The Pot Calls the Kettle Black: Two Years of American Interference in Canadian Politics

Kevin J.S. Duska Jr. | Prime Rogue Inc | Calgary, AB | October 23, 2026

Full Spectrum: American Interference in Canadian Domestic Politics — Part 1

Washington’s embassy in Ottawa says Canadians must stay out of U.S. elections. Here is a dated record of what Washington has done to Canada’s since November 2024.

On October 21, 2026, the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa published a fact sheet, issued under the U.S. Mission’s name with no individual author, accusing Canadian politicians of trying to influence the November 3 midterms. Its closing line is a principle: “Americans decide America’s elections.”

Seven days earlier, on a rally stage in Bullhead City, Arizona, the President of the United States told the crowd Canada will “end up being the 51st state.” Albertans were five days from voting on whether to leave the country.

That is the pot calling the kettle black. This series documents the American side of the ledger: the annexation campaign, the election-day post, the State Department meetings with separatists, and the Michigan voter app that turned up in Alberta. Part 1 lays out the record.

Key takeaways

• The accusation: On October 21, 2026, the U.S. Embassy in Canada accused Mélanie Joly, Doug Ford and other Canadian officials of trying to influence the 2026 U.S. midterms through tariff strategy, ads and political meetings.
• The record: Since December 2024, Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Canada to become the “51st state,” including on the morning of Canada’s April 28, 2025 federal election and five days before Alberta’s October 19, 2026 referendum.
• Alberta: State Department staff met Alberta separatist leaders three times. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Alberta “a natural partner for the U.S.” Michigan Republican operatives worked in Alberta in 2026.
• The ambassador: U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra reposted Trump’s June 2026 “51st State!” post and has said Prime Minister Mark Carney saw the phrase as a “term of endearment.”
• The limit: No public evidence shows the U.S. government directed or funded Alberta separatism, and no federal security agency has publicly attributed foreign interference to the U.S. government.
• The verdict: By the embassy’s own standard, U.S. conduct toward Canadian politics goes far beyond anything it accuses Canada of doing.

What the embassy accused Canada of

The fact sheet lists nine items. Four are Industry Minister Mélanie Joly’s public remarks about aiming counter-tariffs at Republican states. Two are Ontario Premier Doug Ford: his August letter urging tariffs on “politically significant states” and Ontario’s 2025 Reagan ad. The rest are Liberal MP Anthony Housefather door-knocking in Florida, Boston Consul General Bernadette Jordan appearing with Vermont Democrats, and a 2025 federal billboard campaign.

It then names 11 Canadians charged or sentenced for illegal voting in U.S. elections, and claims Canada ranks “second highest” for such prosecutions. It attributes that ranking to the U.S. Department of Justice but publishes no dataset and, as Al Jazeera noted, no evidence tying any of those voters to the Canadian government.

The list is not even complete on its own terms. CBC News has since identified at least 15 Canadians caught up in the Justice Department’s noncitizen-voting crackdown, including cases the DOJ announced that the embassy did not mention.

Every item on the list was public, and nearly all of it was aimed at changing a U.S. trade policy. University of Toronto political scientist Randy Besco told the National Post the claims were “not credible at all.” He called Housefather’s Florida canvassing the only possible exception: legal, he said, but probably ill-advised. The federal ban on foreign election spending and its FEC rules target money and decision-making in campaigns, not lobbying or trade policy, and they exempt uncompensated volunteer work.

The embassy’s standard is broad, then: a minister’s public comments and an MP’s volunteer weekend can count as interference. Apply that standard to Washington’s own conduct toward Canada.

The annexation campaign: from “Governor Trudeau” to “economic force”

The annexation campaign began before Trump took office, and it was never a single throwaway line.

• December 10, 2024. After a Mar-a-Lago dinner, Trump posted on Truth Social about “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.” The sitting prime minister of a G7 ally was recast as a state governor.
• January 6, 2025. On the day Justin Trudeau announced his resignation, Trump posted that “many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State.” A December 2024 Leger poll, cited in CNN’s January 13 fact-check, found 82 per cent of Canadians opposed and 13 per cent in favour.
• January 7, 2025. Asked at Mar-a-Lago whether he would use military force to acquire Canada, Trump answered: “No — economic force.” “You get rid of that artificially drawn line,” he said.

Note the instrument he named. Economic force is the thread that runs through everything that follows: tariffs offered, withheld or raised depending on whether Canada stays Canada.

