Some Gander residents seek withdrawal of US envoy's 9/11 invitation

Pew finds Canadian confidence in US partner fell below half, from 83% in 2022

Some residents of Gander, Newfoundland, are demanding that US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra’s invitation to Friday’s commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks be rescinded. BBC News described residents of the Atlantic coast community as less enthusiastic about hosting Hoekstra than they had been about welcoming stranded Americans in 2001, while the Gander town council said inviting US dignitaries is appropriate protocol.

The furor over Hoekstra’s attendance led the Gander town council to release a statement last week explaining that inviting US dignitaries is appropriate protocol. The council said its focus is on honoring the 3,000 people who died in the attacks.

“We understand why people feel strongly about this,” the council said. “We are proud Canadians, and we understand the frustration and disappointment many Canadians are feeling about the current state of the relationship between Canada and the United States.”

BBC News described the backlash against Hoekstra’s visit as a sign that the US-Canada relationship is at its lowest point in decades and as a barometer of how Canadians feel about their neighbour to the south. The United States and Canada have been in a trade war since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Trade negotiations remain on ice after talks collapsed in late August, and each side has imposed tit-for-tat tariffs. June polling by the Pew Research Centre found fewer than half of Canadians view the United States as a reliable partner, compared with 83% who felt that way in 2022.

Hoekstra had already drawn criticism from many Canadians who accuse him of undermining the bilateral relationship with his statements, including by normalizing the Trump administration’s “51st state” rhetoric. He has said he does not “understand the emotional reaction” from Canadians to Trump’s remarks, and BBC News reported that he made headlines last year for what the broadcaster described as a combative exchange with a Canadian official in Washington.

A Canadian petition calling for Hoekstra’s expulsion had nearly 270,000 signatures as of early September. His office said it was aware of the petition but declined further comment.

The dispute comes in a community whose small airport received 38 civilian flights on September 11, 2001, carrying passengers and crew from 95 countries after the United States closed its airspace following the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. For five days, residents provided free beds, food, medicine and clothing to those grounded during the crisis, and those in need nearly doubled the town’s population. Thousands of other passengers were diverted to other parts of Canada on 9/11, including Vancouver’s international airport.

Gander hosted more than 6,000 diverted passengers, and the town’s role became the basis for the Tony Award-winning musical Come From Away, which tells how residents opened their doors. The musical became a symbol of the friendship between Canada and the United States; former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended a Broadway performance in 2017 along with Trump’s daughter Ivanka and former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.

Canada served as a safe haven for Americans in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, and Canadian soldiers later fought alongside US troops in Afghanistan.

British Columbia Premier David Eby invoked his province’s contributions during that period on Tuesday while unveiling a new border sign saying Canada “will NEVER be the 51st state. Sorry!”

“After all of the president’s bad behaviour, after everything that he’s done, if Americans ever had to face the same kind of horrors that they did on 11 September, would Canadians step up in the same way?” Eby said. “You bet your ass we would.”

Some of the backlash against Hoekstra in Gander has softened in recent days. Pam Frampton, a Newfoundland columnist, wrote in The Telegram on Wednesday that Hoekstra was a “controversial figure” in Canada but agreed with the town that its commemoration events were not meant to be political.

“To do anything but welcome the United States’ representative in Canada to Gander for the anniversary of 9/11 would have contradicted everything the town has become synonymous with — tolerance, goodness, big-heartedness, unstinting hospitality,” Frampton wrote.

Gander Mayor Percy Farwell told Canadian broadcaster CBC that the town offered “love and compassion” to those who needed it 25 years ago.

“The humanity of what happened here, I think that rises above the political discussions and all the other saber-rattling,” he said. “Hopefully this is a bit bigger than all that.”