Ford's 'Lake Ontario' billboard defies Trump's renaming order

On Saturday morning near Hamilton, Ontario, Doug Ford stood before a baby-blue billboard and recorded a video message for the internet. The sign behind him, rendered in large white letters, read simply: "Lake Ontario." Underneath, a smaller line promised: "Now and Always." The message repeated in French below. Ford, Ontario's premier, was answering a challenge that had arrived from Washington three days earlier—an executive order from President Donald Trump directing the US federal government to call the lake by a new name: Lake America.

Ford's response was characteristically pointed. "Long before President Trump, this lake was called Lake Ontario," he said to the camera. "And long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario." The sign, he explained, was erected in case the president—or anyone else—forgot. It was a deliberate act of defiance, the kind of public theater Ford had perfected over months of escalating conflict with the Trump administration.

The billboard was not Ford's first move in this fight. Earlier in the week, after trade negotiations between Canada and the US collapsed, Ford had spoken with brutal candor on a Toronto radio show. "He can kiss my ass as far as I'm concerned. We're going to go at him full steam," he said about Trump. The president responded on Truth Social by attacking Ford personally, calling him "less charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive" compared with his late brother, Rob Ford, who had served as Toronto's mayor. Trump added a warning: "Someone should get these clowns to 'fall in line' or, the consequences for Canada will be far WORSE."

The lake renaming order was itself a symptom of a much larger rupture. The US and Canada had entered a trade war that was now reshaping the relationship between the two countries. In the most recent escalation, the Trump administration had imposed 50 percent tariffs on twenty billion dollars' worth of Canadian goods. The trade tensions had sparked a popular backlash in Canada, with boycotts of American products spreading and several provinces banning US liquor from their shelves. Ford, a right-wing populist who leads Ontario—the center of Canada's automotive manufacturing and a province whose factories are deeply integrated with American car makers—had positioned himself as a leading voice for Canadian retaliation.

This was not Ford's first expensive gesture against Trump. Last year, his government had spent seventy-five million dollars on an advertising campaign that aired in the United States, featuring the voice of Ronald Reagan warning against trade barriers. "Over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer," Reagan's recorded voice said. Trump had been so angered by the ads—which aired before the 2025 off-year races—that he cancelled trade talks in protest. Some members of his administration compared the campaign to election interference. Ford eventually pulled the advertisements in October, claiming he had achieved his goal of starting a conversation about tariffs' impact on workers and businesses.

Ford's relationship with Trump had not always been adversarial. When Ford entered provincial politics in 2018, some of his supporters had adopted the slogan "Make Ontario Great Again," a deliberate echo of Trump's campaign messaging. Ford had rejected the comparison then and continued to do so now, insisting that his family's involvement in politics predated Trump's rise by decades. But the trade war had erased any ambiguity about where the two leaders stood. Ford had even called for Canada to cede its sovereignty and become a US state—a position that seemed designed to mock Trump's expansionist rhetoric while also highlighting the absurdity of the conflict.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment about the billboard. But the silence itself was telling. Ford's defiance had found an audience. Vermont Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, had called Trump's lake-renaming order "petty and disappointing" and urged the president to return to negotiations rather than antagonize Canada, a longtime ally. Canada ranked as one of America's top two trading partners and was the largest destination for US exports. The trade war was hurting both sides, yet the conflict seemed to be accelerating rather than cooling. Ford's billboard was a small act in a much larger drama—a provincial premier using a piece of blue metal and white letters to say that some things, at least, would not bend to presidential will.