Article by Rebel News staff.

Rebel News boss Ezra Levant recently sat down for an exclusive interview with U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra, discussing a wide range of topics during the conversation.

The pair touched on issues like Prime Minister Mark Carney fanning the flames of anti-Americanism, Canada's strained relationship with the U.S., Albertan independence, energy production, and even the state of legacy media outlets over the course of 60 minutes.

Below is a full transcript of Levant and Hoekstra's discussion.

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EZRA LEVANT:

So without any more ado, let me show for you the unedited interview, the full show, one hour with U.S. Ambassador Hoekstra. Take a look. Ambassador, thanks so much for having us over to your beautiful home.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Government's home. It's not mine. We get to live here for a little while, but it's government housing at its finest.

EZRA LEVANT:

That's the right attitude. Yeah. I want to just ask about how I can —

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Ask whatever you want. Ground rules are, you ask whatever you want, I'll answer whatever I want.

EZRA LEVANT:

That's great enough. I mean, the first thing is, how did I get to be here? I mean, in Canada, only government approved journalists are allowed into government press conferences. We're barred.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

You're not government approved?

EZRA LEVANT:

No.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

How did he get in here? I only usually talk to government approved. That's not true.

EZRA LEVANT:

You know what? That's because almost every journalist in Canada is government approved. Some of our reporters have even been arrested for asking questions of government officials. I understand you've talked to other citizen journalists too, like Jasmine Laine, for example. What is your thinking towards independent citizen journalists? Because it's obviously different than Canada's thinking.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah. Well, I've been here almost 11 months now, not that anybody's counting, but you start out and you talk to traditional media. I put it in question marks, whether it's mainstream media. And my experience was some of it was very good and some of it was not. And I had this experience when I was in the House of Representatives. And I'm not saying this is how all Canadian media works, but I think some of it.

And in the House, I think it's probably similar to Parliament. There's a place where the press hangs out and the members of parliament or in our case, members of Congress walk by these folks and they start yelling at you, "Hey, come talk to me. Come talk to me,
Man."

I went over to a guy who called me over and I said, "Who are you with? " And he says, "The New York Times." And I said, "Oh, I don't talk to you guys." And he said, "Why not? " I said, "Because I typically give you about 20 minutes. You ask lots of questions. I give you 20 minutes and then I read the story the next day and you've taken my quote correctly. The words are right, but you've taken them totally out of context and stick them somewhere where it has no relevance, but it makes it look like I'm either trashing or supporting a policy. It's an unfair characterization of what I said. And so why would I waste my time?"

And I've had too many cases with some of the mainstream media where that's been closer to my experience than not.

EZRA LEVANT:

Here in Canada?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Here in Canada. And it's like, why waste my time? OK. I mean, if they're going to take your comments, put them out of context and some cases actually change them.

And why would I go talk to media that says the American hockey team, they are monkeys? Is that professional journalism? And we ask for a retraction or an apology and it's kind of like, no. It's kind of like, OK. But do I expect those same folks to give the U.S. or me a fair shake? And the answer is no.

So in most cases, we look for other ways for people that at least give me a fair shake, give America a fair shake to tell our story. So someone must have said, "This Ezra guy, he'll give us a fair shake. He may or may not agree with what you say, but at least he'll give you a fair shake and provide you with the opportunity to tell America's story the way we want it told, and then he can react to it whatever way he wants."

You don't need to agree. I don't care. I spent 18 years in Congress debating and arguing with people who disagreed with me and sometimes we'd reach a resolution, sometimes not, but that's why. That's why you're here.

EZRA LEVANT:

Well, I'm glad to be here. And our motto is “telling the other side of the story.” So we'll try and do that today. There's always been anti-Americanism in Canada. I think it goes back to the United Empire loyalists who lost an American Revolutionary War and all came up to Canada. So there was a bit of an antipathy even 250 years ago, but I've never seen it this acute. I've never seen it as vicious.

You mentioned some of the personal insults towards any Canadians who might be on a U.S. sports team or something. Why is anti-Americanism at an all-time high? That's just not my opinion.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

I think the polls show that it's 90% of Canadians have a negative opinion of the U.S.

EZRA LEVANT:

I don't know if it's that high, but I'd be willing to believe it. And it's actually higher in some polls than antipathy towards China, Communist China. What's going on?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

I don't know. You'll have to ask Canadian people.

EZRA LEVANT:

Well, you're here to observe for 11 months. Is it natural? Is it part of a...

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Not natural at all. I mean, the good thing, I mean, that's the public opinion. So you're here for 11 months. You've got a couple of groups that are very, very, very consistently pro-American and you say, "Who is that?"

EZRA LEVANT:

Just trying to think, who on earth could you be talking about?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Anybody who touches the defence world. If you're in the Canadian military or whatever, if you're working with your equivalent of NSA, I think it's CSIS, you're working at NORAD, you go there. I mean, they're working side by side and it's kind of like they're totally pro-American because they see what they're doing.

