LILLEY: Ambassador Peter Hoekstra fans the flames of the 51st state debate
· Toronto Sun
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Ambassador Peter Hoekstra is kicking a hornet’s nest by posting about Canada becoming the 51st state.
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Donald Trump’s point man in Canada, a man who has had a rough ride since he got here , is in Quebec City for meetings that by accounts were going well — and then Hoekstra did something stupid on social media.
He took what Donald Trump had said on his Truth Social account and shared it on his own account.
“51st State!” Trump posted to Truth Social just before 9:30 Monday evening.
The post included a link to a Bloomberg article on how Canada’s economy has dipped into a recession for the first time since 2020. On Tuesday morning, just after 8 a.m., Hoekstra posted a screenshot of Trump’s post combined with a screenshot of the Bloomberg article.
— Ambassador Pete Hoekstra (@USAmbCanada) June 2, 2026
He offered no further comment beyond sharing the photos, but any reasonable person could look at that and rightly think that Ambassador Hoekstra is endorsing Canada become the 51st state of the U.S.A.
If that’s his view, then I would agree with calls to kick him out of the country. We don’t need diplomats in this country who actively try to undermine Canadian sovereignty.
What Hoekstra has said on the issue
Hoekstra was asked during his confirmation hearing whether Canada was a sovereign state.
“Canada is a sovereign state. Yes,” Hoekstra said before going on to say he didn’t know about the relationship between Trump and former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
In media interviews he has put the 51st state issue in the rearview mirror.
“From my standpoint, from the president’s standpoint, 51st state’s not coming back … It’s done,” Hoekstra told the National Post last year.
In an interview with me last June , Hoekstra tried to downplay the 51st state issue but said if the president brought it up, he wouldn’t tell him that he couldn’t.
While the ambassador has tried to claim the offer was a term of endearment from Trump, a show of how much Trump loves Canada, he has clearly heard how Canadians feel. He has been told in no uncertain terms that Canadians view the calls for Canada to become the 51st state as offensive and aggressive.
Which is why his decision to repost Trump’s comment, and to go out of the way to combine two separate screenshots, is so puzzling.
What the embassy says on the issue
I submitted several questions to the embassy about the post including asking if the ambassador was now endorsing the 51st state idea, what his intention with the post was and how reasonable Canadians should read the post.
“This is amplification of the President’s Truth Social post, which is our usual practice,” came the reply from an embassy spokesperson in Ottawa.
Trump posts a lot of things on Truth Social and not all of them, not even a fraction of them, are reposted by Hoekstra.
Hoekstra’s job is to defend America’s interests in Canada, to represent the Trump administration. Reposting a trolling comment from the president about Canada becoming the 51st state does nothing to advance the interests of either country.
Since arriving in Canada, Hoekstra has been attacked, often unfairly, for doing his job and speaking bluntly.
When he is attacked for helping to revive and amplify the 51st state talk, which will further harm relations between our two countries, he will deserve everything he gets.
This post was incredibly stupid and tone deaf.