Why Are Thousands of Canadians Asking the Government to Kick Out the U.S. Ambassador?

More than 29,000 people have signed a petition asking the Canadian government to expel the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May plans to present the petition in the House of Commons this fall (The Globe and Mail).

The petition, called e-7531, was started by a woman from Calgary and posted on the House of Commons website on July 21, 2026 (House of Commons). It says Hoekstra has made comments that hurt the Canada-U.S. relationship and has interfered in Canadian politics in ways a diplomat should not. It also asks the government to have a parliamentary committee look into whether U.S. diplomats are meddling in Canadian affairs (The Globe and Mail).

The online petition system has rules. Each person can sign only once, each email address can only be used for one signature, and once you sign, you cannot take it back. An official called the Clerk of Petitions can throw out any signature that cannot be verified. Just because a petition appears on the House of Commons website does not mean Parliament agrees with it, and the House does not have to let it be presented (petitions.ourcommons.ca).

This is not the only petition going after Hoekstra. Another House of Commons petition, e-7124, says his comments do not meet the standard expected of a diplomat in Canada (House of Commons). A campaign called "Expel Pete Hoekstra as US Ambassador to Canada" has also been running on Change.org since August 2025 (Change.org).

Hoekstra has attracted controversy throughout his time in Ottawa. In summer 2025, he said Canada being taken over by the United States would be a "great topic of discussion" for Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump (The Globe and Mail). In September 2025, Canadian politicians and experts pushed back after he complained about anti-American feelings in Canada (CBC News). The next month, witnesses said he swore at Ontario's trade representative, David Paterson, in a long angry outburst (CBC News). In November, he accused Canada of interfering in U.S. politics and said restarting trade talks would be "not going to be easy" (CBC News).

More recently, Hoekstra was photographed with convoy leader Tamara Lich (CBC News). In July 2026, he described Canada's wildfire situation as a challenge that "knows no borders" (CBC News).

Before coming to Ottawa, Hoekstra was the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands during the first Trump administration and served on the board of a group called the Council for a Secure America (U.S. Embassy in Canada).

The petition is based on an international agreement called the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Under this agreement, a country can declare a diplomat persona non grata, which is Latin for "unwelcome person." That means the host country can take away the diplomat's legal protections and force them to leave. It is one of the strongest steps a country can take without cutting off relations entirely. Using it against the ambassador from Canada's closest trading partner would be a much bigger deal than when Canada has expelled Russian or Chinese diplomats in recent years.

The practical question is whether the petition actually leads to any government action. E-petitions that gather more than 25,000 signatures usually get media attention, but the government does not have to do anything about them. The petition's call for a committee to study U.S. diplomatic interference would need either a vote in the House of Commons or a committee deciding on its own to take up the issue. Parliament is not sitting again until mid-September, and in a minority government, committee schedules are negotiated among the parties, so getting from petition to actual study is not automatic.

Because Elizabeth May is the MP presenting the petition, she gets a brief moment on the floor of the House of Commons to summarize it. The government then has 45 sitting days to respond, but that response can simply repeat existing policy. Whether any opposition party pushes for a committee vote, or whether the Liberals acknowledge the 29,000 signatures in their response, should become clearer once Parliament resumes.

The broader context is the precedent this would set. Canada has rarely used the persona non grata tool and has never used it against a U.S. ambassador. The Canada-U.S. relationship depends on many layers of contact between the two governments, and declaring Washington's envoy unwelcome would signal those channels have broken down. The people behind the petition seem to be testing whether there is political support for that kind of message. Whether there is will depend less on how many people signed than on how party leaders and the government respond when the petition reaches the House.