Every day they're keeping America and Canada, North America, they're keeping America safe. You talk about the relationship between your Coast Guard and our Coast Guard. A couple of weeks ago, there were a couple of crazy Canadians.

I'll probably get sued, right? But they were out on Lake St. Clair and they looked behind them and they was kind of like, "Where'd the ice bridge go? " The ice broke off.

And so Canadian Coast Guard called U.S. Coast Guard and they said, "Hey, who's got a helicopter? Go pick these guys up." It's like, "Oh, there's an American helicopter. We'll go pick them up and we'll drop them off in Windsor." Worked perfect.

We had a US Coast Guard guy that was being lowered in a basket to a ship off of the coast of Washington and the cable broke. He fell down, I think 50, 60 feet and was severely injured. He did end up dying. So there's a mad rush of people calling and saying, "Hey, who can pick this guy up and get him to a hospital?"

It was the Canadians. Canadians come pick him up. They take him to Victoria. They recognize he's in severe condition. This is really a bad ... They go the extra mile. They go and they fly, they get his family, they get them to Victoria.

Awesome. Close cooperation. He passes away, but the Canadians went over and above what they really needed to do because it was, "Hey, we're helping in America."

But the other group, you got to let me finish — I give long answers.

EZRA LEVANT:

Yeah, go ahead.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

But the other group is the business community. The business community, I've not yet run into a business that has said, "Oh man, we hate doing business with the United States. We are absolutely thrilled that Canada's new direction is, forget about the USA and we're going to go sell to Europe, we're going to go sell to Asia and all of that."

It's like, "Phew, boy, that's going to be a great deal for us." And they come back and say, "We actually love doing business with America. We've grown our business, people on both sides of the border, and we've created a lot of wealth and a lot of jobs on both sides of the border. We want to take and build this relationship. We've been trying for years to sell into Europe."

You think we don't recognize that diversity of a customer base is a positive thing, but we've gone to Europe and we found that to be a very closed market. Asia is just a tough market to enter into.

So we're expanding our market. Yeah, we'll do business in New York. We've now expanded. We're doing business in Michigan. We're doing it in Texas. We're doing it in Florida and those kinds of things. So yeah, we're diversifying our markets, but we really like doing business with the US.

So those are, I think, two pillars of the relationship that have really, really stayed in place and they want that relationship to stay in place. It's in the media and it's in the political class that are kind of bringing that all into question, the relationship with America for the long term.

EZRA LEVANT:

I want to come back to the business part a little bit later, but you talked about military cooperation and it's true that NORAD is a close working relationship between the two countries, but overwhelmingly the equipment, the fighter jets, it's American. And recently Prime Minister Carney has talked about breaking away from American F-35s, for example, and looking at Swedish fighter jets.

And he's talking about a European military bank, he's calling it. And I'm wondering how much of that is anti-American posturing? How much is for real? Is he really pivoting away from the NORAD partnership? What do you make of him dealing with other countries besides the U.S.?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

It's fine. Okay? That's a Canadian decision, all right? We think they're going to buy F-35s. Okay. It just makes for the whole mission of NORAD, for the whole mission of protecting North America and those types of things, if you're flying an F-35 and it's got a Canadian logo on it, the Canadian flag on it, and something happens and it needs to land, it lands at a military base in the US. Great. We can service it. It'll be back up in the air.

If you're flying someone else's plane, same kind of issue, you got to land. Hey, yeah, landed it. Of course we host you at an American military base, help you and all of that. Then put your plane on a truck and we'll truck it back to Canada and figure out how to get it under the overpasses and all of that and across the bridges.

And when you get it back to Canada, you guys can fix it. But we got to integrate it. It's the model of NORAD, but we're concerned about it as well. And I'll give you the most recent example.

The reinvestment of, I think, like $32 billion in the Arctic. And we're going, yes, that's money that needs to be spent and invested in the Arctic. And the statement coming out is, "And we're going to defend the Arctic on our own."

EZRA LEVANT:

That's a statement from Canada, you're saying?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah, from Canada and the press release. Read it. We're going to defend the Arctic by ourselves. And it's kind of like you look at the map and it's like, wow, that's a big area to defend. Canada's a big country. And if you want to defend it on your own, that's okay. And then they went over to —

EZRA LEVANT:

Greenland?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

No, they went over to Norway. And it's kind of like they signed an agreement and said, "Okay, for that part of the Arctic, we're going to defend it with Canada plus the Nordic five." It's kind of like, okay, we don't play a role in that and we don't know.

We thought that defending the Arctic would be something that we could all do together, but if it's Canada and the Nordic five or Canada doesn't want us to be part of defending the Canadian part of the Arctic, that's a Canadian decision. We will defend our northern borders from Alaska down to the lower 48. We'll defend our northern border. We think the most effective place to defend Canada and the US is to do it together.

But if Canada wants to go another direction, they're free to do that.

