Canadian satire site fools TIME Magazine with ‘made up quote’

TIME Magazine was fooled by the Canadian version of ‘The Onion,' ‘The Beaverton, ' in a recent article entitled “What Trump doesn't understand about alliances”.

Here's how it happened.

The Beaverton article

On September 19, 2025, The Beaverton, the biggest satirical publication in Canada, published the article “US Ambassador threatens to tariff, annex, and bomb Canada if anti-American sentiment doesn't improve,” where they attribute a few funny quotes to U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra.

The article came after Hoekstra gave a real-life interview where he said he was “disappointed” in the “anti-American sentiments” in Canada.

Beaverton journalist Ian Macintyre took the ball and ran. In his article, he wrote:

“I'm disappointed that I came to Canada. A Canada that it would be very easy to target with 500% steel tariffs, or one patriot missile aimed at Parliament Hill, I might add.”

And,

“We need to take the tone and tenor of the debate down, and by ‘we' I mean ‘entirely Canada' because you are all weak losers who would be better off as the 51st State.”

The article then described how Hoekstra proceeded to “[pour] out a bottle of Labatt Blue while spitting on a photo of Terry Fox”.

Hilarious, right? And very obviously satire. Clearly not.

Now we come to October 1, and TIME's piece.

TIME of confusion

TIME's piece: “What Trump Doesn't Understand About Alliances,” attributed the quotes that were made up by The Beaverton to Hoekstra, and the kicker? Nobody noticed.

The Beaverton itself didn't seem to notice until their Facebook post on November 27, commenting, “When your ambassador is SO deranged that TIME Magazine says, ‘Yeah, that quote sounds real. ‘”

How many people read that post in between October 1 and November 27, when The Beaverton finally clued in?

According to TIME magazine itself, the publication reached 120 million people globally in 2025 (as of November 20).

How could this happen?

The elephant in the room is obviously the question ‘how could this happen'. In an article that features gems like:

“When I was Trump's ambassador to the Netherlands, which is also a complete s**t hole, I had a lot of success illegally fundraising for radical right political groups,” Hoekstra recalled while whipping Tim Horton's doughnuts at the crowd.

And,

Hoekstra then ended his speech by urinating on a stack of vintage Anne Murray records.

It's hard to imagine that anyone who read it, even if they don't know The Beaverton specifically, could believe it was real.

But the article sat unedited for more than a month before someone finally realized.

When your ambassador is SO deranged that Time Magazine says, ‘Yeah, that quote sounds real. ‘

When Hoekstra's office was asked about the comments, it confirmed they were false.

The statement attributed to Ambassador Hoekstra by Time Magazine is a fabrication.  The ambassador did not make this statement.

The Beavertons Ian MacIntyre also confirmed they were false.

That's absolutely a made-up quote… I heightened a bunch of them to absurd levels,

Absurd is absolutely the correct word to describe the made-up quotes and this story.

The Beaverton is the most prominent satire publication in Canada, and has never claimed to be anything other than satire meant for entertainment. The publication regularly invents humorous false quotes.

Certainly a baffling story from one of the biggest magazines on the planet.