From The Beaches and JoJo to Blue Rodeo and Bryan Adams, many acts are taking a stance on the U.S. president’s most recent executive order to rename the Canadian Great Lake.
Last month, President Donald Trump threatened to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America, amidst the tariff trade war between Canada and the U.S.
While the executive order has yet to be passed, the order has prompted many artists from Canada and beyond to use their platforms to show support for the Great Lake while performing in Ontario.
The Beaches
While performing in their home province, the Toronto rock quartet posted a clip to social media that shows them jamming out while wearing Lake Ontario-themed T-shirts. In the video, frontwoman Jordan Miller sported a classic tourist tee, with the caption: “long live Lake Ontario 🫡.” Hours later, the group shared another TikTok, in which guitarist Leandra Earl was wearing a T-shirt that read: “Lesbian of the Lake Ontario,” a playful reference to their hit “Lesbian of the Year.”
For many music listeners, the CanRock band has been championing Lake Ontario for decades with their 1993 hit “Hasn't Hit Me Yet,” which features the lyric: “Watching the snow fall on this cold December night / And out in the middle of Lake Ontario.” But in recent months, the song has taken on a whole new meaning. During the band’s annual show at Toronto’s RBC Amphitheatre, the Toronto rockers played the staple track, but had a specific request of the crowd.
They asked the audience of 16,000 to sing the “Lake Ontario” lyric with “full authority and ownership,” and of course, the crowd delivered. Later, frontman Greg Keelor told The Canadian Pressthat “it is a little bit of a rallying call,” amidst the tariff war between Canada and the U.S. “If the song galvanizes a mood or an energy in the country, that is amazing,” he said.
Bryan Adams
A beloved homegrown music icon, Adams has always been “Canada down.” Last week, he announced his forthcoming album, How's It Goin’, on Nov. 6. It’sreportedly “a deeply personal musical love letter to Canada" that is "rooted in the people, places, landscapes and stories that have shaped his home country." The 13-track album will feature his two previously released singles “51st State” — a protest song against Trump’s previous claims to lump Canada in with the U.S. — and “The Ballad of Terry Fox.”
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Most of the tracklist is dedicated to Canadian heritage sites, but the Great Lake gets its own shoutout on the aptly titled “Lake Ontario,” which will seemingly be the final track on How’s It Goin’.
"The idea was simply to make a record about Canada," Adams said of the album. "It started with writing the song for the documentary Canada’s Wild Eastern Edge, and after doing so much research, I was inspired to start writing more songs about Canada.”
Donovan Woods
While the homegrown act is known for his folk singer-songwriter music, he is a true fan of Canada’s lakes, often releasing an annual ranking of them. Speaking with CBC’s Commotion, he expressed disinterest in Trump’s lack of lake knowledge. “I'm just sad that I have to hear him talk about the Great Lakes. He knows nothing of the Great Lakes,” he said.
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“Lake Ontario knows its name. Deep down inside its cold, unforgiving waters, it whispers its name to itself sweetly, and it knows its name, and we'll never know its true name, and I hope we never know,” doubling down that a renaming of the lake will be a far bigger disservice to the province than the U.S. president will ever realize.
JoJo
While performing at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) last month, the Y2K-era pop singer took the stage at Bell SOUNDSTAGE at the Bandshell — and had an important message for fans: “It [was] just so beautiful to fly in and see the beautiful Lake Ontario. What a beautiful lake,” she said, prompting the crowd to cheer. “If I wasn’t from Massachusetts, I wish to be from Toronto. I love Canada.” She further proved her love for Canada by performing a cover of Drake’s major 2016 hit “One Dance.”
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Iron Maiden
The U.K. heavy metal greats have always packed a punch at their shows, and their recent two-night stint in Toronto was no different. Celebrating the kickoff show on their 50th anniversary tour, frontman Bruce Dickinson shared that the band’s journey was traumatic. “[But] we got here — we crossed Lake of Ontario,” which elicited cheers from the crowd. In Dickinson’s speech, he continued to mention various bodies of water across the globe. “Later this year, we’ll be crossing the Gulf of Mexico,” commenting on the “ridiculous state of the world.”
