Over 100,000 Canadians Sign Petition to Expel U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra

A citizen petition calling for the Trump administration's ambassador to Canada to be thrown out of the country has collected more than 100,000 signatures, according to ABC News reporting published August 13, 2026. The petition passed 104,000 names that day, ABC reported, after nearly tripling in signatures in under 48 hours.

The petition targets Pete Hoekstra, a former Republican congressman from Michigan who also served as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands during Trump's first term. It asks the Canadian government to declare him "persona non grata" and formally request his removal, plus have a parliamentary committee investigate what it calls a "pattern of conduct" by Hoekstra inconsistent with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, per ABC News.

Who started it, and why

Calgary resident Leanne Walker launched the petition on Canada's official House of Commons petitions portal on July 21, according to ABC News. Under Canadian parliamentary rules, any petition with five signatures and a sponsoring member of parliament gets a mandatory written government response within 45 days of being tabled.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May agreed to sponsor it and will present it in the House of Commons this fall, according to CBC News. May's office told the BBC she has "an obligation to sponsor petitions brought forward by citizens, regardless of whether she personally agrees with what the petition is asking for." Tabling a citizen petition is a routine procedural act for Canadian MPs and does not signal endorsement.

Walker told CBC News the response caught her off guard. "It's beyond what I expected out of this," she 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."

What Hoekstra actually said and did

The petition's core complaint is that Hoekstra has "normalized" President Trump's talk of annexing Canada as the "51st state." When asked in June whether Canada was effectively an additional U.S. state, Hoekstra replied it would be "a great discussion for the president and the prime minister to have," according to ABC News and Global News. He has also reposted Trump's "51st state" comments and, per ABC News, once called the phrase a "term of endearment."

Hoekstra has criticized Canadian leaders for calling Trump's tariff campaign a "trade war," telling a Halifax crowd last September he was "disappointed and frustrated" by anti-American rhetoric during Canada's federal election campaign, according to Global News. He's also pushed back publicly on provinces pulling American liquor from store shelves and on Canadians being discouraged from traveling to the U.S.

The petition separately flags Hoekstra's connection to a U.S. voter ID app that has reportedly been used by the Alberta Prosperity Project, a separatist group seeking a referendum on Alberta leaving Canada, according to The Independent and ABC News. Hoekstra has denied knowing the app was being used for that purpose, both outlets reported.

The diplomatic and trade backdrop

This is unfolding while Canada and the U.S. are in the middle of high-stakes trade negotiations, with new U.S. tariffs set to take effect the following Wednesday, according to the BBC. The Independent reported that Canadian officials disinvited the U.S. from the opening of the $4.6 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge, a Canada-funded project, after Trump reportedly sought a cut of toll revenues.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has taken a notably blunt tone toward Washington. In a January speech at the World Economic Forum, Carney said the U.S.-led global order "no longer works," adding: "We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition," according to The Independent.

What critics of the petition might reasonably say

A fair defense of Hoekstra exists here. Ambassadors are supposed to represent their president's positions, not soften them, and Hoekstra has said exactly that: it's his job to present the president's views, according to Global News. Diplomats routinely defend unpopular policies from their home government. That's the job description, not a Vienna Convention violation on its own. Trump's own rhetoric about annexation, not Hoekstra's paraphrasing of it, is the underlying source of Canadian anger, and Hoekstra denies any knowledge that a voter ID app he's connected to was used by Alberta separatists.

What's unresolved

The petition is a formal request, not a legal mechanism. Only the Canadian government, not Parliament or a petition, can actually declare a diplomat persona non grata and expel them. Ottawa has done that before, including with Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei in 2023 and six Indian officials in 2024 over foreign interference and murder allegations, according to Global News. Whether Carney's government has any intention of taking that step against a NATO ally's ambassador during live tariff negotiations is an open question the government hasn't answered. The mandatory written response is due within 45 days of the petition being tabled in the House of Commons this fall.