The 2025 federal election: “Elect the man”

Canada went to the polls on April 28, 2025, with annexation as a live campaign issue, and the White House kept it there.

• March 28, 2025. In his first call with newly installed Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump raised the 51st state. Carney confirmed it on April 24, mid-campaign, after Radio-Canada reported it: “The president brings this up all the time.”
• April 15, 2025. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the president “still maintains his position” that Canadians would benefit from becoming the 51st state.
• April 28, 2025, 9:36 a.m. On election morning, Trump posted on Truth Social urging Canadians to “elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half.” He promised “ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES” if Canada became “the cherished 51st State of the United States of America” and added: “IT WAS MEANT TO BE!”

A foreign head of state told Canadians how to vote while polls were open, and attached a tariff offer to an outcome that ended the country. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre answered the same day: “President Trump, stay out of our election.”

Canada’s election security task force later described foreign interference in that election as small-scale, focusing on China and Russia. Its framework targets covert and deceptive activity. In the public reporting, it did not address a president intervening openly, under his own name.

The ambassador as amplifier

Pete Hoekstra arrived in Ottawa as the former chair of the Michigan Republican Party. As ambassador, he has repeatedly treated Canadian domestic politics as his business.

• May 6, 2025. In the Oval Office, Carney said Canada “won’t be for sale, ever.” Trump replied “never say never.”
• June 30, 2025. The day after Ottawa announced it was rescinding its digital services tax under U.S. pressure, Hoekstra told CBC‘s Power & Politics the tax had been a “red line” and said Carney saw the 51st-state comments as a “term of endearment.” Asked whether Canadians should see it that way, he said they “can see it however they want.”
• 2025. Speaking to the Halifax Chamber of Commerce on September 18, 2025, Hoekstra called Canada’s federal election an “anti-American campaign.”
• October 2025. After Ontario’s Reagan ad aired in the U.S., Trump ended trade talks and announced an additional 10 per cent tariff. Economic punishment for a provincial government’s political speech is now listed by the embassy as Canadian “interference.”
• June 2, 2026. After Trump posted “51st State!” over a story about Canada’s technical recession, Hoekstra reposted it from his official account. The next day he explained that his job is to represent the president of the United States, and that his team reposts Trump’s content about Canada.

That last point cuts against the fact sheet. If the ambassador’s job is to carry the president’s views into Canada, then the president’s views on absorbing Canada are official U.S. messaging to Canadians, delivered by the embassy that now warns Canadians off American politics.

Alberta: where the rhetoric met the ground

Alberta is the strongest documented case of Americans inside a Canadian domestic campaign. Albertans voted to remain in Canada on October 19, 2026, by 74.9 to 25.1 per cent, 1,549,768 votes to 519,208, with 99 per cent of voting areas reporting. Official results are due October 29. Here is what preceded that vote.

The State Department meetings. Leaders of the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project met State Department officials in Washington three times in 2025, on April 22, September 29 and December 16, according to APP co-founder Dennis Modry. APP lawyer Jeffrey Rath told the Financial Times in January 2026 that officials they met left to go “directly to the Oval Office,” a claim that has not been substantiated. A senior State official told NBC News the meetings were staff-level only, no principals were involved and no commitments were made.

The Treasury Secretary. On January 22, 2026, at Davos, in an interview with Real America’s Voice host Jack Posobiec, Scott Bessent said that the U.S. should “let them come down,” calling Alberta “a natural partner for the U.S.” The Canadian Press called him the highest-ranking Trump administration official to weigh in at that point. A person familiar with his views told NBC he neither supports nor opposes separation. B.C. Premier David Eby called the separatists’ Washington meetings treason.

The app. On April 29, 2026, Centurion Project founder David Parker launched a voter-contact app in Edmonton. Elections Alberta alleges it drew on the protected provincial voter list, covering close to three million Albertans. The agency had emailed a cease-and-desist the day before and served it in person at the launch; a court injunction followed on April 30. Parker’s lawyer has accused Elections Alberta of circulating a fictional narrative. Parker called it “the 10x slash the Centurion Project app,” after the Michigan platform 10X Votes. Hoekstra had promoted 10X Votes at a November 2024 Michigan rally. He says he has “zero involvement” with 10X Votes in Canada. National Observer later found Alberta voter data on the website of the U.S. company linked to Centurion. The RCMP, Elections Alberta and Alberta’s privacy commissioner opened investigations; none has produced public findings or charges as of publication. Separately, Elections Alberta is seeking an injunction to compel the Alberta Prosperity Project to disclose its finances and donors.