EZRA LEVANT:

Maybe my antenna are very sensitive for anti-Americanism, but I see Mark Carney doing things that you just described, setting up a Canadian consulate in Greenland. There's only 16 Canadians who live in Greenland. We don't need a consulate.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

I bet they're going to get really good service.

EZRA LEVANT:

Well, little things that I think are designed just to prick and poke at the U.S., partly for the enjoyment of anti-American voters. But I don't know. Sometimes I think it's more than just symbolic. What did you understand Mark Carney to mean when he went to China and his friend, Xi Jinping, who he's done business with when he ran Brookfield, he says, "We want to be part of a new world order," his words, "A pivot to China."

What does that mean to you as an American in terms of defence and security and espionage and industrial espionage? What did that mean to you when you saw that clip?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

New world orders in the US, especially among conservatives, raises a lot of red flags. But Mark Carney, from our perspective, it's not our job to evaluate Mark Carney on the words he says and those types of things.

It's going to be on ... this is the decisions that are made by this government in Canada and the decisions that are made in the US by this administration that will define the relationship for a period of time. And some of the decisions, obviously, if they're going for a new world order, which is Canada starts moving in direction of China, which I do not think will happen, okay? I mean —

EZRA LEVANT:

It might not happen in terms of trade, but if it happens in terms of just expressing an affinity for a totalitarian regime or an authoritarian regime. I don't believe ... 

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

That's where the Canadians are. Okay.

EZRA LEVANT:

What about when Carney says the relationship with the United States is ruptured? I mean ...

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

I mean, I've said all along for 11 months that I've been here. Again, if this government views it as a rupture, they will make certain kinds of decisions. We don't view it as a rupture. We had issues that we needed to take care of the United States. We have to reinvest. In some parts of the country, especially in Michigan and the Rust Belt and some of our core industries and manufacturing capabilities have been hollowed out.

President Donald Trump has said, "We are going to reestablish those core capabilities in the United States, and we need to do that to keep America strong and safe." We have some budget issues. And so for a whole set of reasons, we said, "We've got to change our approach to trade." And we changed that approach to trade for every single country in the world.

I mean, sometimes you listen here and you're attacking Canada, attacking Canada, attacking Canada. It's kind of like, "No, we changed our approach on trade and we did it for everybody in the whole world." And Canada has responded in such a way that it says that it's ruptured and that's leading them to diversify the countries that they want to do business with, which includes Europe, which includes China and those types of things.

And as we read it, in some cases, it's like, okay, they keep talking about doubling trade with doubling exports to non-US markets. And in reality, even if they do that, they're still going to be doing a lot of business with the US, but we welcome ... A strong Canada is good for the United States. So if you double your exports to other countries, that's okay, but I don't know why you can't do both.

EZRA LEVANT:

I think because you're from Michigan, the auto state of America, you understand those issues at top of mind and you deal with businessmen alike. But I want to talk for a minute about the other piece of President Trump's concern about the northern border, which is security, not just votes, but terrorism.

Just a few days ago, the United States put sanctions on a Canadian based company that was allegedly a front for an enormous amount of funds being diverted to Hezbollah, the terrorist group. There are terrorist style shootings of synagogues and Jewish schools almost every week.

The US consulate in Toronto was hit with a hail of gunfire. Now, we don't know who perpetrated these, but we know from reports that there are 700 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps agents in Canada, which tells me that we probably know who they are if we can count them.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

If we can count them...

EZRA LEVANT:

Yeah. And then there's the China factor interfering according to CSIS in 11 different electoral districts. And I wonder if we are as reliable on the security and intelligence and counterterrorism side as we need to be to maintain the trust that you would expect from a fellow Five Eyes country.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah. And you've got to remember that some of the folks that may be on your watch list or whatever may be our problem because we had an open border for four years, where people like that could easily cross the border. And so some of those people may have actually crossed the border on our southern border and made their way to this place up north that has five and six month winters.

I'm not quite sure why they ... It's one thing that surprises ... We've gone now through a five- or six-month winter with no thaw. We don't have that in Michigan. We're used to winter. Now, our upper peninsula is used to that, but I can tell you that on a lot of these fronts, on the security thing, Canada's awesome.

EZRA LEVANT:

Okay. I'm glad to hear that. Certainly that's happening beneath the radar then, because I don't see it in the public domain.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah.

EZRA LEVANT:

I suppose that's the nature of espionage.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah. I spent 10 years on our intel committee. I chaired it for a while. Canada is a very, very reliable partner and we all have our strengths. Canada's not good at everything because the intelligence world is a huge space, but the Canadians are awesome.

EZRA LEVANT:

I'm glad to hear that.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

At some of the stuff that complement our skills and capabilities. And so we're very appreciative in that space for what Canadians do and continue to do.

EZRA LEVANT:

You referred to the open southern US bordering from which who knows came, but Canada by some measures has an open border too. Reports show that so-called asylum seekers are not vetted at all in many cases. And I mentioned that the 700 Iranian agents.

