“Can He Do That?” Trump, Lake Ontario, and the Day Doug Ford Became the Voice of Reason

I keep seeing it online, and every single time I have the same reaction. First, I laugh. Not a real laugh—a nervous little ha ha, surely this is satire laugh. Then I read it again and say out loud, “Wait. Can he do that?”

Unfortunately, the answer is not a clean no. On August 27, Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to replace “Lake Ontario” with “Lake America” in the federal Geographic Names Information System and in U.S. federal documents. So yes, he can make his own federal government use that name. What he cannot do is rename Canada’s part of an international lake, force Canada or international organizations to accept the name, or order the rest of us to participate in his latest branding exercise.

Even Google’s response makes the limit obvious: users in the United States now see “Lake America,” users in Canada still see “Lake Ontario,” and users elsewhere see both names. Apparently even the map has learned how to manage an exhausting relative. (White House order; CBS News; Associated Press)

And then Doug Ford spoke.

For anyone outside Ontario, let me explain why this part is so funny. We do not generally look at Doug Ford and think, Ah yes, the daring face of progressive twenty-first-century politics. He is the leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party. Many of us have spent years disagreeing with him, sometimes loudly. Yet Trump has managed to create a situation in which Doug Ford walks into the room and sounds like the reasonable adult.

Ford said Trump signing the order looked like “something out of Saturday Night Live” and insisted that nobody was going to call it Lake America. And honestly, what else is there to say? When Doug Ford—Doug Ford—has to explain that your behaviour resembles a comedy sketch, perhaps it is time to sit quietly and think about the choices that brought you here. (Bloomberg Law)

The entire thing invites questions that should be stupid but are now apparently part of international relations. Does the water change names at the border? Do the fish need to remember whether they are swimming in Lake Ontario or Lake America? Will the rain receive an updated federal memo before it falls? If I stand on the Canadian shore and shout “Lake Ontario,” will an American agency issue me a correction—or just a tariff?

There is something deeply pathetic about a president trying to win a trade fight by renaming a lake. It is not strength. It is the political equivalent of losing an argument and changing the other person’s name in your phone to “Stupid.” You have not won anything. You have only created paperwork.

It is also not a blank patch of water waiting for Trump to discover it with a Sharpie. As Prime Minister Mark Carney noted, the name Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which he rendered as “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big.” He described the name as more than 400 years old and put the matter plainly: “Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario—then, now and always.” (Associated Press)

That is where the joke stops being completely funny. A name can carry history, language and identity. Trump’s order cannot erase those things, but it reveals the same ugly instinct we keep seeing: if something matters, claim it; if another country resists, belittle it; if reality refuses to cooperate, rename reality. Then turn the whole tantrum into content.

Doug Ford answered with an enormous sign on the Canadian shoreline: LAKE ONTARIO. NOW AND ALWAYS. It was petty, theatrical and completely appropriate. Sometimes a ridiculous performance deserves a billboard-sized response. (Associated Press; The Guardian)

So, can Trump do it? He can command the U.S. federal government to print “Lake America” on its own maps and documents. He cannot make it Lake America in Canada. He cannot force Canadians to say it. He cannot rename four hundred years of history, and he cannot make the lake care.

It was Lake Ontario before Donald Trump signed his piece of paper. It is Lake Ontario while he is waving that paper around. And long after this bizarre little episode has become an actual comedy sketch, it will still be Lake Ontario.