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Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveils a sign for Lake Ontario at Fifty Point Conservation Area in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada, on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026. (Keito Newman\/The Canadian Press via AP)<\/p>\n
Keito Newman\/Keito Newman\/The Canadian Press <\/p>\n
A person takes a picture of the newly unveiled sign for Lake Ontario at Fifty Point Conservation Area in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada, on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026. (Keito Newman\/The Canadian Press via AP)<\/p>\n
Keito Newman\/Keito Newman\/The Canadian Press <\/p>\n
The Toronto skyline is seen across Lake Ontario as Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks during an interview prior to the unveiling of a sign for Lake Ontario at Fifty Point Conservation Area in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada, on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026. (Keito Newman\/The Canadian Press via AP)<\/p>\n
Keito Newman\/Keito Newman\/The Canadian Press <\/p>\n
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, right, and Niagara West Member of Provincial Parliament Sam Oosterhoff unveil a sign for Lake Ontario at the Fifty Point Conservation Area in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada, on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026. (Keito Newman\/The Canadian Press via AP)<\/p>\n
Keito Newman\/Keito Newman\/The Canadian Press <\/p>\n
President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Washington.<\/p>\n
Manuel Balce Ceneta\/AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta<\/p>\n
TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Ontario Premier Doug Ford answered President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cLake America\u201d decree Saturday with a billboard-sized message on the Canadian shoreline \u2014 \u201cLake Ontario. Now and Always\u201d \u2014 as Canadian leaders met the move with ridicule rather than outrage.<\/p>\n
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Wearing a Team Canada soccer jersey, Ford unveiled the sign near Grimsby, Ontario, and posed for photographs. The 24-by-12-foot (7.3-by-3.6 meter) sign stands on 6-foot (1.8-meter) legs, putting its top about 18 feet (5.5 meters) above the ground \u2014 roughly two stories high. The message is repeated in French, one<\/p>\n
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The display followed Trump\u2019s executive order directing U.S. federal agencies to call Lake Ontario \u201cLake America.\u201d After months of tariffs, threats to make Canada the 51st U.S. state and personal attacks on its leaders, the reaction in Canada has mixed defiance with mockery.<\/p>\n
Ford said 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 Ford said in a video posted on social media.<\/p>\n
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Canadians mock Trump <\/p>\n
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew compared Trump to an aging rock band trying to revive an old hit<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know when 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, Like he thought they had a real hit, a real golden oldie, with the Gulf of Mexico,\u201d Kinew said, referring to Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. \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
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\u201cThe greatest country on earth takes this moron seriously?\u201d Bothwell said.<\/p>\n
But Bothwell said the dispute was more serious than the jokes, arguing 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 Trump \u201cwould like Canada to act like a vassal state, but it refuses to do so. That irritates him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canada and the US trade barbs over collapsed talks <\/p>\n
The dispute comes as relations between the longtime 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
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Trump\u2019s order also came amid an escalating war of words with Ford. In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this week, Ford said Ronald Reagan would be \u201cthrowing up\u201d over Trump\u2019s tariff policies and \u201cdisgusted with President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump fired back by dismissing 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
Trump continued promoting the new name Saturday, reposting a meme showing Canada geese with Trump-like blond hair firing rifles as they \u201cprotected\u201d Lake America.<\/p>\n
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 Trump has posted images depicting Canada as part of the United States or as the 51st state.<\/p>\n
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Ontario name has Indigenous origins<\/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 The Canadian province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.<\/p>\n
Wendat Nation Grand Chief Pierre Picard, whose people historically lived from the St. Lawrence Valley to the Great Lakes and whose language gave Lake Ontario its name, called Trump\u2019s move an attempt to erase Indigenous history.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI want to tell him that it is unacceptable for us, as a nation, to have a president who can eradicate our history, our culture and our identity,\u201d Picard said.<\/p>\n
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the move, noting the lake\u2019s Indigenous roots and that the name predates both Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Trump cannot require Canada to adopt the new name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveils a sign for Lake Ontario at Fifty Point Conservation Area in Grimsby, Ontario,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[18790,145,146548,146543,146542,118740,146545,23681,59373,146544,59371,146549,61262,146547,146546,14636,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-420869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-doug-ford","tag-lake-ontario","tag-lake-ontario-america-trump-canada-ford","tag-mark-carney","tag-nelson-wiseman","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-pierre-picard","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-32500-ap-online-canada-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-rob-ford","tag-robert-bothwell","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}