Trump signed an executive order telling U.S. agencies to start calling the lake “Lake America.” Doug Ford’s answer was a sign the size of a house planted on the water’s edge, spelling out the real name in English and French.
The name Trump wants to erase predates both Canada and the United States. “Lake Ontario” comes from the Huron word “oniatarí:io,” meaning “lake of shining waters,” and Prime Minister Mark Carney noted it’s older than both the Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
Ford unveiled the 24-by-12-foot sign near Grimsby, Ontario, on Saturday, wearing a Team Canada soccer jersey. On its 6-foot legs the top sits about 18 feet up, roughly two stories.
“Long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario,” Ford said in a video posted online, arguing Trump only wanted to rename it because Ontario and Canada were “standing up for ourselves.”
The mockery went wider than Ford. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew compared Trump to “a rock band” that’s “really over the hill” playing “some song from like 50 years ago,” saying the president was trying to repeat the trick he pulled renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Historian Robert Bothwell was blunter: “The greatest country on earth takes this moron seriously?”
Trump had fired back at Ford earlier in the week, dismissing his comments as “bluster” and calling him Carney’s “flunky.” He kept promoting the new name Saturday, reposting a meme of Canada geese with blond hair firing rifles to “protect” Lake America.
Wendat Nation Grand Chief Pierre Picard, whose language gave the lake its name, called the order an attempt to erase Indigenous history. “It is unacceptable for us, as a nation, to have a president who can eradicate our history, our culture and our identity,” he said. Trump cannot require Canada to adopt the new name.
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