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Incidents of mass violence and racial rhetoric from the White House are discouraging some Canadians from travelling to the United States.

“I’m choosing not to go because it’s not a safe choice for my family,” said Vancouver market researcher Barb Justason. “There’s a lot of gun violence, you don’t know who is carrying and who is not and you don’t know who is crazy.”

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The mass shootings at Sandy Hook, where 20 six- and seven-year-old children were killed, and in Las Vegas, where 58 people were killed, made a lasting impression on many Canadians.

Justason still travels to the US for business, but will forego regular pleasure trips to Seattle and New York.

“The election of (US President) Donald Trump has emboldened racists, homophobes and misogynists,” Justason said, citing the president’s Muslim travel ban as a turning point.

“It feels like an alien country to me now,” she explained. “I don’t want to go there and enjoy privilege as a white person that other people don’t have.”