The operatives. An October 3, 2026 Globe and Mail investigation found Republican operatives from Michigan, including 10X Votes founders Drew Born and Drew Wierda, on the ground in Alberta helping the separatist campaign. It also reported, citing APP co-founder Dennis Modry, that APP leaders offered the State Department access to fresh water and oil royalties in exchange for help with independence. Rath called that account a lie, the White House said no support or commitments were offered, and no deal was reached.

The information space. Researchers with the Cipher AI project at the universities of Regina and Alberta, led by Brian McQuinn, found the U.S. share of suspected foreign influence content around the referendum rose to 24 per cent from late September, with Russia at 76 per cent. An Angus Reid poll conducted October 13 to 15 found 65 per cent of Albertans believed foreign interference affected the campaign.

The capstone. On October 14, five days before the vote, Trump said Canada will end up the 51st state. In a podcast episode released the same day, Hoekstra said Canadians should keep their “nose out” of American politics.

Quebec, Musk and the private actors

Alberta was not the only front, though the evidence elsewhere is thinner.

• Quebec, spring 2026. U.S. officials approached the CAQ government about a separate arrangement with Quebec on CUSMA-related sectors. Premier Christine Fréchette said she shut the door immediately.
• Quebec, September 2026. Fréchette’s party contacted CSIS after a little-known think tank based in Arlington, Va., the Defense Analyses and Research Corporation, published essays urging Americans to back Quebec sovereigntists. Her office later said her team had received no information confirming interference. The Parti Québécois accused the CAQ of leaking the material, and Fréchette called a staffer’s passing of the essays to journalists ill-advised. The essays are anonymous advocacy, not U.S. policy.
• October 7, 2026. Two days after the Parti Québécois won a minority government in Quebec, Elon Musk posted that Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan should separate. Carney replied the next day that Canada’s future would be decided free of foreign governments and large tech firms. Musk holds no government post.
• September 29, 2026. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro warned Canada it would “pay even more dearly” if it interfered in races in Maine or Michigan, and accused Carney and Ford of trash-talking Trump out of political self-interest.

Navarro’s line is the template for the fact sheet: an American official commenting on Canadian leaders’ domestic popularity while accusing them of meddling in his country’s.

The fact sheet test

The embassy set the standard. Here is how each side measures against it.

What the embassy calls Canadian interference	What U.S. officials and operatives did in Canadian politics
Joly said counter-tariffs target Republican states to apply political pressure	Trump offered “ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES” if Canada became the 51st state, on election morning, April 28, 2025
MP Anthony Housefather volunteered for a Florida Democrat’s primary campaign	State Department staff met Alberta separatist leaders three times; Michigan operatives worked the Alberta campaign
Consul General Bernadette Jordan appeared only with Democrats at a tariff roundtable	Ambassador Hoekstra reposted Trump’s “51st State!” and called the 2025 Canadian election “anti-American”
Ford’s Reagan ad argued against tariffs in U.S. markets	Treasury Secretary Bessent called Alberta “a natural partner for the U.S.”
Ottawa said Canada never interferes in U.S. elections	Trump said Canada will be the 51st state, five days before Alberta voted; in a podcast released that day, Hoekstra told Canadians to keep their “nose out”

The left column is a country fighting a trade war in public. The right column is the government of a neighbouring state commenting on, and in places engaging with, the question of whether that country should continue to exist.

Canada argued about tariffs. The United States argued about Canada.

What the record does not show

A fair ledger names its own gaps. These matter, and this series will keep testing them.

• No proof of direction. No public evidence shows the U.S. government directed, funded or coordinated the Michigan operatives or the Centurion app. Hoekstra denies involvement.
• Disputed meetings. The State Department meetings are confirmed. What was offered in them is contested, and Washington says no commitments were made.
• No formal finding. To date, no federal security agency has publicly attributed foreign interference to the U.S. government. Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner Anton Boegman has said the State meetings predate the registry and fall outside it.
• Private is not official. Musk, the 10X Votes founders and the Virginia think tank are private Americans, not the U.S. government.
• Open statements are not covert operations. Most of Trump’s conduct was public. That makes it more brazen, not more secret, and it is why Canada’s security framework, built for covert threats, has struggled to name it.

