Mark Carney has hit back at the White House after Donald Trump continued efforts to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America.
The last few days have seen US-Canadian relations deteriorate once more after Donald Trump reignited a trade war between the North American neighbours.
The US has said it will apply a 50% levy on nearly $20bn (C$28bn; £14bn) of Canadian imports after trade talks between teh two sides collapsed last week.
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In response, Canada has said it will match the US levies dollar for dollar, with prime minister Mark Carney keen to forge closer ties with the EU.
This was followed by Trump threatening to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America, in a similarly childish move to when he tried to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America last year.
On Thursday, the US president signed an executive order seeking to change then name of Lake Ontario, which straddles both the US and Canada.
He said the move to rename the lake was effective immediately.
But the lake renaming has been dismissed by Canadian officials, with Mark Carney posting a brilliant response to Trump’s actions.
In a statement, the Canadian PM said: “The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big’.
“The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.
“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms.
“Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.”
Trump’s efforts will only impact how the US recognises landmarks, with other countries under no obligation to follow their lead.
This was demonstrated by the Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America drama. When Trump signed an order that changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, Mexico rejected the name change, arguing a single country cannot rename a shared body of international water.
Google then renamed the gulf in its maps application, sparking a legal dispute between the tech giant and Mexico.
Now, Google Maps users in the US see ‘Gulf of America’, while those in Mexico see the ‘Gulf of Mexico’. Those in other countries see the ‘Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)’.
