An official Parliament of Canada e-petition demanding that U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra be declared persona non grata and removed from his post has reached 198,117 validated signatures as of Monday, August 17, 2026. The petition needed only 500 signatures to be certified. It has cleared that threshold nearly 400 times over. And it does not close until November 18.
Not a Change.org Petition
This is worth stating plainly, because it is the detail most people get wrong. E-petition e-7531 is not an informal online campaign. It is an official House of Commons e-petition, filed under the Foreign Affairs category on the Parliament of Canada petitions portal, with every signature validated through the government system. A separate, unofficial Change.org petition on the same subject also exists, but it is a different document with a different count.
E-7531 was initiated by Leanne Walker of Calgary, Alberta, and opened for signature on July 21, 2026. It is sponsored by Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, the member for Saanich-Gulf Islands, who has said she intends to present it in the House of Commons this fall. Sponsorship by a sitting MP is a procedural requirement for an official e-petition, and it is what gives this one teeth that an online campaign does not have.
Where the Signatures Are Coming From
The provincial breakdown shows this is not a regional grievance. Ontario leads with 84,189 signatures. British Columbia follows with 40,672. Alberta, the province at the center of the separatist activity referenced in the petition itself, has contributed 21,832. Quebec has 21,463. Nova Scotia has 8,499 and Manitoba 6,703.
For scale: a Canadian e-petition that gathers 10,000 signatures is considered a significant public response. This one is approaching 200,000 and still has three months left on the clock.
What the Petition Actually Asks For
The document makes three distinct requests of the Government of Canada. First, that it declare Hoekstra persona non grata and formally request his removal. Second, that it raise with Washington what the petition calls a pattern of conduct inconsistent with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the treaty that governs how diplomats are expected to behave in a host country. Third, that a parliamentary committee be directed to review U.S. diplomatic interference in Canadian domestic affairs.
The conduct the petition cites is specific. It points to Hoekstra characterizing the 2025 Canadian federal election as anti-American. It points to him describing 51st state annexation rhetoric as a term of endearment. It points to him accusing Canada of interfering in U.S. politics. The petition also alleges that he is linked to a Michigan-based voter ID app used by the Alberta separatist Centurion Project, and that Alberta Prosperity Project figures met with U.S. State Department officials three times between April 2025 and January 2026.
Hoekstra has denied knowledge of both the voter app link and the State Department meetings. Those two allegations remain claims made in the petition text, not established findings.
Mean and Nasty
The friction did not stop when the petition opened. Hoekstra has said that President Trump and his team view Canadians as mean and nasty over the travel and liquor boycotts that Canadian consumers and provincial governments have mounted against American goods and destinations. He also dismissed the Elbows Up movement, the hockey-derived slogan that became shorthand for Canadian economic resistance, as an anti-American campaign.
British Columbia Premier David Eby rebuked him publicly for the remarks. The comments landed in a country where cross-border travel and spending have fallen sharply, and where the annexation talk coming out of Washington has been treated as a genuine sovereignty question rather than a joke.
What a Petition Can and Cannot Do
Here is the part that matters, and it cuts against the headline. A petition does not remove anyone. It carries no binding force whatsoever. Only the Government of Canada, acting through Global Affairs Canada, has the authority to declare a foreign diplomat persona non grata. Not the House of Commons. Not a parliamentary committee. Not the petitioners, however many of them there are.
What certification does trigger is narrow and procedural. Once May formally presents the certified petition in the House, the government owes a written response within 45 calendar days. That is the entire legal consequence. And the House does not sit again until the fall, so even that clock has not started. Pete Hoekstra remains the United States Ambassador to Canada, and no Canadian government action has been taken against him.
What This Means for Americans
Canada is the largest export market for American goods and one of the closest security partners the United States has. When nearly 200,000 citizens of that country formally petition their own Parliament to expel the American ambassador, it is a measurement of how much goodwill has been spent, and how quickly. That erosion shows up in real places: in the Canadian tourists who stopped booking American vacations, in the provincial liquor boards that pulled American products off shelves, and in the workers on both sides of the border whose jobs depend on the two economies staying friendly.
Diplomats exist to keep that relationship steady. A petition this size is a public argument that this one has done the opposite.
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