AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.Mr. Hoekstra has been President Trump’s faithful messenger in Canada amid a historic low in relations. More than 170,000 Canadians want him gone.Listen · 6:48 min Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, at the embassy’s July 4 party at his official residence in Ottawa.Credit...Ian Austen/The New York TimesAug. 15, 2026Updated 10:52 a.m. ETAfter boycotting American products and shunning vacations south of the border, Canadians in their thousands are pouring their incandescent anger at the United States into a new cause: ousting the American ambassador.More than 170,000 people have signed a petition to the Canadian Parliament, submitted by a Calgary resident on July 21, calling for the removal of the ambassador, Pete Hoekstra.The petition asserts that Mr. Hoekstra, a faithful messenger of President Trump’s aggressive stance toward Canada, has harmed U.S.-Canada relations. The two countries are locked in a trade war, and their relationship, once the closest two nations can be, has been at a historic low since Mr. Trump retook office.Just 500 signatures are legally required to bring an online petition to the Parliament floor for discussion, and this one will most likely be put forward for debate in the fall by Elizabeth May, the leader of Canada’s Green Party.The petition lays out the reasoning for Mr. Hoekstra’s removal: it argues that he has “normalized the Trump administration’s threats to annex Canada as the 51st state.” Mr. Hoekstra has reposted Mr. Trump’s 51st-state jabs on social media and has dismissed Canadians’ anger at the rhetoric as “emotional” and inexplicable.It also states that Mr. Hoekstra has interfered in Canadian politics in a manner “inconsistent with diplomatic protocol.” It lays out how activists from Alberta seeking to break away from the rest of the country repeatedly met with State Department officials, “raising serious questions about U.S. diplomatic interference in Canadian unity.”Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT