For Canadians, especially Ontarians, Trump has galvanized sentiment against him

There appears to be no roadmap for ending the full blown trade war between Canada and the United States.

No new talks have been scheduled.

For a week now, Canada has been subjected to additional 50% tariffs on a range of products worth about $20 billion. Ottawa’s dollar-for-dollar retaliation won’t take effect for another week.

The latest move from an antagonistic President Donald Trump was to sign an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as "Lake America."

Prime Minister Mark Carney said no matter what the U.S. calls it, Canadians will know it as Lake Ontario, then, now and always.

And this weekend, Ontario Premier Doug Ford took the opportunity to unveil a giant sign at the small lakeside community of Winona, on the outskirts of Hamilton, echoing the comments made by the prime minister.

"Lake Ontario now and forever," Ford said. "President Trump can call it whatever he wants, but I can tell the rest of the world will always call it Lake Ontario. I received numerous call from governors. They’re saying 'we’re always gonna call it Lake Ontario,' and obviously, Canada is always gonna call it Lake Ontario."

In addition to the anger most people in Canada, and especially Ontario, feel Trump has galvanized Canadian sentiment against him.

In Ottawa, hundreds turned up for a weekend rally organized by Canada’s largest private sector union, UNIFOR. And their message was clearly anti-Trump.

"If we allow Donald Trump to de-industrialize Canada, we will wake up two years from now and all of that volume, all of that production, all of that capacity will be gone," said Lana Payne, the president of UNIFOR, the union for hard-pressed Canadian auto workers. "So we need an industrial plan that keeps this together for the next two years, because, honestly, I don’t see us getting a trade deal any time soon.”

While the big sectors such as auto, steel and aluminum and lumber are under threat, the new 50% tariffs also put tens of thousands of small- and medium-sized businesses in Trump’s crosshairs.

"They are smack in the middle of this trade fight now, because the new 50% tariff  the U.S. is imposing on Canadian exports is right on a whole bunch of consumer goods, agricultural products, antiques, jewelry," said Dan Kelly, the president of the federation of Canadian Independent Business. "I’m hearing from a lot of business owners that ship these goods into the United States that their customers aren’t going to accept a 50% premium on their products nor is the Canadian company gonna be able to swallow that on their behalf."

With all the accusations, insults and rhetoric about who caused the trade talks to collapse more than a week ago, it’s not clear if talks can restart any time soon.

"Our pens are down, but the door is open," said Janice Charette, Canada's chief negotiator for the recent talks. "We’re prepared to go and work with the United States on a deal that would be in the economic interest of Canadians. As long as it doesn’t impact on Canadian sovereignty."

Over the past several days there’s been a renewed push to "buy Canadian." People in grocery stores and retail shops are more diligently checking point of origin labels and say they’ll pay more if they have to. Others are even returning U.S. goods they bought by mistake.

Ford and other premiers say American booze will not be going back on their shelves any time soon. Many Canadians are again stepping up their boycott of travelling to the U.S. — some of those adding that it’s unlikely they will ever go back.