Right Honourable Justin Trudeau,

Office of the Prime Minister

80 Wellington Street

Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister,

Please don’t hand over $14B of our tax dollars to Westbank’s Ian Gillespie

I’m dismayed and distressed to hear that the Government of Canada is considering handing $14 billion in taxpayer dollars to real estate developer Ian Gillespie and his company Westbank to build “affordable housing” through an outfit called Creative Housing. Giving Ian Gillespie tax dollars to fix the housing crisis would be like giving a fentanyl dealer public money to buy naloxone kits to sell back to his clients.

I urge you not to pour a supertanker load of salt in the deep wounds Mr. Gillespie has inflicted on Vancouverites by even giving a penny of our hard earned tax money to him.

If you’ve forgotten what Mr. Gillespie, your friend and fundraiser, has done to earn the dubious distinction as being an architect of the housing crisis, let me jog your memory:

Westbank pitches Vancouver’s hot real estate market to buyers in China with the “Vancouver’s becoming a safety deposit box for the global rich!” as the selling point. “In recent years, the boom in Vancouver’s properties has attracted the global rich,” Westbank’s tells the world. “It took only two years for Vancouver’s housing prices to double.” Westbank has openly declared that it only cares about building for the Chinese market. “ But right now I have a rule when we talk about projects if the Chinese market doesn’t want it, I have no interest in it.” Westbank’s Director of Marketing Michael Braun said on the Westbank website . Mr. Gillespie provides an “asset management” programme for absentee owners of his condominium projects, where property managers perform such tasks as running water through the taps and regularly switching on appliances should an apartment lie vacant for an extended period. Westbank sponsored a Yacht gala in China even as a judge ordered Mr. Gillespie’s other company to pay $200,000 in unpaid bills to a local contractor . Mr. Gillespie himself doesn’t offer any apologies for the sky high prices of his condos. “I don’t set the prices. It is what the market will bear,” Gillespie told reporters .

Instead of rewarding Mr. Gillespie for fueling the housing crisis, I implore you to take all action necessary to stop him and other like him from doing further devastating lives and livelihoods of Vancouverites. You have the duty, as the leader of our nation, to stop Mr. Gillespie from turning Vancouver into a grotesque caricature of his deformed phallic symbols: glistening on the outside, empty on the inside.

Thank you,

Rohana Rezel