None of those caveats rescues the fact sheet. The embassy’s own test does not require covert action or proof of direction. It counts public statements by officials. On that test, the American record is the heavier one by a wide margin.

How Ottawa answered, and what Canadians think

Ottawa’s public answer to the fact sheet was restraint. Its quieter answer was to flinch.

• Carney did not engage with the list. He said the U.S. started the trade actions and Canada’s response protects Canadian workers and families.
• Joly told The Globe and Mail she was doing her job standing up for Canada. Speaking to CBC News on October 22, she added that she had met Republicans as well as Democrats, which the embassy left out.
• Global Affairs Canada told diplomats in an October 20 memo to avoid public appearances with U.S. candidates before November 3 and to seek clearance before sharing a room with them. The department described it as regular business.
• Former Liberal MP John McKay, a past co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group, called the accusations absurd. Former ambassador Louise Blais called the fact sheet “totally novel.” Senator Andrew Cardozo called the list “a little bit hyper-sensitive” but said the U.S. has “got a point, to some extent.”

Canadians, meanwhile, made up their minds long ago. In a Nanos survey for Bloomberg in early 2026, 55 per cent named the U.S. as the greatest threat to Canada’s security, against 15 per cent for China and 14 per cent for Russia. A Nanos poll for The Globe and Mail, published July 1, found “influence from the United States” ranked as the top threat to national unity, ahead of the Alberta referendum itself.

A House of Commons petition, e-7531, asks the government to declare Hoekstra persona non grata. Its grounds include his “anti-American” description of Canada’s election, his link to 10X Votes, the State Department meetings with Alberta separatists, and his accusing Canada of interfering in U.S. politics. As of October 23 it had 279,683 validated signatures, and it closes November 18.

Frequently asked questions

What did the U.S. Embassy accuse Canada of in October 2026?

On October 21, 2026, the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa published a fact sheet accusing Canadian officials, including Industry Minister Mélanie Joly and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, of trying to influence the 2026 U.S. midterm elections. It cited tariff targeting of Republican states, Ontario’s Reagan ad, meetings with Democrats, and 11 Canadians charged with illegal voting.

Has the United States interfered in Canadian politics?

U.S. officials have repeatedly intervened publicly in Canadian politics since late 2024. President Trump called for Canada to become the 51st state, including on election day in April 2025. State Department staff met Alberta separatist leaders, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Alberta “a natural partner.” No federal security agency has publicly attributed foreign interference to the U.S. government, and U.S. government direction of separatist activity has not been proven.

What did Trump say during Canada’s 2025 federal election?

On the morning of April 28, 2025, Trump posted on Truth Social urging Canadians to elect a leader who would cut taxes, and offered “ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES” if Canada became “the cherished 51st State of the United States of America.”

Were Americans involved in the 2026 Alberta referendum?

Yes. A Globe and Mail investigation found Michigan Republican operatives working with the Alberta separatist campaign, and an app modelled on the Michigan platform 10X Votes was used by the Centurion Project. Albertans voted to remain in Canada on October 19, 2026, by 74.9 per cent to 25.1 per cent, with 99 per cent of voting areas reporting; official results are due October 29.

Is Canada’s tariff strategy election interference under U.S. law?

Not on its face. U.S. federal law bars foreign nationals from spending money in U.S. elections or directing campaigns. It does not bar foreign governments from lobbying, running issue ads or targeting retaliatory tariffs.

Who is Pete Hoekstra?

Pete Hoekstra is the U.S. ambassador to Canada, a former Michigan congressman and former chair of the Michigan Republican Party. A House of Commons petition, e-7531, asks Ottawa to declare him persona non grata.

Liner notes

Full Spectrum Soundtrack, Track 1: Dillinger Four, “The Great American Going Out of Business Sale.”

I first heard it at 17, in 2002, at L’X in Montreal, nursing a forty of Labatt 50 the way my grandpa Steve, the Rusyan peasant who raised me, would have endorsed once I was of age – but he didn’t care even then. I traded a du Maurier for a Lucky Strike with Paddy, who then played most of the set fully naked. I regretted smoking a filterless cigarette for the rest of the night. Thank goodness his ballsack was not yet hanging below his bass.

It’s four Minneapolis punks taking apart the story their own country tells itself, decades before a U.S. embassy told Canadians to keep their noses out. It hits harder now than it did then.

Two lines have stuck with me for more than two decades.

