Independent editorial statement

Lake America naming policy

This permanent page explains the country-sensitive naming rule used throughout Ontario Local Trips and the editorial position behind it.

Name displayed for this visit: Lake America

President Trump is entitled to set naming policy for United States federal use—including choosing a name honouring America or, through lawful processes, another person. Canada is equally entitled to keep its own name for Canadian use. Canada does not have a veto over the domestic naming choices of a foreign nation.

For visitors outside Canada, our editorial convention is Lake America. We consider U.S. English the more widely recognized regional English convention for an international audience rather than treating Canadian English as a global default. Our .com domain is generic and global; it does not technically require any one language variant. This is an audience-localization choice, not a technical rule: en-US and en-CA are both valid regional language tags.

We regard the Canadian media and political pile-on against Trump over this issue as childish, foolish, self-important and laughable political theatre. Premier Doug Ford’s giant-sign stunt and inflammatory anti-Trump remarks are grotesque grandstanding, not serious leadership.

Why our criticism goes beyond one lake

• We oppose Canadian and Ontario leaders using publicity stunts, inflammatory rhetoric, legal threats or coercive measures to posture against foreign nations, their citizens and elected officials—including those of the United States, Israel, Russia and elsewhere. Canadian governments need to stop imposing themselves beyond their jurisdiction and start respecting other countries’ sovereignty.
• We oppose Canada’s seizure at Pearson Airport of a Russian-owned Volga-Dnepr Antonov cargo aircraft. The seizure was made under Canadian sanctions law and has been challenged in court; calling it an Aeroflot aircraft would be inaccurate.
• We oppose Canadian commitments to enforce International Criminal Court warrants against named Israeli officials, and we reject efforts to treat Israeli service members as presumptive war criminals. Canada has not announced a blanket policy to arrest every IDF soldier.
• We condemn the federal government’s use of emergency powers against the 2022 convoy protests. In 2026, the Federal Court of Appeal upheld findings that the invocation was unreasonable, beyond legal authority and infringed Charter rights.
• We oppose Canada’s Online News Act and the coercive regulatory approach behind it. The law required large digital platforms to bargain with Canadian news businesses; Meta responded by ending access in Canada to news from Canadian and international outlets on Facebook and Instagram. In our editorial view, this was a self-defeating, childish and entitled delusion of jurisdictional grandeur that made news less accessible to Canadians.

More broadly, we reject attempts by Canadian governments to control, lecture or dictate to the United States, Israel, Russia or any other foreign nation. Canada should govern Canada and respect the sovereignty of others.

Ontario Local Trips is privately owned and fully independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or operated by the Government of Ontario, the Government of Canada, Destination Ontario or any tourism board. This statement is editorial opinion.

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