Carney: ‘Naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario’

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday rejected President Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” explaining the history of the Great Lake’s indigenous name in a post on social media.

“The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big,’” Carney wrote on the social platform X .

He noted that the name had been used for more than 400 years, predating the Canadian Confederation and the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,” the prime minister continued. “Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”

Other Canadian officials also refused to adopt the Trump administration’s new name. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the body of water, which is shared by New York and the Canadian province of Ontario, will always be Lake Ontario in Canada.

“It’s Lake Ontario to Canadians and the rest of the world. Now and forever,” he wrote on social media .

Trump signed an executive order Thursday to formally change the lake’s name to Lake America after first floating the idea earlier this week amid a trade war between the U.S. and Canada. His order changes the name for federal purposes but has no authority beyond the U.S.

The move follows a similar move on the first day of his second term, when he signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”

Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports and separately threatened additional 50 percent tariffs on automotive imports and steel beginning Jan. 1, 2027.

Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs effective Sept. 8, with Carney promising to match Trump’s latest tariffs “dollar for dollar.” Seafood, however, was later exempted from the looming taxes.