It seems to me that the problem that President Trump was trying to solve at the borders is a problem in Canada. I mean, I'm sure you saw the news that in Toronto, there will now be paramilitary style police guards at places like Jewish synagogues because the violence is so bad.

And I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about the deterioration of Canada into what appears to be foreign motivated violence. I don't know if, that's a guess on my part because none of these people have been caught. Who shot up the US consulate? Do you know?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

No. No. Again, that's a Canadian policing responsibility.

EZRA LEVANT:

Are you looking into it too, because that sure feels like an act of international, an international state-based action.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Let's wait and see until we get more in. I mean, it's been a while. Okay? It's been three, four weeks. You think we would've hoped that we would've had more information we don't have. I'm not ready to go there yet and say this was state sponsored terrorism against the US.

EZRA LEVANT:

What do you make of European style paramilitary guards necessary in front of Jewish institutions? That's very un-Canadian.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

That's for the Canadians. It's not my opinion to make judgements about the Canadians. Okay. What we will do at the embassy and what our administration will do is we'll look at what the threat environment evolves to in Canada to determine whether we need to beef up our border security because those folks might ... That's our responsibility, who comes into the US.

Who comes into Canada is a Canadian issue, but if the threat environment goes one way or the other, then it becomes our responsibility in terms of how we respond to that. The threat environment from Canada goes up, maybe we put in some more precautions on the border going into the US.

I think in many ways we try to get ... We have discussions with Canada and it's kind of like it'd be better for both of us if who we allowed into our countries, we were more aligned.

Doesn't mean we have to be perfect, but we were more aligned so that the being receptive to refugees and those types of things, that we were more aligned so that the threat environment is relatively the same so that we can continue a relatively free flow across our borders.

We don't want to toughen our borders with Canada unless we have to.

EZRA LEVANT:

I saw the announcement by the US government that in terms of foreign asylum seekers, it will pretty much be restricted to the Boers of South Africa, the white Dutch farmers who have been targeted with racially motivated hate laws really. And I know that the first flights of the Boer farmers have landed in America. I know that there's a lot of Jews in Toronto who feel like it's untenable to continue to live there.

Obviously, it's not the same as what's happening to the Boers, but if this antisemitic crime wave in Canada continues, do you think the US government would be open to having a category for Canadian Jews who are, like the Boers, they're employable, they're not going to be a burden on the state. Would the US consider giving asylum to Canadian Jews who are afraid of the antisemitic crime wave?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

I don't think in the current environment. I think to reach that level and to equate the Jewish population in Canada to what the Boers are facing in South Africa, that's a pretty tough place to equate the two. Okay?

EZRA LEVANT:

I hope it doesn't accelerate in Canada.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah, so do we. We hope that the commitments from the government to protect the Jewish population and make sure that they feel safe and secure. And the most important thing that, because I've met with a lot of folks in the Jewish community and they don't worry about themselves.

They worry about, and they want Canada to continue to be the place where their kids and grandkids can live. I don't envision Canada getting to that point where — I'm not Jewish. I don't live in that environment. I'm not living in the community. I live in this government housing. So I'm really not the best person to talk about that, but at this point, I don't think that's anything that's even close to being on the radar screen in Washington.

EZRA LEVANT:

Okay. I'm glad to hear it. Now you have mentioned before you come from Michigan, for two decades, you were a Congressman there. And my understanding is the auto industry is pretty integrated between Canada and the US. The same car might go back and forth across the bridge.

So it really is connected, and that's been to Canada's great benefit for decades. I mean, to have that kind of access under the autopack for really the better part of a century. But as you said, President Trump wants the jobs to repatriate. He wants those heavy industries back in America.

And to look at it another way, there are no electoral college votes in Ontario. And I wonder if you can answer this for Canadians who love those jobs and love the industry and love how it's been for so long, is there a future for car factories on the Canadian side or is it inevitable that they become repatriated down to Michigan, Ohio, other places?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

That's not inevitable. Depending on the year, I think it's like 400,000 to 600,000 cars more from imported in from Canada than what we export to Canada. Canada is not our problem with autos. You have a phenomenal story to tell to our US trade rep about, here's why Canada deserves to be in the lowest tariff bucket in terms of doing trade with the United States.

We're awesome at making car parts. We have similar labour laws, similar way scales, technology and all of that. So we can integrate with your auto industry, which you've done.

For rebuilding the auto industry, you don't start with Canada. Cars going across the border, 50, 75% US content. Those are the kind of cars we like coming in to fix the car issue in the US. And the reason we got it, we want a car industry is because it was the car industry that mobilized for World War II.

It was a car industry that actually mobilized Ford, I think, started making these ventilators during COVID.

EZRA LEVANT:

They need the heavy industry.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah. And so they're making cars one day and the next day they've taken a line, or I'm sure it's not aligned, but they've taken a lot of their engineering capability and all of that and said, okay, instead of building an Escape tomorrow, you're building a ventilator.

