A Canadian clothing company has apologized for an advertisement playing on U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s controversial views on immigration.
The Harry Rosen advertisement, which was mailed out to select homes in Metro Vancouver, shows Trump telling a crowd, “If not for Harry’s Private Sale, I’d wall off Canada too.”
Earlier this year, the candidate rankled many on both sides of the border by pledging to build a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants, and he’s more recently suggested the government needs a database for Syrian refugees.
With Canadians currently in the midst of their own debate on accepting refugees, some have criticized Harry Rosen’s advertisement as crass – something the company’s CEO said was never the intention.
“We’re big supporters of Canada accepting new refugees and this has nothing to do with that,” Larry Rosen told CTV News.
“This is really just taking a very absurd politician and having a little bit of fun.”
The high-end menswear retailer also said the mail-out was designed months ago, before the refugee debate heated up in Canada.
“Some customers have found it very funny,” Rosen said. “Some customers have said you know, associating yourself with Trump in any way is not good, so I’ve apologized to them.”
CTV News reached out to Trump’s camp for comment Tuesday, but has not heard back.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Penny Daflos
