Fact File: Video shared on X shows Maori haka dancer, not B.C. housing minister

B.C. Housing Minister Christine Boyle, then an election candidate, speaks during a campaign stop in Vancouver, B.C., Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. A video shared on social media by accounts claiming it shows Boyle actually shows a Maori content creator based in Australia performing a traditional haka dance. (Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press)

A video was shared on social media this week by accounts claiming it shows B.C. Minister of Housing Christine Boyle dancing and lip-synching to audio of ritual chanting, wearing what appears to be Indigenous traditional clothing.

In fact, the video shows a traditional Maori haka dance performed by a Maori content creator based in Australia, and the audio comes from an impromptu haka performance at the New Zealand Parliament last November.

The claim

“Let’s check in on BC’s new Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Christine Boyle,” read a post shared to X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday. The post included a video of a woman performing a traditional Maori haka dance and lip-synching to audio from a viral video of New Zealand lawmakers performing the haka in Parliament in November 2024.

The video and claim were shared by other accounts on X and Facebook, alongside disparaging remarks about Boyle and Canada, receiving thousands of likes.

The facts

Boyle confirmed in an emailed statement from her office to The Canadian Press that she is not the woman in the video.

“It appears the video is being used to promote an offensive narrative about Indigenous people and is an attempt to mislead people,” the statement said.

She urged social media users to report such posts when they see them.

An image reverse search of a frame from the video led to the name Georgia Awatea Jones, a content creator with Maori heritage based in Australia.

The Maori are the Indigenous people of New Zealand.

The video can be found on her Instagram and TikTok accounts, posted shortly after New Zealand opposition party MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke led other lawmakers in a Maori traditional ceremonial group dance during a vote on Nov. 14, 2024.

There are many types of haka and it can be performed for different reasons, but it typically involves “chanting and actions, such as waewae takahia (stamping), hand movements, and facial gestures, including pukana (bulging eyes) and whetero (sticking out of the tongue),” according to Tourism New Zealand.

Boyle was a Vancouver city councillor before being elected as part of the NDP to represent Vancouver-Little Mountain at the provincial level in 2024.

She was the Indigenous relations minister before being shuffled into her current portfolio, housing and municipal affairs, in July.

This report by Colleen Hale-Hodgson of The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2025.