They Renamed Our Lake. We Named Our Outhouse.

A dispatch from a country that was here long before the deal.

It Started This Morning

I was having my coffee — Canadian, obviously — when the news hit.

Apparently, Lake Ontario has a new name now. Decided somewhere south of the border, by someone who has probably never stood on its shores in November, felt the wind come off the water, or understood what it means to a country that built itself around it.

When I was a kid, the scary thing in movies was little green men from outer space. Alien invasion. Flying saucers. The existential threat from beyond the stars.

Nobody warned us about the big orange guy with the pen.

The Audacity of the Rename

Let me be clear about something: Lake Ontario has been Lake Ontario since before the United States existed.

The name comes from the Wyandot word "Ontarío" — meaning "great lake" or "shimmering water." Indigenous peoples named it centuries before anyone drew a border, signed a trade deal, or invented a social media platform to announce geopolitical decisions between golf rounds.

You can't rename what was never yours.

But here's the thing about Canada — we don't panic. We don't rage. We do something far more dangerous to our opponents:

We laugh. And then we get to work.

My Official Response

This morning, I walked out to my property and formally renamed my septic tank.

I won't say what I named it. This is a family publication. But I will say the name rhymes with "Ronald" and involves a certain body of water.

Google Maps, if you're listening: feel free to update your data.

Canada Existed Before the Free Trade Agreement

Here's a fact that seems to get lost in the noise:

Canada was a country for 120 years before NAFTA. We survived two world wars, the Depression, the October Crisis, and the cancellation of Hockey Night in Canada's theme song. We built railroads across mountains. We invented insulin. We gave the world Céline, Gretzky, and poutine.

We did not need a trade deal to exist. We do not need a renamed lake to know who we are.

What we need — what we've always needed — is each other.

Standing Up Looks Like This

It doesn't always look like a protest sign or a parliamentary speech.

Sometimes standing up looks like choosing a Canadian brand over a foreign one. Picking up the phone and ordering from the small business down the highway instead of the warehouse across the border. Finding the Quebec maker, the BC farmer, the Ontario designer, the Alberta entrepreneur who's building something real.

That's what Kastor.club is about. Not anti-American. Not angry. Just pro-Canadian — loudly, proudly, and with a sense of humour sharp enough to rename a septic tank.

The Lake Is Still There

Whatever anyone calls it on a map, Lake Ontario will be doing exactly what it's always done — being enormous, being Canadian, and absolutely not caring what anyone thinks.

We're the same.

We were here before the deal. We'll be here after the posturing. And we'll keep building, buying local, and laughing — because that's what Canadians do when someone tries to shake us.

The lake doesn't need a new name.

Neither do we.

👉 Shop Canadian. Stand Canadian. kastor.club

Kastor.club — Canada's marketplace for independent Canadian businesses. Every purchase is a vote for the country you want to live in.