Canadian petition wants to remove U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra
Aug. 12 (UPI) — Thousands of Canadians have signed a petition demanding the government kick the U.S. ambassador to Canada out of the country.
The petition, which had almost 60,000 signatures as of Wednesday morning, will be presented to the House of Commons this fall by Green Party leader Elizabeth May. It says that Ambassador Pete Hoekstra should be declared persona non grata and the Canadian government should request his removal from the country.
The petition accuses Hoekstra of repeatedly making public statements that undermine Canada-U.S. diplomatic relations, including characterizing the 2025 Canadian federal election as “anti-American;” normalizing the Trump administration’s threats to annex Canada as the “51st state;” and accusing Canada of interfering in U.S. domestic politics while making repeated interventions in Canadian political discourse. The petition also said Hoekstra was linked to a Michigan-based voter identification app used by the Alberta separatist Centurion Project, while claiming no knowledge of its use, and that The Alberta Prosperity Project [a separatist organization] met with U.S. State Department officials three times between April 2025 and January 2026, with Hoekstra claiming to have no knowledge of those meetings.
The petition was created by a woman from Calgary.
A representative for the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa declined to comment on the petition except to say the embassy is aware of it, the CBC reported.
In June, Hoekstra said that Canada’s annexation by the United States would be a great topic of discussion for Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Hoekstra was a member of the House of Representatives representing western Michigan from 1993 to 2011. He was the ambassador to The Netherlands, his country of birth, during Trump’s first term. He was named ambassador to Canada in April 2025.
In 2023, the Canadian government declared Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei persona non grata after he was accused of gathering information in Hong Kong about the family of Conservative Member of Parliament Michael Chong.
The following year, six diplomats and consular officials from India were expelled after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police alleged that the agents were targeting Canadian citizens. They linked the tracking to the murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijar in Surrey, British Columbia, in 2023.
The police linked the campaign to the June 2023 murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C.
Carney and the Canadian government have worked to improve relations with China and India.
