![\"Canada](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/canadian-official-answers-trump-s-lake-america-with-giant-lake-ontario-sign.jpg\")
A sign for Lake Ontario at the Fifty Point Conservation Area in Grimsby (Keito Newman\/The Canadian Press via AP)\n<\/p>\nOntario premier Doug Ford answered President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cLake America\u201d decree with a billboard-sized message on the Canadian shoreline \u2014 Lake Ontario. Now and Always \u2014 as Canadian leaders met the move with ridicule rather than outrage.<\/p>\n
Wearing a Team Canada football shirt, Mr Ford unveiled the sign near Grimsby, Ontario, and posed for photographs.<\/p>\n
The 24 by 12ft sign stands on six-foot legs, putting its top about 18 feet above the ground \u2014 roughly two stories high. The message is repeated in French.<\/p>\n
The display followed Mr Trump\u2019s executive order directing US federal agencies to call Lake Ontario \u201cLake America\u201d.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has said he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as \u201cLake America\u201d in the United States as he escalates his trade war with Canada.\n<\/p>\n
After months of tariffs, threats to make Canada the 51st US state and personal attacks on its leaders, the reaction in Canada has mixed defiance with mockery.<\/p>\n
Mr Ford said Mr Trump was trying to rename the lake because Ontario and Canada were \u201cstanding up for ourselves\u201d and argued the name would outlast the president.<\/p>\n
\u201cLong after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario,\u201d Mr Ford said in a video posted on social media.<\/p>\n
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew compared Mr Trump to an ageing rock band trying to revive an old hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know when, like, a rock band is really over the hill and you see them like in a casino playing some song from like 50 years ago, I think that\u2019s the part of Donald Trump\u2019s presidency we\u2019re at now \u2014 like he thought he had a real hit, a real golden oldie, with the Gulf of Mexico,\u201d Mr Kinew said, referring to Mr Trump\u2019s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he\u2019s trying to bring back that, and he\u2019s trying to play the hits for his base. But I think everybody here thinks it\u2019s a little sad and it\u2019s not his best work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mockery was not limited to politicians. Canadian historian Robert Bothwell was even more scathing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greatest country on earth takes this moron seriously?\u201d Mr Bothwell said.<\/p>\n
A sign for Lake Ontario at the Fifty Point Conservation Area in Grimsby (Keito Newman\/The Canadian Press via AP)\n<\/p>\n
But Mr Bothwell said the dispute was more serious than the jokes, arguing Mr Trump\u2019s broader aim was \u201cto subordinate Canada and at best make it a colony, at worst absorb it into the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, said Mr Trump \u201cwould like Canada to act like a vassal state, but it refuses to do so. That irritates him\u201d.<\/p>\n
The dispute comes as relations between the long-time allies worsen over trade. Negotiations collapsed last week, both governments accused the other of making late demands, and Canada announced retaliatory tariffs set to take effect next month.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump\u2019s order also came amid an escalating war of words with Mr Ford. In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this week, Mr Ford said Ronald Reagan would be \u201cthrowing up\u201d over Mr Trump\u2019s tariff policies and \u201cdisgusted with President Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump fired back by dismissing Mr Ford\u2019s comments as \u201cbluster,\u201d calling him Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s \u201cflunky\u201d and mocking him as the \u201cless charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive brother\u201d of the late Toronto mayor Rob Ford.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump continued promoting the new name on Saturday, reposting a meme showing Canada geese with Trump-like blond hair firing rifles as they \u201cprotected\u201d Lake America.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump has repeatedly used maps to make political points. A \u201cGulf of America\u201d map was displayed for a time beside the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, and Mr Trump has posted images depicting Canada as part of the United States or as the 51st state.<\/p>\n
The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people\u2019s word \u201coniatar\u00ed:io,\u201d which means \u201clake of shining waters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Canadian province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ontario premier Doug Ford answered President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cLake America\u201d decree with a billboard-sized message on the Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-610065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}