Toronto (GNP): Canadian rock star Bryan Adams has released a new song, Lake Ontario, that takes aim at US President Donald Trump and his order to rename the lake “Lake America”. The song accuses Trump of breaking the peace between the people who live along the lake’s shores.
The song responds to an executive order Trump signed in August. It directed US federal agencies to rename Lake Ontario, which straddles the US-Canada border. The decision echoed his earlier move to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”, which was widely mocked.
The order has fed a wider feud between the two countries that has strained their long-standing alliance. In Canada, the decision has mostly been met with derision. Some critics have noted that the province of Ontario takes its name from the lake, not the other way around.
Adams builds his lyrics on that same point. He stresses that the name comes from the Iroquois, who called the lake the “lake of shining waters”, and describes it as a First Nations name rather than something decided by an executive order. The song also suggests the renaming was meant to distract from other problems facing Trump, including the war in Iran and renewed scrutiny of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Lake Ontario is part of a larger project that Adams has described as a love letter to Canada. It began when a film company invited him to write about the Maritime provinces. After finishing the first song, he kept going and ended up with his upcoming album, How’s It Goin’.
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The album already includes another song with a political edge. 51st State was released on 1 July, Canada Day, as a repudiation of Trump’s efforts to annex Canada. The album also pays tribute to Canadian heroes.
Adams first performed the new material in public in the United States, which he said made him unsure how the audience would react. The response surprised him, and it left him thinking that the tide might finally be turning.
Adams said, “We weren’t sure how people were going to respond to it.”
Adams said, “We got a standing ovation every night for it.”
