Matthew Lau: Turns out getting things’ names right isn’t that hard

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America' amid an ongoing trade war between the U.S. and Canada. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images files

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When it comes to the names and definitions of things that should really be quite simple, the White House, woke Canadian urbanites with too much time on their hands, the Women’s National Basketball Association and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation have all been, if not exhibiting significant confusion themselves, certainly spreading lots of it around.

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Donald Trump, unhappy with the Ontario government, has decided to call Lake Ontario “Lake America” instead. He follows in the footsteps of woke Toronto councillors, bureaucrats and activists who, unhappy with 18th-century British politician Henry Dundas and finding they had nothing better to do, decided to rename Yonge-Dundas Square as “Sankofa Square.” Also of Vancouver councillors who unaccountably decided it was a good idea to give certain streets new names that can neither be pronounced nor spelled with Latin letters.

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None of this makes any sense. Trump trying to call Lake Ontario “Lake America” is designed to antagonize Canadians. But to be effective, a jab must be sharp or witty. Trump’s renaming is neither, just plain dumb: the name Lake Ontario, more than 400 years old, predates the establishment of both the province of Ontario and the United States, and there are a dozen U.S. cities, towns, townships or counties named Ontario.

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Renaming efforts in Toronto and Vancouver were similarly senseless. The decision to rename Yonge-Dundas Square followed a council vote after years of “work” and consultation by municipal staff, including at the “Confronting Anti-Black Racism Unit.” Ironically, Henry Dundas was an opponent of slavery who appointed John Graves Simcoe — responsible for introducing the first legislation in the British empire to limit slavery — as Upper Canada’s first lieutenant-governor. Meanwhile, the word “Sankofa” is from the Akan language and, as Toronto-based lawyer Greg Piasetzki has written, “The Akan peoples of West Africa were notorious slave traders. During the transatlantic slave trade, the Akan captured, enslaved, and sold one to two million fellow Africans into slavery.”

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The City of Vancouver’s renaming of streets, such as of Trutch Street to “šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm Street,” is even worse. Street names and road signs only a handful of people can read create confusion for residents, commuters, delivery drivers and everyone else. Such confusion may even have deadly consequences: if you live on the street and need to call an ambulance or other emergency services, good luck trying to tell them where you are.

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In addition to naming confusion, in some quarters there is significant confusion about definitions. Last week, Canada’s state broadcaster made headlines because the senior director of journalistic standards and public trust at CBC News sent a memo to reporters and editors advising “Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.” The CBC’s policy is also not to refer to Hamas, which carried out the October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel, as terrorists. A reasonable person might wonder: if the 9/11 and October 7 attacks do not fall under the definition of terrorism, what exactly must someone do for CBC to consider him a terrorist? (Sensibly, the CBC has since reversed its prohibition on calling 9/11 a terrorist attack.)

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If confusion from taxpayer-funded journalists over whether 9/11 is a terrorist attack is bad, perhaps even worse is the Women’s National Basketball Association’s confusion over the definition of “women.” In recent weeks there has been a media firestorm around whether its stipulation that “only players who are women are eligible to play” includes biological men who identify as women.