And they figured it out. That's why you need and why the president is so insistent on having that capability. But to main that capability, our biggest threats are from Korea, Japan, Mexico.

So we've got to work on ... Those are the places where you really can move some numbers in getting car production here back into the US. And then we've got to figure out what we're going to do with China, because that's the biggest threat.

EZRA LEVANT:

Well, in his visit, his new world order visit to Beijing, Prime Minister Mark Carney conceded something that had never been done, allowing 49,000 Chinese made vehicles into the Canadian market every year.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

I think it goes up to 70 some thousand, but whatever. Yeah.

EZRA LEVANT:

I'd like your thoughts on that from a trade point of view, from a negotiations point of view, and from a security point of view.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

I think those cars can come in from China, come into Canada. They're not going to cross the border into the US. China's imports brought to you through Canada, into the US, Chinese airports or imports, that ain't going to happen. Okay?

The Canadians are going to buy ... If anybody buys those cars, it's going to be Canadians. And you guys will have to take a look at it. I'm rather a simple guy on some of this stuff. It's kind of like, okay, if you're buying 49,000 cars that are made in China, that means that you're probably not going to be buying 49,000 cars that were built in Ontario. Okay. That's a Canadian decision — 49,000 cars is not enough cars to build a factory.

Again, I'm a marketing guy. I'm not an engineer, but my understanding in talking to folks in the auto industry that if you really want to build to scale a car plant where the efficiencies and all of that in, you got to be at least at a quarter of a million cars.

You're not going to build a factory for ... Maybe the Chinese will, but you're not going to build a factory to build 49,000 cars. But those are decisions that Canada has to make. You had other factors in play like exports of canola.

EZRA LEVANT:

Yeah.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Canola that played into this and other tariffs, but we're not going to get involved in that, but we know that we're not going to open the floodgates to have Chinese cars coming into the US from Canada. That ain't going to happen. And so security standpoint, with the technology that they now have built into cars, and I think some insurance companies or some states are looking at when you go out and buy your licence plates, it's going to be dependent on how many miles you drive per year.

And that number's not going to be derived from a form that you fill out that says, "Oh, I drove 11,500 miles last year." It'll come from some data that they're getting that has tracked your car for the last year. And they said, "Yeah, you said you drove 11,500. We're tracking it. You drove 13,321 miles and here's exactly where you went."

And so I would expect coming out of the intelligence world, that car driving around from China, it's a great gobbler of data and information. And it's consuming and getting information and at times it will be sending information.

EZRA LEVANT:

I think some people were surprised that the prime minister gave that concession to China, given that the auto industry is negotiating hard to maintain its position with the United States and to throw that bone to China with the security aspect you referred to, but just playing old buying 49,000 cars, it felt like a diplomatic, not a provocation, but just sort of a jab.

And I'm worried that some of the anti-Americanism that we've talked about before is being expressed from our political leaders. Doug Ford and his ad. And he would say he's standing up for the industry, but I said, how's that working when you're negotiating with the guy you're pricking at?

And is that going to impact Canada's ability to get a renewed trade agreement or to protect the auto sector, bringing in 49,000 plus cars, the constant pricking of the American president who's a fighter, he's not going to take that lying down. I'm worried that we're ... President Trump can throw around some words himself, but if you throw words back, he's going to respond.

I'm worried that there's a vicious circle and those car factories are going to move so.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

I don't know.

EZRA LEVANT:

What would be your advice? Give advice to Doug Ford, to Premier Ford. I bet you've spoken with him. I bet you've given him private advice. Is there anything you would say to other premiers?

There was another premier in Western Canada who said outrageous things about the president, and all I could think of is I hope the president does not spend a lot of time reading news clippings from Canada because what was just said about the president is unhelpful if Canada's trying to get a deal. What would your advice be to a Canadian

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:
Premier? I mean, I just spoke to ... My advice is Canada from industry to industry to industry to industry can make compelling cases as to why Canada is the best partner for the United States to do business with.

EZRA LEVANT:

And have we been doing that? In your view.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

So who's the best partner for us to do business with on oil and gas? If we need more oil and gas, where do we go? We go to Alberta. We've got a phenomenal relationship with them for years. Danielle Smith recognizes it. She talks about it. I think she just put out a post this week from CERA Week. Great conversation with our Secretary of the Interior and our Secretary of Energy. We want to ship two million more barrels of oil per day to the US.

Well, okay. She's putting out the narrative. America's been a very reliable and positive partner for Alberta, and we think that's a great relationship and we should continue that relationship and grow it.

It's a very interesting approach to the Trump administration. Here's why we're really, really good and why you should consider us moving forward. From our perspective, that's a pretty good approach to our trade team and to the president.

