Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has rejected US President Donald Trump’s move to rename Lake Ontario, saying Canadians will continue to call the historic body of water by its traditional name.
In a post on X on Thursday, Carney emphasized the centuries-old origins of the name Ontario, noting that it comes from the Wendat word “Ontari’io,” meaning “the lake is beautiful” or “the lake is big.”
His comments came after Trump signed an executive order directing the US Department of the Interior to begin the process of renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America.” The move comes amid a sharp deterioration in trade relations between Washington and Ottawa.
The United States and Canada failed to reach a new trade agreement on August 21. A day later, Washington imposed a 50% tariff on around $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. Canada responded with “dollar-for-dollar” retaliatory tariffs on US imports, scheduled to take effect on September 8.
Carney argued that the name Lake Ontario has existed for more than 400 years—long before both the Confederation of Canada and the American Declaration of Independence.
“America is changing,” Carney said, pointing to changes in US trade relationships, foreign policy, national monuments and geographic names.
But he added that Canadians would continue to use the traditional name.
“Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always,” Carney wrote.
Lake Ontario is one of North America’s five Great Lakes and lies along the US-Canada border. Ontario is located to its north, while New York State borders the lake to the south.
The dispute over the lake’s name adds a symbolic dimension to already strained relations between the two neighboring countries, as both sides face growing tensions over trade, tariffs and national identity.
