Letters: Pull the plug on Trump’s ‘Lake America’

A photo illustration dated Aug. 30 shows a Google map identifying Lake Ontario as "Lake America," in front of a photograph taken on Aug. 27 on the Toronto waterfront. Photo by Nicholas KAMM / AFP via Getty Images

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Name change ‘rightly evoked an emotional response’

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President Donald Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America has rightly evoked an emotional response from Canadians. While “Lake America” will likely have the staying power of “Freedom Fries” — coined by Americans in 2003 when France wouldn’t support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq — it is hard to ignore the irony that Canada has been renaming its own streets, towns and geographical features for the past decade. I hope this ordeal illustrates the practical folly of changing well-established names and reboots Canadians’ pride in their history and institutions.

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Clint Stibbard, West Vancouver

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For generations, we’ve remembered the names of the Great Lakes by using the acronym HOMES: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior.

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With “Lake America,” we may need a new acronym: SHAME (Superior, Huron, America, Michigan, Erie).

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A fitting one, unfortunately, for the state of Canada-U.S. trade talks.

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Adina Silberman, Bronx, N.Y.

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It could be that renaming Lake Ontario is not merely a joke or another way for President Donald Trump to insult Canada. It could be a sneaky way for him to solve America’s freshwater shortage. Canada needs to fight this name change and ensure that our water rights on the lake (of which we own 53 per cent) are not diminished.

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Morton Cohen, Toronto

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Donald Trump has now “renamed” both the Gulf of Mexico (“Gulf of America”) and Lake Ontario (“Lake America”).

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Both these two pre-Columbian place names are of Indigenous origin. “Mexico” is said to have originated in the ethnonym Mexica, which referred to the Aztecs. As for “Ontario,” it comes from the Wendat word “Oniatarí:io,” which meant “great/beautiful lake” or “lake of shining waters.” The Wendat were displaced by the Iroquois, who retained the name. “America,” on the other hand, is a place name of European origin referring to the explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

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By changing these centuries-old place names, the budding cartographer Trump is attacking not only Mexico and Canada, but also the heritage of the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Americas long before Christopher Columbus arrived.

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Trump is also reported to be considering renaming an ocean. If he sets his sights on the Pacific Ocean, he will undoubtedly want to rename it the “Warrior Ocean.” Hasn’t he already renamed the Department of Defence the “War Department,” much to the delight of Pete Hegseth, the bellicose Secretary of War?

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If this last change is adopted, it would have the added bonus (in Trump’s eyes) of displeasing the governor of California (whose coastline stretches for more than 1,300 kilometres along the Pacific) — Gavin Newsom, his fiercest opponent.

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Sylvio Le Blanc, Montreal

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The rain does come

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Chrystia Freeland, as Justin Trudeau’s finance minister, was fully complicit in his decision to massively increase Canada’s debt. But in the end, even she could not stomach the recklessness of those budgets, the willing blindness her boss showed as he spent on pet projects and programs while killing the goose laying golden eggs, and ignoring the unavoidable catastrophe to come. It took Freeland too long to realize that when Trudeau stated that it was his understanding that budgets balance themselves, he actually believed it.