EZRA LEVANT:

I should tell you, she's being called a traitor for having that kind of a constructive rapport with the US. A lot of authoritative pundits and even other politicians have said by not pricking back at President Trump, by trying to be constructive, she has sold the country out. What would you say to them?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

They can say whatever they want. My view on this is Danielle Smith is standing up for her constituents. She's going to bring more wealth, more jobs, and more prosperity to Alberta. And I think when you bring jobs and prosperity and wealth to Alberta, I think they're what we would call a donor province.

They send more money to Ottawa than what they get back. So we got to get away from the rhetoric, traitor and all of this. It's kind of like, what are the end results that you're going to see as Canadian citizens? Okay. And what Danielle Smith is doing is because at the same CERA meeting that she was at down in Houston, there was somebody else pitching oil.

EZRA LEVANT:

I mean, yes, the Venezuelans?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

The current president of Venezuela was there.

EZRA LEVANT:

That's our competitor, isn't it? Well, To get heavy oil to those Texas refineries, it's either coming from Venezuela or Canada, and we're in a race now.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

And Danielle has ... And people before her have positioned Alberta to be a preferred supplier. So when —

EZRA LEVANT:

Ethical oil versus conflict oil. Have you ever heard that phrase before?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Oh, yeah. But the president from Venezuela was at CERA Week, made a major presentation. And what was her message? I don't know. Very simple. We want to become the preferred supplier. I don't know if those are the exact words, but we want to become a preferred supplier of oil to the United States of America.

EZRA LEVANT:

And they're ramping up. That's a starter pistol. There's a race on now.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

But it's a race that because of your history and our history together and the infrastructure together that Canada would be poised to win. Okay? Same thing with autos. All right? Canada can make a compelling case that you've got, and we talked about it already.

You are integrated. You have personal relationships between suppliers and customers in Canada, from Canada into the US and vice versa. And you're reliable. There's people talking about harmonizing standards and all of these types of things.

And it's like, that's a really, really compelling case as to why we should be doing business. Americans should be doing business with Canada. And what we hear from Canada is we're at war with the United States. We're banning your alcohol. We're banning you from procurement. For provincial product or projects, you can't bid.

I heard that in British Columbia. I hear that in Ottawa, and it's in a lot of provinces around the country. And so you say, "Okay, well, that's an approach to negotiating with the US."

EZRA LEVANT:

That's become the brand of the governing Liberal Party, in my view. I'm a critic of theirs, but I think they actually talk up anti-Americanism. I think they found it to vote rich.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

There is a reason why where we are in the polls. Sure, some people don't like Donald Trump,

EZRA LEVANT:

But you mean Americans?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah.

EZRA LEVANT:

In the eyes of Canadians.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

In the eyes of Canadians and don't travel to the US and all these kinds of things. And it's like, okay, that's an approach you can take. But I've been in the meetings and it's kind of like when we talk with the prime minister and the prime minister is talking about delivering more oil to Canada or from Canada to the US, we know that's going through Alberta, most likely.

And we're eager for that. We know we have alternatives, but we love doing business with Alberta. I'm not sure that can be said that is true for all provinces because some of them have really, really been tough with the United States, but they've looked at it from what does this do for our people, for our economy and those kinds of things, which is our national security and these kinds of things, which as a congressman are the things that I used to worry about.

Political leaders in Canada maybe are thinking about other things, but those are the kinds of things, what's this going to do for my district? When I was on the Intel committee and I got a lot more background into national security and these kinds of things, is this going to make us safer or less safe?

So the question is here in Canada, is defending the Arctic and doing it by ourselves, does that make us more safe or less safe? I don't know.

We think NORAD ... I know where we are. We think NORAD is really a really good idea. And yeah, we do want more Canadian investment, but as Canadian invest in that to protect Canada, to protect North America, to protect the Arctic, we think let's build off the NORAD model and expand it because it's got greater missions now.

But again, if Canada doesn't believe that's in their national security interest, they can go another way. We're not going to tell Canada what to do. Did I give something to think about?

EZRA LEVANT:

It's very ominous. Let me ask you about a statement that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made in January.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Sounds like you may know something up there.

EZRA LEVANT:

And putting aside the independence part, do you think that the US would permit a pipeline that came down into the states and then went to the West Coast to get to the Pacific? Because that seems to be blocked right now by the British Columbia provincial government and Indian bands. The Treasury Secretary was fairly bold, I think, in his language. Do you have any thoughts on that? Can you expand on that?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Well, I think number one is a very positive statement about Alberta, but I think it's how Americans generally feel about Canada. You could get us saying lots of positive things about lots of the provinces and how we've developed our ecosystems together.

I know that Bessent, Secretary of Wrihts, Secretary Bergham, President Trump, it's kind of like, yeah, put a pipeline down to the border.

Our responsibility then to put pipelines on our side of the border that will take whatever oil Canada decides that they want to ship to the United States. And again, there's lots of uses that we would have for it in terms of processing and those kinds of things. We want more oil.

