Parliamentary petition launched due to billionaire\u2019s link to Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to conquer Canada<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 200,000 people from Canada<\/a> have signed a parliamentary petition calling for their country to strip Elon Musk<\/a>\u2019s Canadian citizenship because of the tech billionaire\u2019s alliance with Donald Trump<\/a>, who has spent his second US presidency repeatedly threatening to conquer its independent neighbor to the north and turn it into its 51st state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The British Columbia author Qualia Reed launched the petition in Canada\u2019s House of Commons, where it was sponsored by the New Democrat parliamentary member and avowed Musk critic Charlie Angus, as the Canadian Press<\/a> first reported over the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Born in South Africa and owning US companies including the electric vehicle-maker Tesla, aerospace company SpaceX and the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Musk has Canadian citizenship through his mother: model and dietitian Maye Musk, who is from Saskatchewan\u2019s capital, Regina. He has been crusading to slash the US federal government\u2019s size at the behest of the US president, who has consistently challenged Canada\u2019s sovereignty since returning to the White House for a second presidential term on 20 January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reed\u2019s petition<\/a> \u2013 filed on 20 February \u2013 accuses Musk of having \u201cengaged in activities that go against the national interest of Canada\u201d by acting as an adviser to Trump. Trump has invited the scorn of Canada\u2019s 40 million residents by making threats about imposing steep tariffs on Canadian products and openly boasting about having the US annex the country, including shortly before its national hockey team defeated<\/a> a selection of US opponents in a politically charged 20 February tournament final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The petition asserts that Musk\u2019s alignment with Trump makes him \u201ca member of a foreign government that is attempting to erase Canadian sovereignty\u201d. It asks the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau<\/a>, to take away Musk\u2019s Canadian passport and revoke his citizenship with immediate effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump has often mocked Trudeau as \u201cgovernor\u201d, the title given to US states\u2019 chief executives. And Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he bought in 2022 for $44bn to relish Trudeau\u2019s announcement in January that he would resign as the head of Canada\u2019s Liberal party after it selected a new leader, with the tech billionaire praising clips of the Canadian Conservative party chief, Pierre Poilievre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the Canadian Press noted, petitions like Reed\u2019s require 500 or more signatures for them to gain the certification necessary to be presented to Canada\u2019s House of Commons and potentially garner a formal government response. Reed\u2019s petition evidently had no trouble clearing that threshold, having collected about 203,000 signatures as of early Monday, with no indication that the number would soon stop rising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Canada\u2019s House of Commons is scheduled to resume its work on 24 March, though the country could call for a general election before parliamentary members return. The signing period for Reed\u2019s petition was set to expire on 20 June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Canada\u2019s CTV News reported<\/a>, the country can revoke citizenship in certain cases, including in instances of fraud, people\u2019s misrepresenting themselves or intentionally withholding information on an immigration or citizenship application. A person can also renounce their citizenship for various reasons, according to Canadian law<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A person whose Canadian citizenship is revoke must wait 10 years to get it back again, CTV News added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musk\u2019s directive to ostensibly cut federal spending \u2013 after Trump lost re-election in 2020 to Joe Biden but then secured it in November at the expense of Kamala Harris \u2013 has affected hundreds of thousands of US government civil servants. The cuts include thousands at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense and Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service and the National Parks Service, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An Economist\/YouGov poll of nearly 1,600 respondents recently found<\/a> Musk and his so-called \u201cdepartment of government efficiency\u201d (Doge) are far less popular with the public that they claim to be serving than many of the areas they are targeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n