Canada has hit back at President Donald Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” by erecting a giant sign declaring the waterway will remain “Lake Ontario. Now and Always.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled the large bilingual sign on Saturday near Grimsby, Ontario, in a symbolic response to Trump’s renaming order.
The sign, which stands about 18 feet tall, carries the message “Lake Ontario. Now and Always” in English, alongside the French wording, “Lac Ontario — Aujourd’hui et pour toujours.”
“Long before President Trump, this lake was called Lake Ontario. Long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario,” Ford said.
Standing beside the new sign, the Ontario premier added: “Just in case President Trump or anyone else forgets, we’ve set up this sign to remind them, it’s Lake Ontario, now and forever.”
Trump signed an executive order on August 27 directing the US Department of the Interior and the Board on Geographic Names to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America in US government records.
The order gives the department 30 days to update the Geographic Names Information System, the official US repository for domestic geographic names.
The White House has defended the decision by pointing to the lake’s importance to the American economy, including shipping, energy, commerce and the wider Great Lakes system.
But Canada has rejected the move, with Prime Minister Mark Carney insisting that the body of water will remain Lake Ontario in Canada.
The dispute has also spilled onto digital maps. Google Maps now displays “Lake America” for users in the United States, while Canadian users continue to see “Lake Ontario.” Users outside the two countries see both names.
The naming row comes as relations between Washington and Ottawa deteriorate over trade.
Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on about C$27.6bn worth of US goods on August 25, matching the latest American duties dollar-for-dollar. The measures are scheduled to take effect on September 8.
Washington had imposed 50 per cent tariffs on C$27.6bn of Canadian goods, adding another layer of pressure to already strained economic relations between the two countries.
The trade dispute is particularly sensitive because the US and Canada operate deeply interconnected supply chains across sectors including automobiles, manufacturing, agriculture and energy.
Trump has also promoted the Lake America campaign on social media, including AI-generated videos mocking the original name of the lake.
The latest controversy echoes his earlier decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That move also drew strong opposition from Mexico before Google adopted different names for the waterway depending on a user’s location.
Lake Ontario is the smallest of the five Great Lakes and lies along the border between Ontario and New York.
For Canadians, the dispute is about more than what appears on a map. The name Lake Ontario has historical and Indigenous roots, making the attempt to replace it a sensitive issue of identity and heritage.
Ford’s giant sign has now added a physical marker to the diplomatic and political dispute — a declaration from Canada that, whatever appears on US maps, the lake remains Lake Ontario on its northern shore.
