Yukon Chamber of Mines scorned for 'nasty' tweet about Trump's wall

A social media post intended to promote Yukon's mining industry has instead been labelled "offensive" and a "nasty piece of work," for invoking U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's promise to build a wall on the Mexican border.

"Hey @realDonaldTrump, we hear you're interested in walls..." the chamber tweeted on Wednesday, the day after the U.S. election. The tweet included an image with the claim: "Yukon mining produces the best wall building materials."

If it was an attempt at tongue-in-cheek humour, it fell flat for many Yukoners.

"A very nasty piece of work," is how Yukon NDP leader Liz Hanson described it. "I think whoever is responsible for that owes Yukoners an explanation and an apology."

Hanson said Trump's proposed wall is "antithetical to the Canadian values of inclusiveness and sharing," and so the ad does not reflect well on Yukoners, or the Chamber of Mines. She wants the ads removed from social media.

CBC has not been able to reach anybody from the Yukon Chamber of Mines for comment.

As of Monday, the Chamber had removed the post from its Facebook page but not from Twitter, where it's provoked a lot of negative reaction.

"I had no idea you had anything to do with building walls, and now I know you think #xenophobia and #racism are funny. Not cool," tweeted Neil Macdonald.

Others called the post "incredibly inappropriate" and "offensive," saying it "supports racism."

Lewis Rifkind, a Whitehorse environmentalist, agrees that the post was "in quite poor taste."

"It was interesting, I felt, that the Chamber of Mines' gut instinct was [that] the stuff we produce can be used to divide societies. I would hope that they would think that the stuff that they produce can be used to bring societies together," he said.

"You can use the exact same material to build bridges."