More than 150,000 Canadians have signed a parliamentary petition urging their government to revoke Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship due to his association with Donald Trump, who, during his second term as U.S. president, has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada and turn it into the 51st state.
The petition to revoke the citizenship was initiated by British Columbia author Qualia Reed and sponsored by New Democrat MP Charlie Angus, a vocal critic of Musk, as first reported by the Canadian Press.
Musk, who was born in South Africa, holds Canadian citizenship through his mother, a native of Regina, Saskatchewan. As the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter), he has been actively pushing for significant reductions in U.S. federal government spending, aligning with Trump’s agenda. Trump has frequently challenged Canada’s sovereignty since returning to office on January 20.
Filed on February 20, Reed’s petition accuses Musk of working against Canada’s national interest by serving as an adviser to Trump. It highlights concerns over Trump’s threats to impose heavy tariffs on Canadian goods and his public remarks about annexing the country. The petition claims Musk’s close ties with Trump effectively make him “a member of a foreign government attempting to undermine Canadian sovereignty” and calls on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to revoke Musk’s citizenship immediately.
Trump has often referred to Trudeau as a “governor,” implying Canada is merely a U.S. state. Musk, meanwhile, reacted positively on X to Trudeau’s January announcement that he would step down as leader of the Liberal Party once a successor is chosen, praising Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
Parliamentary petitions in Canada require at least 500 signatures to be certified and considered for discussion in the House of Commons. Reed’s petition has far surpassed this threshold, reaching approximately 157,000 signatures as of Sunday, with numbers continuing to climb.
The House of Commons is set to reconvene on March 24, unless a general election is called before then. The petition’s signing period is scheduled to close on June 20.
Musk’s advocacy for federal spending cuts—initiated after Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020 but reclaimed the presidency in November, defeating Kamala Harris—has impacted hundreds of thousands of U.S. government employees, including those at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Health and Human Services, the IRS, and the National Park Service.
A recent Economist/YouGov poll of nearly 1,600 respondents found that Musk and his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge) are significantly less popular among the public than many of the agencies they are targeting.
Despite the controversy, Musk appeared at a conservative gathering in Maryland on Friday, waving a giant chainsaw in the air as he joked about his role in the Trump administration. On Sunday, he amplified an X post that read: “Of course we support Doge! Those who don’t support it are unAmerican.”
