The New York Times reported on August 17 that as U.S.-Canadian relations continued to deteriorate due to trade friction and diplomatic discourse disputes, Canadians launched a petition at the end of last month demanding the expulsion of U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra.
According to data from the Canadian House of Representatives website, by August 17, more than 200,000 Canadians had participated in the signing.
The petition said that Hoekstra had repeatedly made public statements that damaged U.S.-Canada relations, including characterizing the 2025 Canadian federal election as “anti-American.” The petition also said that Hoekstra normalized the Trump administration‘s threats to annex Canada, making it the U.S.’s “51st state.”
The New York Times said Hoekstra had forwarded Trump‘s remarks about the “51st state” on social media and called Canadians‘ anger at such remarks “emotional” and unreasonable.
The petition also pointed out that Hoekstra interfered in Canadian domestic affairs in a manner that “does not conform to diplomatic conventions.” The Alberta Prosperity Plan, a far-right separatist group that advocates the independence of the Canadian province of Alberta, met with U.S. State Department officials three times between April 2025 and January 2026. Hoekstra claimed to know nothing about these meetings, raising serious questions about U.S. diplomatic interference in Canadian national unification.
The petition called for the Canadian government to formally declare Hoekstra an “unpopular person” and remove him from his position as U.S. ambassador to Canada. At the same time, it called for negotiations with the United States over a series of Hoekstra‘s actions that did not conform to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The petition also requires the Canadian government to appoint a congressional committee to review the situation of U.S. diplomatic interference in Canadian domestic affairs.
The petition was launched on July 21 by a citizen from Calgary and presented to Congress by Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada.
According to the New York Times, under Canadian law, an online petition requires only 500 signatures to be submitted to Congress for discussion.
Canadian lawyer Barry Appleton pointed out that although the petition was not legally valid, it was a “thermometer” of Canadian public opinion, “which tells Americans how angry ordinary Canadians are.”
The petition was the culmination of months of concentrated outbursts of Canadian public dissatisfaction with Hoekstra, and it also reflected the rapid deterioration of Canadian public perceptions of the United States as a whole.
A Pew Research Center survey published in June showed that only 35 percent of Canadians now consider the United States a reliable partner, down from 82 percent in 2022. Over the past year, the number of Canadians visiting the United States for leisure has decreased by more than a quarter.