U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra participates in an interview at the United States Embassy in Ottawa on Dec. 9.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Peter Donolo is co-host of the Red Passport podcast. David Herle is the host of the Herle Burly podcast.
The official residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Canada is truly magnificent. Ringed by 10 acres of private, park-like grounds, the rambling mansion sits in splendid isolation from the surrounding Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood in Ottawa.
This winter, Canadians should give its current inhabitant, Pete Hoekstra, more time to discover its many charms. Much, much more time.
Since arriving in Canada last spring, Mr. Hoekstra has been very busy. To be precise, when it comes to Canada-U.S. relations, the ambassador has missed no opportunity to add insult to the continuing injury to our country wrought by President Donald Trump.
According to the U.S. ambassador, Canadians who have stopped vacationing in the United States are “mean and nasty.” He said it was “outrageous that you banned American products from your shelves” in response to Mr. Trump’s punishing tariffs. His President’s threat to make Canada the 51st state should apparently be viewed as a “term of endearment.” Mr. Hoekstra has declared that Canada has “burned the bridges with America,” and teed off on an Ontario public servant with an “expletive-laced tirade.”
To kick off the new year, he told a Montreal radio interviewer: “No, we don’t need Canada.” And just last week he warned that “NORAD would have to be altered” if we don’t buy U.S.-made F-35 jets.
Yet he professes to be mystified about the “anti-American” mood in Canada. “It is very, very difficult to find Canadians who are passionate about the American-Canadian relationship,” he lamented.
In sum, Mr. Hoekstra is the perfect representative for the Trump Administration: arrogant, imperious, ignorant and belligerent.
In some ways, this is the same modus operandi Mr. Hoekstra employed during Mr. Trump’s first term, when he served as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and was forced to apologize for spreading Islamophobic lies about Muslim immigrants creating “no-go zones” in that country. Or when he claimed – once again, falsely – that one of Hillary Clinton’s top aides was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Or even further back, when, as a congressman, he presented fake “evidence” of weapons of mass destruction to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Mr. Hoekstra was born in Groningen in the Netherlands, a town liberated from its brutal Nazi occupation by Canadian troops in April, 1945 – at the cost of 43 Canadian lives. When reminded of that fact last year in an interview with Politico, Mr. Hoekstra allowed: “They liberated my mom and dad, right? So that’s a big deal.” But the Ambassador’s gratitude is not exactly boundless. The interviewer proceeded to ask if it made him feel “more connected here.” His response: “Not in any particular way other than I know there’s a lot of Dutch here.” Oh, and another thing, Mr. Hoekstra added, Canadians were “envious” of the 1977 Hollywood film A Bridge Too Far, for highlighting the roles of the Americans and British in the liberation of the Netherlands.
Leah Eichler: How did the F-bomb take over politics?
Mr. Hoekstra’s loutishness is par for the course when it comes to Trump administration ambassadors (after all, the State Department recalled 30 of its professional foreign heads of mission in early January – for being, well, diplomatic). Like so much that is noxious about the Trump government, these attitudes have to be tolerated by the host government.
But what about the rest of us?
It is one thing for our government to put up with the Ambassador’s abuse and falsehoods. But why do chambers of commerce, lunch clubs and professional groups across the country continue to invite him to speak? Why do they ask people to pay good money to hear this Trump mini-me badmouth our country and gaslight its people? Is it a bizarre streak of masochism? A strange inferiority complex?
Whatever the cause, it’s time to give it a rest.
Instead of inviting Mr. Hoekstra to take his corrosive show on the road, let him spend the month of February enjoying all the warmth and comfort that a typical minus-20 degree Ottawa winter provides. Let’s give him – and his message – the actual and figurative cold shoulder they deserve.
It is, quite literally, the least we can do.
There was a time, five decades ago, when a U.S. ambassador could be rebuked in the House of Commons by our Prime Minister for going beyond “the acceptable bounds within which an ambassador should stay.” For reasons we all know, we live in a very different world today. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us need to operate under the same constraints.
Mr. Hoekstra has certainly earned a break from Canadians. Let’s give it to him.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the film A Bridge Too Far was released in 1997. It was released in 1977.