A man finds nothing left to eat, another sells his body for a place to sleep
As Klansmen flood a conference hall downtown

When I first heard that line it sounded like a warning. Twenty years later it read like a forecast. In August 2017, white nationalists didn’t even bother booking the hall. They marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, by torchlight for the Unite the Right rally, and the next day one of them drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters and killed Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal. Days later, the President of the United States said there were “very fine people on both sides.” The song’s point was never that hatred hides. It’s that it walks in the front door, and too many people at the top find a way to shrug.

I think of a story my father told me
About a fella he know in the Army
The Pentagon traded him checks for both his legs
“Fuck the States” was the last thing father heard he had said

The song saves its bitterest verdict for an American who paid for the country’s wars with his own body. That’s why it lands for this series. The sharpest critique of American self-mythology doesn’t come from Ottawa, or Alberta, or me. It comes from inside: from a vet, from a kid repeating his father’s story, from four punks in Minnesota who’d seen enough by 1997 to stop playing along.

Lyrics quoted for commentary. Dillinger Four (1998) “The Great American Going Out of Business Sale,” from Midwestern Songs of the Americas, Hopeless Records.

Every part of Full Spectrum gets a track. Turn it up, and support the bands by buying some vinyl.

Sources

• U.S. Embassy Ottawa — Fact Sheet: Monitoring Canadian Activities in U.S. Politics
• CP24 — Trump says Canada will end up being the 51st state
• CP24 — U.S. embassy accuses Canadian politicians of interfering
• Al Jazeera — US accuses Canada of election interference ahead of midterms
• Global News — Trump calls Trudeau governor of the “Great State of Canada”
• Global News — Trudeau resigns; Trump says Canadians “love” being the 51st state
• The Globe and Mail — Trump would use “economic force” to annex Canada
• CBC — Carney confirms Trump raised 51st state in first call
• CBC — Trump’s election-day Truth Social post
• Global News — Poilievre: “stay out of our election”
• CBC — SITE Task Force on foreign interference in the 2025 election
• CBS News — Carney and Trump in the Oval Office
• CBC — Hoekstra on the DST and 51st-state talk
• CBC — Hoekstra calls election campaign “anti-American”
• CBC — Trump revives 51st state; Hoekstra reposts
• NBC News — Alberta separatists’ meetings with Trump officials
• The Globe and Mail — Bessent calls Alberta a natural partner
• PressProgress — Separatist voter app linked to U.S. ambassador
• National Observer — Alberta voter data and 10X Votes
• The Globe and Mail — Republican operatives in Alberta
• The Globe and Mail — Jump in U.S. influence campaigns before the Alberta vote
• CBC — Alberta referendum results
• CP24 — Fréchette on U.S. interference allegations
• CBC — Musk backs Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan separation
• CBC — Navarro warns Canada
• CBC — Embassy alleges Canadian election interference
• CBC — Canadian diplomats told to avoid midterm candidates
• The Globe and Mail — Joly pushes back
• The Hill Times — Absurd, or a reason for caution?
• Bloomberg — Canadians see U.S. as bigger threat than China
• The Globe and Mail — U.S. influence tops national-unity threats
• House of Commons — Petition e-7531
• 52 U.S.C. § 30121 — Foreign national contributions ban

• National Post (via Yahoo) — Joly, Ford, Housefather among Canadians named; Besco comments
• CBC — Canadians caught up in Trump crackdown on noncitizen voting
• Yahoo/CP — Trump maintains position on Canada becoming 51st state (Leavitt, April 15, 2025)
• CTV — Hoekstra disappointed by “anti-American” rhetoric (Sept. 18, 2025)
• CBC — Elections Alberta and the electors list
• National Observer — Secret voter list sparks court crackdown, RCMP investigation
• The Globe and Mail — Elections Alberta seeks injunction against separatist group
• Angus Reid Institute — Alberta referendum, Oct. 13–15 survey
• Global News — Quebec election and U.S. interference
• Global News — Carney responds to Musk (Oct. 8, 2026)
• U.S. News — Parti Québécois projected to win (minority)
• CBC — Foreign influence commissioner on Alberta separatism

• CNN — Fact check: Trump’s false claims about Canada (Jan. 13, 2025)
• Financial Times — Trump officials met group pushing Alberta independence from Canada (Jan. 2026)
• Toronto Sun (via Yahoo) — Hoekstra: “keep your nose out” (podcast released Oct. 14, 2026)