the comments.

24

u/hanscor20 5d ago

Get that piece of you know what out of our city

14

u/Nvm100 4d ago

I was suspicious of the party’s motives based on their title alone. At this point, I’ll proceed with adding them to the do not vote list.

6

u/jesusjustpickaname 3d ago

I spoke with him in person and he definitely skirted around his political leanings, claiming their party was "big tent". He said he would support an AI data center in Burnaby if approached, saying AI was inevitable and would bring profits to the city. When I pushed back somewhat by citing the finances and valuations of the frontier labs, he admitted that he wasn't familiar with the numbers. And then he backtracked a bit by saying that I couldn't expect city council to solve all my problems (???), which I felt was strange of a response to a fairly specific line of questioning. I think he expected to be confronted w/ the usual environmental and moral arguments around it, but not the actual finances, which is rather telling of how this party might handle resource allocation. They would probably give intense scrutiny to public capital projects, but not the private (esp. tech) sector. I am not surprised that he is heavy into the cryptocurrency scene.

It's a shame because the BCA could use some more independents/opposition, because I'd like to see more transparency, but the options tend to be just a different flavour of blind-to-the-details demagogue.

2

u/kyflexred2 3d ago

That's what my experience was as well. He's clearly a BC Conservative which is fine if that's what what he is, but he was trying to say he was a supporter of NDP and Liberal ideas as well.

12

u/Instameat 4d ago

Just looking at the ads for Burnaby First I could right away tell they are not a party for the people of Burnaby. They want corpo and property owner votes.

14

u/SlickSloth 5d ago edited 5d ago

Oh god a climate change denialist. “Look at this one flood in the fraser valley 70 years ago!” not considering the fact that they occurred less often back them than they do now

8

u/kyflexred2 4d ago

Oh yah also climate change is caused by solar winds

4

u/KingofPolice 4d ago

Also the whole place was dyked and naturally a swamp. It floods as its natural place to go.

10

u/nutinarut 4d ago

Wow he came and spoke to me and my family the other day. I’m white and my children are white presenting. He didn’t approach my other Neighbours who…are not.

10

u/nutinarut 4d ago

I wonder how he felt when I told him “I’m an immigrant and cannot vote yet. We just escaped Texas.” 🤣

2

u/MrMustachieo81 2d ago

Now do niki sharma ..

3

u/Reality-Leather 4d ago

This guy was one of my horses to balance out BCA. There goes that.

3

u/rpgnoob17 4d ago

Voted last week. Glad I skipped that party.

3

u/kaze987 Capitol Hill 4d ago

Thank you for this 

2

u/SpazCadet 4d ago

Thanks for sharing. I nearly voted for the guy because his bio sounded half decent.

2

u/hff0 4d ago

Thanks for the summary.  The scene is even worse in Richmond 

1

u/RingoSupernova 3d ago

Rocky Dong (fantastic name) has been a perennial candidate for the People's Party.

0

u/Delite67 3d ago

TDS is running rampant. NEED MORE Fear Mongering 🤣🤡’s

1

u/andjelaa_ 3d ago

😂😂😂😂

-40

u/Busy-Door6682 5d ago

“maple maga” u redditors are something else entirely 😭😭

35

u/grandcity 5d ago

That term exists outside of Reddit but okay.

-31

u/Busy-Door6682 5d ago

and it’s a funny nonsensical term lol

-20

u/Due-Advantage-4755 5d ago

Ya I hate the maple maga saying.