The US Embassy in Ottawa accused Canadian officials Wednesday of seeking to sway the November 3 midterms, citing remarks by Industry Minister Mélanie Joly and Ontario Premier Doug Ford and the travels of a Liberal MP.
The embassy’s fact sheet says Ottawa dismisses interference concerns while ministers and premiers publicly describe ways to influence American politics. It ends with “Americans decide America’s elections.”
It quotes Joly describing tariffs meant to pressure American businesses in key Republican states. It cites her September meetings with Democratic officials in Chicago and Boston and Ford’s $75-million Ontario ad campaign featuring Ronald Reagan clips. Ford said the campaign would repeat that message in every Republican district. It also lists Liberal MP Anthony Housefather’s campaign trip to Florida for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who won her August 18 primary, and Consul General Bernadette Jordan’s appearance with two Democratic House members at a Vermont trade roundtable.
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The sheet also names 11 Canadians charged or sentenced over illegal voting in American elections from 2012 through 2024. The embassy linked none of them to any plan by Ottawa. Two, Taralynn Bosco and Stanley Walton, are Canadian citizens in eastern Idaho who face charges of voting illegally in 2022. Both cases remain pending.
Joly said October 14 that Canada would never meddle and would never accept it being done to Canada. She described her American outreach to both parties as an effort to draw investment. In Ottawa on Wednesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney did not address the allegations directly and said the US started the trade actions. Ford dismissed the allegations, saying he has “no interest at all” in meddling south of the border.
US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra said earlier this month that officials were closely watching Canadian politicians and that Ontario’s ads could count as interference. Shortly after the Reagan ad aired in October 2025, President Donald Trump broke off negotiations with Ottawa.
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Trump, meanwhile, revived his 51st-state talk Monday at a rally in Park City, Kansas, saying Canada could keep ice hockey and its anthem if it joined, then adding he was “only kidding.”
At an October 15 rally in Calgary before Alberta’s independence referendum, Carney said the proposed Pacific Link pipeline would lessen Canadian reliance on the US, then joked that Americans “might think that’s election interference.”
