OTTAWA, Aug. 17– A petition calling for the expulsion of U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has drawn more than 200,000 verified signatures as of Sunday, according to data from the official petition website of the Canadian Parliament.
Submitted by a Calgary resident and sponsored in the House of Commons by Green Party leader Elizabeth May, the petition accuses Hoekstra of making repeated statements “undermining the Canada-U.S. diplomatic relations” and normalizing U.S. administration’s threats to annex Canada as the “51st state.”
The petition calls on the Canadian government to formally declare Hoekstra persona non grata and request his removal as U.S. ambassador to Canada, while urging a parliamentary committee to review “U.S. diplomatic interference in Canadian domestic affairs.”
Under the rules governing Canadian parliamentary digital petitions, all signers must be verified as Canadian citizens or legal residents. The petition’s rapid growth makes it one of the most widely signed since the House of Commons introduced its electronic petition system in 2015.
Opened for signing on July 21, the petition is scheduled to close on Nov. 18. (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
