Lake America? No way, Canadians say / Photo: Dave Chan - AFP
Lake America? No way, Canadians say
For Liam Mooney, Lake Ontario will always be Lake Ontario.
Now other Canadians who feel the same way can buy a baseball cap he's designed that pushes back at President Donald Trump's order renaming it "Lake America."
It's not Mooney's first cap caper.
Last year, the 40-year-old entrepreneur made a splash with a hat similar to the ubiquitous red cap of Trump's "MAGA" movement, emblazoned with the message "Canada is not for sale."
The move was inspired by Trump's repeated calls to make Canada the 51st US state.
Sales soared after Ontario Premier Doug Ford wore it to a meeting with then-prime minister Justin Trudeau and other officials to discuss the brewing trade war with the United States.
Mooney began producing his new hat after Trump signed an executive order last week declaring that Lake Ontario, on the US-Canada border, would henceforth be "Lake America."
Lake Ontario's name has an Indigenous origin, well before Canada's province of Ontario was formed.
The new cap has "Lake Ontario" with a small maple leaf on the front and "Canada is not for sale" on the back.
"We've received several thousand orders at this time all around the world," Mooney says. To him, the renaming is "absurd" and "extremely dangerous."
Lake Ontario is "a shared responsibility" between the two countries and there should be mutual respect in how it is managed, he says.
Proceeds from hat sales will go to an organization dedicated to protecting the lake, according to Mooney.
- 'Economic nationalism' -
The caps are part of a broader wave of patriotism in Canada in reaction to Trump's hostility.
On August 21, Prime Minister Mark Carney broke off trade talks with Washington, accusing the White House of pushing an "unfair" agreement on Canada.
Both sides subsequently hit out at each other with fresh tariffs, threatening an escalating standoff between the major trade partners.
Trump had already at the start of his second term ordered the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America.
His latest map manoeuver has sparked anger in Canada -- and satire.
A cartoon published Monday by major daily newspaper The Globe and Mail pictures the US president as a diaper-wearing baby sitting in a puddle with a sign reading "Lake America" stuck in it.
"It's a childish response from a man who has never grown up, who has an immense ego which takes him absolutely nowhere," Anne Wardrop, a 90-year-old retiree, told AFP of the name change.
"It's ridiculous. It's not up to him to decide," said business executive Gilbert Russell, emphasizing the indigenous origin of the lake's name, given to it "hundreds of years ago."
A huge sign was erected Saturday on the shore of Lake Ontario, displaying that name with the words "Now and Always" in French and English.
"Let's be serious. Long before President Trump, this lake was called Lake Ontario. And long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario," Ontario premier Ford said.
"But just in case President Trump or anyone else forgets, we've set up this sign to remind them it's Lake Ontario now and forever."
U.Jansen--BVZ
