Ontario Premier Doug Ford says U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra owes government official David Paterson an apology for his expletive-laced tirade on the province's ad campaign.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Premier Doug Ford is calling on U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra to apologize to Ontario’s representative in Washington after Mr. Hoekstra reportedly subjected the official to an expletive-filled tirade over the province’s anti-tariff TV ad.
Mr. Ford, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said Mr. Hoekstra owes David Paterson, a former General Motors executive, an apology.
The Premier was asked about a Globe and Mail report that detailed Mr. Hoekstra’s public dressing down of Mr. Paterson at a prestigious event in Ottawa on Monday, according to two sources.
Mr. Ford called Mr. Hoekstra’s behaviour “absolutely unacceptable” and “unbecoming of an ambassador.”
“Pete, you’ve got to call Dave up and apologize. It’s simple. You know, the cheese slipped off the cracker, I get it. You’re ticked off. But call the guy up, because you’re a good guy. And Dave’s my champion,” Mr. Ford said after an announcement at the Ontario Legislature regarding First Nations.
“People get hot. They get heated. I get heated sometimes but just call the guy up and bury the hatchet.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Ottawa has no plans to call in Ambassador Hoekstra to reprimand him for his profanity-laced outburst at Mr. Paterson. She said Ottawa is leaving the tariff dispute to Dominic LeBlanc, the minister for Canada-U.S. trade.
“We have not démarched the U.S. ambassador, and I know that this file is being handled very well by my colleague, Dominic LeBlanc,” she told reporters on the way out of a Liberal caucus meeting Wednesday.
U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has been a vocal critic of Ontario's anti-tariffs ad.Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
U.S. embassy spokesperson Ariel Pollock declined to comment Wednesday.
Mr. Paterson told The Globe that he will not discuss what unfolded at the event.
“I am very appreciative of the support of the Premier who always has my back and from so many others since the incident. I have not commented on it and won’t,” he said. “I appreciate there are some principles of diplomacy involved, but I personally prefer to just focus on the work of finding mutually beneficial trade solutions. In the world of trade, jobs and business, we need each other and need to get on with that.”
The sources told The Globe that Mr. Hoekstra began to swear at Mr. Paterson over the Ontario government ad, which features pro-free-trade remarks from former president Ronald Reagan and has riled up U.S. President Donald Trump.
The President cited the ad as the reason he abruptly cancelled trade talks with Canada last week. He later threatened to impose an additional 10-per-cent tariff on Canadian goods.
The Globe is not identifying the sources because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
The sources said Mr. Hoekstra was loud and using expletives as he railed against the TV ad in front of more than 200 invited participants at the Ottawa event, many of whom were prominent U.S. and Canadian business executives.
The ambassador was overheard saying Canada and the U.S. were close to a trade deal on steel, aluminum and energy but that Mr. Ford had scuttled that goodwill.
Carney saw Reagan anti-tariff ad before it aired, Ford says
Mr. Ford again defended his decision to run the ad and push back against Mr. Trump’s tariffs.
“When you have someone attacking your province, attacking your country, constantly saying it’s a 51st state, trying to take our auto jobs down to the U.S., taking our manufacturing, life science jobs, trying to take our steel jobs, what do they expect me to do? Sit back and roll over like every other person in the world? I’m going to fight like I’ve never fought before,” he said.
He said his intention wasn’t to “poke the President in the eye” but to start a conversation in the U.S. about tariffs.
“Why doesn’t the President start being nice, play nice in the sandbox to his biggest customer in the entire world, and everything’s hunky dory. So let’s get on with it,” Mr. Ford said.
The Premier added that he has a bet with Mr. Hoekstra – whom he says he likes – on the World Series: If the Toronto Blue Jays win, the U.S. Ambassador will wear a Jays jersey, and if the Los Angeles Dodgers win, Mr. Ford will wear a Dodgers jersey.
The Ontario ad campaign had a budget of $75-million, but Mr. Ford has said it will cost much less because the province pulled it Monday. It had 11.4 billion impressions over the past week through earned media such as news coverage and social media. An ad impression is the number of times an advertisement is shown to users, regardless of whether they click on it.
Before it was pulled, the ad ran during the first two games of the World Series over the weekend, which apparently set off the mercurial U.S. President.
Mr. Ford has said that Prime Minister Mark Carney, currently travelling in Asia, saw the ad before it aired, along with Mr. Carney’s chief of staff. The Prime Minister’s Office has yet to say whether Mr. Carney viewed the ad or had anything to say about it.
Asked Wednesday how he knew Mr. Carney had seen the ad beforehand, Mr. Ford replied: “I was with him.”