If Alberta wanted us to build a pipeline to the West Coast, because they said, "Hey, we've got another two million barrels of oil per day that we want to ship to Asia and Japan." I would think that we'd be very open to having that discussion. It's kind of like, okay, it's an economic decision. All right.

Can we make money building a pipeline, pumping oil through it to go to Asia and we've got a seller on the other end, we're just going to be a transporter and they want to use the US to transport that oil through because they can't get it anywhere else.

We're fine with that because one of the things that you know is if you talk to Alberta or you talk to Canada in general, they've got enough natural resources to pump oil west, south, north, east, wherever. So we're not worried about that.

It's kind of like, if you're pumping two million barrels a day and it's going through the US and it's going to Japan, that's just an economic decision.

EZRA LEVANT:

Better Japan and to China.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah, right. But the good thing is the oil's going out, 60 billion is coming back depending on what the oil ... It might be more than that now with the price of oil. But when it settles down, it's 60 billion is coming back to Canada, right? So roughly.

EZRA LEVANT:

Oh, you're talking about revenues?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Revenues. And we like a rich Canada. We like a wealthy neighbour.

EZRA LEVANT:

The illusion there by the Treasury Secretary to a referendum, it's not for sure that the referendum will happen, but it looks likely. And again, it's not a for sure that it would be a yes vote. That would be quite a dramatic moment. But I think reading between the lines, a lot of Albertans saw that, and I'm formerly from Alberta myself, and what they saw was not a provocation, not a provocative comment like 51st State or something like that, but they saw that if Alberta were to be independent, it could pretty much be assured that America would still want to buy all that oil no matter whether Alberta was independent, sovereignty association remained a province.

That just felt like a gentle encouragement like, "Don't worry, America's not going to meddle." I don't know. Am I overinterpreting the secretary?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah. I mean, we're not going to meddle, okay.

EZRA LEVANT:

But let's say the vote is a yes vote

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

We Track this, not because we want to influence, but because it's our job to report to Washington what's happening in Canada. But it's also very uncertain, at least from, again, our understanding, our limited understanding of how this all works.

And I think some of it's new to Canadians because they've never had a yes vote, but the yes vote triggers a negotiation between the province and the federal government about the relationship between the province and the federal government. It doesn't necessarily mean it becomes independent. So we observe and we're just watching.

EZRA LEVANT:

You talked about how there's so many different institutions that are anti-American. The Conservative Party of Canada has historically been very friendly towards the United States. Under Brian Mulroney, it negotiated the first free trade agreement. And I think there's something pro-American in nature about the Conservative Party, but Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservatives was sort of on the back foot in the general election because he had to be seen to be tough on Trump. And I'm not sure if he articulated that well. He recently went on —

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

He didn't articulate it well in Canada because he didn't win.

EZRA LEVANT:

Yeah. Well, he recently did sort of a friendship tour in the States. He went on the big podcast and he gave some speeches.

Did you follow that? What's your observation on the Conservative party? I know you're non-partisan, but you always have to be thinking who could be the next government. Give me your thoughts on Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah. I mean, I binge watched Pierre over the weekend.

EZRA LEVANT:

Oh, you did?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah. I don't recommend that to anybody. Okay. And I know Pierre and I like Pierre, but the Rogan thing was a lot about mixed martial arts and all of that. I know nothing. I know nothing. Okay.

EZRA LEVANT:

Well, that's the audience. I mean, that's —

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

That's his audience. That's why I don't listen to Rogan a lot.

EZRA LEVANT:

But there was some substance there too.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah, there was some. I listened to his speech in New York. I watched that. What I'm seeing is a slightly positive development is that Canadians may finally be doing a deep dive or will evolve into doing a deep dive and discussing the pros and the cons of the American relationship.

Like I said, I see the defence thing as historically and currently and in the future as we get more threats being very, very valuable to both countries. I see the business relationship being very, very valuable in the past, in the current, and in the future.

And when you get to the kinds of numbers that you see with people trusting China more than the United States of America, it's kind of like, all right, Canadians have that debate.

Is partnering with China really the best way for you to go forward? Have the debate, and if you decide yes, great.
I mean, I was in Congress in 2000 when we voted for to allow China into the ... 

EZRA LEVANT:

WTO was it?

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah. Thank you. WTO and give them most favoured nation status, right? And I got that one right. I voted no. And a lot of my business community, because in the US, the business community was all in favour. The US Chamber of Commerce actually ran ads in my district. Call Congressman Hoekstra and tell him to vote in favour of China.

EZRA LEVANT:
That's a crazy pitch in an industrial heartland like Michigan.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

And I voted no. And I look back now and say, "Wow, I got that one right." Because the pro people were, what were they saying? Oh, just integrate China into the rules-based organization, WTO, and they're going to become just like us.

And what we experienced over 13, 14, 15 years was that now they came in, they stole our technology, they stole our jobs, they didn't respect intellectual property and all of these types of things. And part of what we're doing is we're repairing what they hollowed out.

