More than 70,000 people in Canada signed a petition calling for Pete Hoekstra to be removed as US ambassador in Ottawa. The push has gained enough support to be tabled in the House of Commons later this year, even as Canada and the US try to reach a trade deal before new tariffs take effect next Wednesday.
Leanne Walker, who launched the petition in Calgary, said the response had gone far beyond her expectations. "It's beyond what I expected out of this," she told CBC News.
House of Commons petition rules
The House of Commons allows Canadians to submit petitions, and Walker's campaign has moved into the tier that now puts it in front of Elizabeth May later this year. Many petitions receive only a few hundred signatures, so support at this level gives the request a stronger formal footing than most citizen submissions.
May's office said she has an obligation to sponsor petitions brought forward by citizens, regardless of whether she personally agrees with what the petition is asking for. That means the petition will be entered through a parliamentary process that can force the complaint onto the record, but not automatically remove Hoekstra from his post.
Hoekstra and Canadian sovereignty
The petition accuses Hoekstra of making repeated interventions in Canadian political discourse and of normalizing threats from the Trump administration to annex Canada as the 51st state of the US. Walker said, "It tells me that it's not a fringe issue, and that a lot of Canadians are uncomfortable with how Hoekstra has been repeating Trump talking points about our sovereignty and Canada as a whole."
Hoekstra, a Republican and a Trump ally, has defended Donald Trump's trade policies as meant to secure the safety and prosperity of Americans. He has also described the relationship between the two countries as critical and said Canada becoming the 51st state would be a "great discussion to be had," while earlier criticism followed his reposting of Trump's comments about Canada.
Washington, Albertans and tariffs
The petition also points to meetings in Washington between US state department officials and some Albertans who want the province to separate from Canada, and to Hoekstra's invitation to one of the leaders of the 2022 Freedom Convoy movement to his official Fourth of July celebration. Those episodes are part of why the petition asks for Ambassador Hoekstra to be formally removed and for a parliamentary committee to review US diplomatic interference in Canadian domestic affairs.
The timing matters because Canada and the US remain in intense trade talks before new US tariffs take effect next Wednesday. Walker said the signature count has made the campaign larger than a protest petition, and Hoekstra now faces a formal political challenge that will move from the online page into parliament later this year.
Carter Hart suspension ruling has its own timeline, but the Hoekstra petition now has a different kind of deadline: the parliamentary tableing that will decide whether the complaint becomes part of the House of Commons record.
