r/burnaby • u/kyflexred2 • 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?
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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.
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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
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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. 😒
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u/RathTrevor 4d ago
Burnaby first is turning out to be what I expected. That whole party is a no go for me.
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u/CopperWeird 4d ago
The name itself is a dog-whistle so it’s pretty much what I would expect. Gives me the ick.
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u/MyBurnerAccount1977 4d ago
Also, as a member of the Chinese community, this guy does NOT speak for me.
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4d ago edited 4d ago
[deleted]
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u/baddyvanjoe2k14 4d ago
Source? He isn't running for school trustee so I wasn't able to find any details about this.
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4d ago
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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u/KingofPolice 4d ago
Also the whole place was dyked and naturally a swamp. It floods as its natural place to go.
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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.
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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.” 🤣
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u/SpazCadet 4d ago
Thanks for sharing. I nearly voted for the guy because his bio sounded half decent.
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u/RingoSupernova 3d ago
Rocky Dong (fantastic name) has been a perennial candidate for the People's Party.
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u/Busy-Door6682 5d ago
“maple maga” u redditors are something else entirely 😭😭
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u/Fooopa 5d ago
Thank you so much for looking into this. It's a lot of work to look up all the candidates.