Vancouver British Columbia was a welcoming place during the 2010 Winter Olympics. I was fortunate enough to own a residence there at the time and to be there for some of the festivities. The streets were alive day and night with people from all over the world; Walking through the crowds downtown one heard many languages spoken. Vancouver welcomed the world and the world savored Vancouver’s beauty. I no longer am a part-time Vancouverite. I may have got out just in time.
Recently the shiny new sixty-nine-story Trump International Hotel and Tower officially opened, a few blocks away from the no-longer-mine condominium. The Holborn Group, led by Joo Kim Tiah, from one of Malaysia’s richest families, owns the hotel. The Trump organization licenses the name to the hotel operator and handles reservations. A petition demanding the Trump now not be allowed has more than 50,000 signatures.
About a hundred anti-Trump demonstrators greeted Eric and Donald Jr, who came for the ribbon cutting. Vancouver mayor, Gregor Robertson, did not attend, stating, the Trump name and brand “have no more place on Vancouver’s skyline than his ignorant ideas have in the modern world.” City Councilman Kerry Jang called the hotel a “beacon of racism … intolerance, sexism and bullying.”
