US Accuses Canadian Officials of Meddling in Midterms, Citing Tariff Rhetoric and Ontario Ad Campaign

On Wednesday, the US embassy in Canada released a fact sheet accusing Canadian politicians of trying to influence the American midterm elections. The evidence it offered was, for the most part, Canada's own effort to push back against President Donald Trump's tariffs.

The document says the Canadian government brushes off concerns about interference in US elections even as its ministers and premiers openly describe plans to influence American politics, in official documents and public appearances. The two countries have been locked in a trade war since Trump's second term began in 2025, with Canada answering US tariffs with import taxes of its own. The embassy treated public statements about those measures as attempts to sway the November 3 vote.

Industry Minister Melanie Joly was singled out first. The fact sheet cited remarks she made in August about Canada's response to the tariffs. Canada, she said then, was also targeting products that would hit particular US states, and was being wise and strategic in order to put political pressure on Washington. The embassy also objected to her September meetings with Democratic officials in Boston and Chicago. Asked by a reporter what might happen to tariffs if Democrats won the midterms, she answered that this was exactly why she was meeting so many governors and potential presidential candidates.

Joly has rejected the idea that any of this amounts to interference, saying Canada would never meddle in US elections. She says she has met politicians from both parties and that the meetings were about building Canada's economy. "Fundamentally, what I've done in the US is to attract investments," she told reporters on October 14.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford was the second named target. The embassy pointed to his calls for retaliatory measures against US products and to his government's advertising campaign against the tariffs, launched last year. That campaign used clips of former President Ronald Reagan criticising tariffs in a 1987 radio address, and it led Trump to call off trade talks with Canada in October 2025.

The fact sheet also cited Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, who said he had campaigned in Florida for Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz ahead of her August primary. And it named 11 individual Canadians who had been charged or sentenced for voting illegally in US elections between 2012 and 2024. Al Jazeera notes that the embassy laid out several examples of Canadian officials trying to influence US trade policy without explaining how those efforts amounted to interference. Nor did the sheet present evidence linking the 11 voters to any Canadian government effort to involve itself in US elections.

"All Canadians should refrain from attempting to participate in or influence U.S. elections in any way," the embassy said. "Americans decide America's elections."

The document came a week after US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra said Washington was closely watching Canada for signs of interference. Speaking on The Really Big Show podcast, as reported by The Canadian Press, he said: "We're monitoring it, we're evaluating it and if some of it becomes election interference then America will respond to it."

The accusation lands amid frayed relations between longtime allies. Trump has started a trade war and repeatedly threatened to make Canada a 51st state. There were also reports that Alberta separatist leaders sought support from Trump administration officials before this week's failed independence referendum. Before Monday's provincial vote, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada expected foreign governments, the United States included, to stay out of its elections, just as Canada stays out of theirs. Al Jazeera has asked the Prime Minister's Office, Global Affairs Canada, Ford's office and Joly for comment. What to watch is whether Washington acts on Hoekstra's promise to respond.