When I was in Europe and was working in Europe, it's the same story. Europe is getting hollowed out by China, but that debate is a worthwhile debate to take place in Canada.

Take a look at what happened in the US. Take a look at what happened in Europe. Okay. What do we want to do? Do we want to partner more closely with the US, partner more closely with the US and Europe, or are we going to make our bed with China?

And you guys will reach a conclusion. I think, although in 2000, the US reached the conclusion, we're going to get in bed with China. And it turned out very, very badly for us. And by 2014, 15, there was a bipartisan consensus that we've got to confront China and change the relationship.

EZRA LEVANT:

President Trump is focused on that so much.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

President Trump, he recognized what happened and is now trying to figure out, okay, what is the path forward? That's what a lot of this is for is, number one, to strengthen the US, to strengthen the West against the threats from China. But at the same time, we're going to work through that process.

Europe has to work through that process and Canada has to work through that process. And I think the recent comments by Pierre, which are much more pro-US, but it's not pro-US, it's not pro-Donald Trump, it's pro the trade relationship saying, take a look at this.

What has happened over the last 20 years as we've become more integrated with the United States? We've created tens of thousands, millions of jobs. We've created prosperity and wealth. I mean, you go down the list of the companies that have a strong base and a strong foundation here in Canada and in the US.

And they're the first ones that come out and say, "We need this relationship and actually we want to build it, but it's also the foundation to do something that's very, very difficult, which is diversify our customer base." If you want to go into a new market, and I came out of the marketing side of business, getting new customers is really, really, really hard.

And if that's going to be a focus, it's nice to have in place a good, strong business relationship that can help fund those efforts. And you guys haven't really been harmed by the tariffs. It's your prime minister that says, "Hey, I think it's the second best deal in the world." That's not a bad place to be. And is that a reason to be mad at America? I don't know. That's for the Canadians to decide, but that's not a bad deal.

EZRA LEVANT:

I'm very grateful for your time. I have one last question that's a little bit self-indulgent because it's been something that's affected me and my company, Rebel News, and other independent media.

And I ask you because I know that one of your colleagues in the State Department, under Secretary Sarah Rogers, who's been in charge of this anti-censorship file and Vice President JD Vance have raised it, they have looked at European countries like the UK that have brought in online censorship bills, online harms bills. They all have similar names.

In the UK, they arrest on average 30 people a day for social media posts. It's really a dramatic move towards censorship. Canada has introduced some of those bills. Some of them died on the order paper when Justin Trudeau resigned, but some of them are coming back.

The prime minister's pledged that they come back. The moral persuasion of having JD Vance and Ambassador Rogers criticize the UK, I think as being profound. There's been no sanctions, really, but just speaking morally has really put the UK on notice.

Is the US watching the introduction of similar censorship bills in Canada? The US has not spoken out about it like it has in the UK, but are you attentive to it? Because it may reach a point where we need the bully pulpit of an ambassador or even a vice president to bring us back to the free speech that is one of our bonds with America.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah. But I mean, as an embassy, we've got responsibilities and we file reports back to Washington every year on human rights, antisemitism, free speech, these whole range. So yeah, it's our responsibility to track that and report back to Washington what's going on.

And as you can tell with this administration, they believe it's one of the fundamental pillars of having strong democracies is the whole right for free speech across a range of mediums. And when I was in Congress, I was at a strange place for a lot of Republicans.

I voted once every year, once a year, maybe once every election year, there would be a vote on whether we should prosecute people who wanted to burn the flag. And I consistently voted to allow people to burn the flag. It's a horrific thing to do. People have died defending that flag. They've died defending the Canadian flag and those types of things.

And as I drive around here and see all the Canadian flags, it is a point of pride for Canada. It's a point of pride for the United States. And I think anybody who would think about burning either one of those flags is despicable. It's a despicable act. But in societies like ours, we're strong enough that we can allow that to be happening. We can allow that to happen.

EZRA LEVANT:

And respond with speech of our own.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Respond with speech of our own. Yeah. Yeah. So again, I'm hoping that's not a place that we see Canada devolving to, and we're not anywhere close to that. We're working on trying to get a phenomenal trade deal that's good for the United States, that's good for Canada.

We're working on trying to get a phenomenal security arrangement between the United States and Canada so that our countries are safe. And what we haven't talked about, we're also working on the president's third priority, which is the whole law enforcement thing to go after the drug issues and those types of things to keep our people safe from internal threats. We both lose way too many people to fentanyl.

And I think in the current environment, that probably also extends to cooperating as much as we can to protect ourselves from the threat of terrorism, which is a global, has to be a global effort, but they're going to target the US and they're going to target most likely if they start reaching out.

Canada has to worry as well.

EZRA LEVANT:

Ambassador, I could talk with you forever, but alas, our time is up. Thank you so much for your hospitality and for your frank discussion.

AMBASSADOR HOEKSTRA:

Yeah. Great. Thanks.

EZRA LEVANT:

Enjoyed it. Thank you so much.