Hydro Ottawa says it’s working to correct its outage map after it began labelling Lake Ontario as “Lake America” following a change Google Maps made for its users in the United States. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America as a trade war between the U.S. and Canada escalates. On Sunday, Google Maps said it had formally changed the name of the cross-border lake to Lake America for U.S. users, while those in Canada will continue to see Lake Ontario. Users in the rest of the world will see both names. “These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now,” Google said in a blog post. Hydro Ottawa’s outage map allows customers to easily find the status of utility disruptions across the city. On Sunday, the utility’s map had switched to Lake America. “Hydro Ottawa is aware that Lake Ontario is currently mislabelled on our outage map due to an issue with our third-party mapping provider. We are working with our vendor to fix the error as quickly as possible,” a Hydro Ottawa spokesperson told CTV News in an email. Other city organizations, including OC Transpo and the Ottawa police’s crime map, both show Lake Ontario. Other organizations switch to ‘Lake America’ After Google made the announcement, other Ontario websites and organizations featured maps that used the name Lake America, including Hydro One and the LCBO. Hydro One said it was working with its vendor to correct the change and restore the former name. “We regret the error and apologize for any confusion it has caused,” Hydro One said on X. An Ontario cabinet minister said the maps are incorrectly displaying the lake’s name as “Lake America” because it’s pulling map data directly from Google Maps. “Following recent changes by Google, we’re actively reviewing our websites to make sure they all identify Lake Ontario by its correct name: Lake Ontario,” Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement Stephen Crawford said in a post on X. “As Ontarians, we will always stand up for our province, our identity and the places that define it.” Other mapping services like Apple Maps and MapQuest have not yet adopted the change. Canadian officials have pushed back on the president’s update, pointing to the lake’s longstanding history with the same name. Premier Doug Ford unveiled a new Lake Ontario sign near the water on Saturday. “President Trump can call it whatever, but I can tell you the rest of the world will always call it Lake Ontario,” Ford said. With files from CTV News Toronto
