MLA Heather Maahs, four other far-right BC Cons express love for Donald Trump, fall for dumb political trap
Party leader John Rustad and 39 out of 44 Conservatives understand MAGA's nefarious policies while five radical right-wing MLAs help commit political suicide
I think we all know Heather Maahs is unsuitable to represent Chilliwack in Victoria.
She didn't even quite understand how to be a local politician, so moving up to provincial politics doing what she did on Monday is a great example of the Peter Principle in action.
In the waning days she spent as a school trustee, Maahs was censured three times in 13 months for undemocratically opposing decisions voted on by the board (March 2023), for her ongoing anti-LGBTQ activism (December 2023), and for leaking information from in-camera meetings (February 2024).
If you thought she had already risen to the level of her incompetence at the Chilliwack School Board, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Meet MAGA Maahs and the Fascist Five
Only in Victoria for a few weeks, Maahs has made friends with extreme radical right-wing conspiracy theorists who hitched their wagon to Donald Trump in the already bonkers BC Cons. Maahs and a mini-theocratic cabal voted Monday (Feb. 24, 2025) against an easy-to-adopt NDP motion to oppose Trump's economy-crippling tariffs and to put forth a B.C. response to target Republican states.
The text of the motion that all NDP members and 39 out of 44 BC Conservatives voted to support Monday is as follows:
"That this House condemns President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs as wrong and unjustified measures aimed at threatening Canadian sovereignty and endorses the nationally co-ordinated 'Team Canada' plan to respond with proportionate retaliatory action if necessary, including strategically targeting industry and regions such as products from Republican states, to maximize pressure to deter President Trump from implementing or continuing tariffs."
It was an NDP trap.
Maahs fell for it along with Dallas Brodie, Brent Chapman, Tara Armstrong, and Jordan Kealy. Either John Rustad dropped the ball, the party whip forgot their whip, or the Fascist Five are being allowed to jump overboard without life jackets.
Brodie and Chapman are proving themselves to be burgeoning white supremacists. Brodie spent her time lately in support of residential school denialism. Until she sees the actual bones of the victims of Canada's attempted cultural genocide with her own eyes, she supports those who say it's a lie to point out that children who died at residential schools were buried there.
"I find such remarks to be absolutely disgusting, repugnant and ugly."
That from Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs who said Brodie's comments cause pain to residential school survivors and their families.
Even Rustad told her to take down her Tweets on the topic but she refused. Maahs' Chilliwack colleague A'aliya Warbus – who is an unlikely BC Conservative for many people as an Indigenous woman and daughter of former lieutenant-governor Steven Point – called out Brodie's racism and historical ignorance.
"Inform yourself, get the latest facts, research, AND talk to survivors," said Warbus who is also the party's Opposition House Leader. "Questioning the narratives of people who lived and survived these atrocities, is nothing but harmful and taking us backward in reconciliation."
So MAGA Maahs is giving a thumbs up to Brodie's anti-Indigenous racism. She also hitched her Trump-loving wagon to white supremacist Brent Chapman who is a conspiracy theorist who shared fake news disinformation that the slaughter of 20 children and six teachers at the school in Sandy Hook, the mass shootings in Orlando, and the Quebec City mosque murders were hoaxes.
These are the fringiest of far right conspiracy theories, which makes them perfect candidates to start a Trump fan club in Victoria.
'Own goal' – soccer metaphor for the week
Maahs, Chapman, Brodie, Armstrong and Kealy all voted to support Donald Trump and his tariffs despite the fact that 39 of their colleagues in their far right political party most of whom understand the terrible economic consequences of Trump's moves.
Long-time legislative reporter Rob Shaw called the vote by these five an "own goal" for the BC Cons.
"Move was a political trap and 5 people fell for it," Shaw Tweeted on Monday. "Now every question or statement a Conservative makes in the house, from @JohnRustad4BC to any other critics, will be met by a retort from an NDP minister that the Conservative side supports Trump.
"Which is an inexplicable own goal strategic error by the Cons, but... here we are."
NEW - 5 @BCConservCaucus MLAs have voted against a @bcndp motion in #bcleg to condemn US President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs, and support BC response to target Republican states.
— Rob Shaw (@RobShaw_BC) February 25, 2025
Move was a political trap and 5 people fell for it:
Tara Armstrong, Heather Maahs, Brent…
NDP strategists likely woke up Tuesday morning rubbing their hands with glee as they plan a social media campaign pointing out that the opposition party with 44 seats in the provincial legislature support Donald Trump. (The fact that 39 out of 44 voted for the motion won't matter too much for politicking.)
It didn't have to be this way but John Rustad cannot control his own caucus.
While objectively stupid in that it illustrates support for a fascist president who is threatening Canadian sovereignty, Maahs' vote also shows her ignorance of politics as she hurts her own party handing her enemies red meat.
Jesus is coming, look busy
Maahs likely doesn't care about this corporeal nonsense anyway, because she has divine aspirations that no glimmer of logic or decency or humanity deep within her can overcome. She and her puppets, formers MLAs John Les and Laurie Throness and other behind-the-scenes handlers who I shall not name, have theocratic aspirations. A theocracy, if you don't know, is a system of government where one specific ancient set of religious texts and one specific set of interpretations of those texts is the lens through which all public policy is managed.
Maahs isn't shy about it. She's a member of Summit Ministries, an organization that wants Canadian democracy to be run using Biblical principles.
"Since the very beginning, Summit Ministries has focused on applying Christianity’s essential doctrines to understand the times and know what our society ought to do," so goes the introduction to their "statement of faith."
This is, of course, totalitarianism, which explains the Trump endorsement. When the state decides what citizens think and read and say and believe, as Maahs and this organization want, that's fascist thinking.
In Saudi Arabia, for example, the government declared the Qur'an and Muhammad’s words and traditions are the country's Constitution. Not a great democratic example.
In Canada, John Les and the organization he and others are involved with, the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA), want to see a Christian version of Saudi Arabia with the Reformed Church’s particular interpretation of the Bible as the rule of law.
To start with, ARPA and it’s executive board declare that you and me and all of us are “depraved” and only their divine authority over our actions can save us.
“Depravity is total – it touches all parts of our lives, including our bodies, intellect, and will. Depravity must be restrained, also by means of the civil government,” ARPA tells us.“Because of the depravity of mankind, our gracious God has ordained kings, princes, and civil officers. He wants the world to be governed by laws and statutes, in order that the lawlessness of men be restrained and that everything be conducted among them in good order.”
Following so far? Does this mean that elected governments are infallible because they were ordained by the Reformed Church’s particular Abrahamic version of God? Nope. It means that if anyone in government dares to violate the Biblical worldview these people have decided we should follow, the good ARPA folks such as John and Heather and Barry Neufeld can ignore those governmental decisions.
“If civil government demands from us what God forbids, we need to obey God rather than man.”
This is what leads extremist followers to kill doctors who perform abortions and the Jan. 6 insurrection in the U.S. This is also why Neufeld and Maahs have been censured by their fellow school board trustees so many times, and it explains why Neufeld refuses to accept decisions by bodies such as the BC Human Rights Tribunal and even the civil court system.
The NDP Trump motion seemed like an obvious and non-controversial statement to support, but not if you have other much more insidious plans.
In a Tweet Tuesday, Maahs tried to backtrack after the backlash claiming she is opposed to U.S. tariffs but that horse has left the barn. Her own party leader, the Opposition House Leader, 90 per cent of the caucus agreed to condemn Trump's tariffs so she has to own this.
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Paul J. Henderson
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