EXCLUSIVE: U.S. ambassador pressed on Nijjar reversal, Trump fentanyl claims, and Alberta independence

VANCOUVER — The Western Standard sat down with the U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra on Friday and asked for the American position on India’s alleged involvement in the 2023 assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, President Trump’s repeated claims Canadian fentanyl is responsible for hundreds of thousands of American deaths, and whether the United States would engage in unilateral extrajudicial killings of suspected Canadian drug runners.The interview, conducted in Vancouver, just days removed from a major joint U.S.-Canada law enforcement operation known as Operation Hardball, began with Hoekstra venting about recent media questions from other outlets.“I did it in an interview on July 3 with one of the mainstream media… we’ve just, you know, two days ago we announced we’re not extending CUSMA, and you want to talk about the 51st state?” Hoekstra said of a recent CBC appearance. “My answer is, if the President, the prime minister want to talk about the 51st state, they should talk about it. That’s not my mandate.”When asked to describe his mandate, Hoekstra said his goals are “very clear”: advancing economic prosperity, national security, and the personal security and safety of both Canadians and Americans..The Western Standard asked Hoekstra about the Canadian government’s reversal on claims linking the Indian government to the assassination of Nijjar, a prominent Sikh activist gunned down in Surrey in 2023. The question noted that since Operation Hardball, Canadian authorities have stated they have no information linking the government of India to the killing — this, according to RCMP Commissioner Lisa Moreland during a recent CBC interview with David Cochrane. A follow-up panel that included Supriya Dwivedi pointed out that those comments appeared to contradict unsealed U.S. court documents, including a guilty plea in New York by Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national who admitted to working at the direction of an Indian government employee to arrange the murder of a U.S.-based Sikh separatist leader..Hoekstra said he was “very familiar” with the case but had not received a recent briefing from Ottawa.“I’ve been on road all week… I haven’t been in Ottawa to get any kind of briefing or access to… I don't know what happened. I think it’s a good story of, you know, law enforcement cooperation across the border, getting results that will improve safety. But in terms of getting down into that granularity, I can’t add anything to that right now,” he said.The interview also probed the disconnect between President Trump’s assertions — including claims of “hundreds of thousands of American deaths” tied to Canadian fentanyl — and the lack of major interdictions of any fentanyl originating from Canada at the border. During the joint press conference for Operation Hardball, officials noted that most of the drugs intercepted were moving northbound, from the United States into Canada..When pressed on whether the president was mistaken about the scale or direction of Canadian fentanyl flows, given the absence of any significant southbound interdiction, Hoekstra responded: “What do you think I’m going to say to them? Yeah, the president was... no.”We asked whether the United States would consider unilateral extrajudicial action against a Canadian boat or vessel suspected of carrying fentanyl — similar to recent strikes on suspected drug vessels off Venezuela — given the president’s past characterization of Canada as a source country..Hoekstra was a good sport about the hypothetical. He said he couldn’t give a firm answer without more specifics, such as whether the vessel was heading into U.S. waters under pursuit. But as the conversation continued, he steered toward the idea that any action would most likely be coordinated rather than unilateral.“The best thing would be… whatever action had to be taken, most likely would be a U.S./Canadian operation,” he said, pointing to the close intelligence and law enforcement relationship through Five Eyes and other channels. He noted that this kind of joint approach is how the two countries already handle sensitive cross-border issues, citing recent successful operations as an example.In contrast, he said, countries without those deep ties would not necessarily receive the same treatment..On Alberta independence speculation, Hoekstra was blunt: it’s an internal Canadian matter and “not ours.”“I have enough to do with Canada. I’m not worrying about that,” he said. “We have not taken a position on that. And no intention to intervene in the event that there was a successful referendum or anything of that.”He was equally direct when discussing media coverage. Hoekstra pushed back on a recent New York Times report that accused him of lying about details on the Windsor-Detroit bridge without ever specifying what he supposedly got wrong.“They didn’t specify what they believed I got factually wrong,” he said. “Will you tell us what you think I lied about? ... No. Well, that’s a pretty interesting place to go.”The ambassador said he doesn’t keep score of such coverage and doesn’t read social media.Throughout the interview, Hoekstra was most expansive when the topic turned to security cooperation. Even when pressed on the hypothetical of unilateral action against a Canadian fentanyl vessel, he ultimately pointed back to the joint approach already on display in operations like Hardball — the same kind of coordination he said would likely govern any real-world scenario involving a close ally.The conversation ended on a lighter note. Hoekstra joked that his team could write the story for me to save time, and suggested I should “just go for a nice bike ride” afterward.

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. ambassador pressed on Nijjar reversal, Trump fentanyl claims, and Alberta independence

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