The United States’ ambassador to Canada celebrated America’s 250th anniversary by welcoming Canadian far-right activists, right-wing alternative media personalities and other questionable characters into his house.
Pete Hoekstra, President Donald Trump’s controversial and abrasive envoy to Canada, hosted the American Embassy’s annual Fourth of July party this weekend at his official residence in Ottawa’s tony Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood.
Hoekstra’s party, which reportedly struggled to find A-list guests willing to RSVP and was largely snubbed by other diplomats, had faced questions in the lead up to July 4 about possible low attendance.
Party Central: Next year with bourbon? U.S. envoy Hoekstra toasts ‘stronger together’ cross-border relationship at Fourth of July bash
www.hilltimes.com/2026/07/06/n…
— The Hill Times (@hilltimes.com) July 6, 2026 at 1:05 PM
One guest that did make a point to RSVP for Hoeksta’s party was Tamara Lich.
Lich is best known as one of the main leaders of the Freedom Convoy, a ragtag group of far-right extremists, conspiracy theorists and anti-vaccine activists that occupied the streets of Canada’s national capital for three weeks in 2022 (some participants explicitly called for the removal of Canada’s democratically elected government).
Lich was convicted on criminal charges last year relating to her involvement in the Freedom Convoy and is currently serving a 12-month house arrest sentence.
Photos posted on social media over the weekend by Lich show the ambassador with his arm around the shoulder of the smiling convoy leader.
“It was an honour and a pleasure to attend the 4th of July American Independence Day celebrations at the ambassador’s residence in Ottawa,” Lich posted on social media. “I had the opportunity to speak with Ambassador Hoekstra and thank him, the President, and the American people for their heartfelt support throughout the Freedom Convoy and ever since.”
Source: Tamara Lich (X)
In a statement, the US Embassy did not address specific questions about whether it was concerned about the optics of the US ambassador lending support to someone who had been criminally convicted for leading an occupation of Canada’s capital city, but instead suggested Lich had been accredited as a journalist.
“The Embassy released an open media invitation to cover the 250th Independence Day celebration,” the US Embassy told PressProgress, indicating Lich and others “registered to cover the event for their outlets, along with a wide range of other media entities.”
Since his appointment as Trump’s Ambassador to Canada, Hoekstra has amplified calls to annex Canada, criticized Canadians for pushing back against Trump and dismissed questions about US-backed support for Alberta separatist groups.
It’s not the first time Hoekstra, a former West Michigan Republican congressman, has partied with far-right activists while serving as an ambassador either.
In 2020, while serving as US Ambassador to the Netherlands, Hoekstra was accused of interfering in Dutch domestic politics and violating the Vienna Convention after hosting a pre-campaign event for the far-right Forum voor Democratie party.
The FvD is an ultratranationalist anti-immigrant party loosely associated with the Dutch farmer protests that served as inspiration to Canada’s convoy movement. FvD founder Thierry Baudet, who introduced Hoekstra at the FvD’s 2019 party congress, advocates mass deportations of immigrants to “maintain a white Europe.”
Source: Nederlandse Omroep Stichting
Despite her house arrest sentence, Lich has been apparently able to leave her house legally as a result of an employment arrangement with a Canadian right-wing alternative media outlet.
Several months ago, a right-wing website called “Rebel” said it had worked out an employment arrangement with Lich and her lawyer specifically to enable her to leave her house and travel while serving a house arrest sentence.
Ezra Levant, owner of the Rebel media outlet, said the arrangement was approved by Lich’s probation officer and allows the convoy leader to “leave her home for work,” noting they must “check in with the probation officer every time Tamara travels, and have each trip approved” (according to Lich, the Crown is currently appealing her conditional sentence).
The Rebel media outlet has been associated with some high-profile names among the transnational far-right, including British far-right influencer Tommy Robinson, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, MAGA activist Laura Loomer and alt-right YouTubers Lauren Southern and Faith Goldy.
Levant, along with several other Rebel personalities, were also in attendance at Ambassador Hoekstra’s official residence on July 4.
Source: Ezra Levant (X)
Other party guests at Hoekstra’s official residence on July 4 included:
• Alexandra Lavoie: Rebel’s Québec correspondent;
• Efrain Monsanto: Rebel’s “director of production” and a member of the right-wing alternative media outlet’s board of directors;
• Sue-Ann Levy: Former columnist for the right-wing Toronto Sun tabloid who is currently a contributor to the right-wing alternative media outlet “Juno News”;
• Harrison Faulkner: Juno News contributor who previously had an interview with the founder of the Proud Boys (which is a legally designated terrorist entity in Canada) pulled offline by his old publication, True North;
• Melanie Bennett: Juno News contributor and past participant in a pro-Israel propaganda junket for Canadian right-wing influencers organized by the Exigent Foundation, a group that received funds from the Israeli government;
• Georgeanne Burke: Conservative Party insider and a board member of the Exigent Foundation;
• Josh Udall: Podcaster who appeared on a panel about social media influencers at the right-wing Canada Strong and Free Network conference earlier this year and recorded a podcast with Hoekstra at his residence on July 4;
• Shannon Boschy: An anti-LGBTQ+ activist and a failed school trustee candidate for the Ottawa District School Board who also ran provincially for a far-right fringe party called the Ontario Party;
• Tracy Wilson: Social media commentator and spokesperson for a gun lobby group called the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights;
• Kevin Klein: Former Manitoba conservative MLA who bought the Winnipeg Sun newspaper from Postmedia in 2024 and recently penned a column claiming the “mainstream media” is refusing to show Canadians “the real Pete Hoekstra”;
• “The Food Professor”: Dalhousie University professor Sylvain Charlebois, a podcaster and media commentator who calls himself the “Food Professor” — Charlebois recently hosted Hoekstra on his podcast to present what he described as the “American perspective Canadians haven’t heard.”
Many of the media personalities in attendance also secured one-on-one interviews with Hoekstra, suggesting one way the ambassador may be using Canada’s right-wing alternative media ecosystem to bypass critical media coverage.
The event was also attended by several MPs from Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, including Jamil Jivani, Andrew Lawton, Dean Allison, Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Jacob Mantle, Richard Bragdon, John Williamson and Lianne Rood.
Liberal MPs Rob Oliphant and Caroline Desrochers were also in attendance.
Source: Conservative MP Lianne Rood (X)
US Embassy staff insist none of its guests posed a potential security risk to elected or diplomatic officials at the party, despite some guests holding extreme views.
One guest identified by PressProgress at Hoekstra’s party is associated with a social media account that has written extensively about solar and planetary alignments, suggesting astrological forces are guiding world events and sending coded signals warning of an impending “Judgment Day.”
That guest, who appeared in photos with Ambassador Hoekstra at the party, has also asserted that the United States is the “Great Satan.”
The US Embassy told PressProgress it could not comment on its security protocols or explain why the guest in question was invited to the ambassador’s residence, but noted that “invited guests were allowed to bring a plus one.”
“The embassy security team managed a safe, secure and incident free event,” the US Embassy spokesperson reiterated.
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