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Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow told CBS News on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump should take a page from Dolly Parton's playbook, one day after Trump floated renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America." Chow said Trump should "love thy neighbour," and called the proposal a "senseless, brutal" attack on Canada-U.S. relations, citing $28 billion in retaliatory Canadian tariffs.

Sheila Gunn Reid criticized Chow's remarks during Tuesday's live stream, accusing her of cherry-picking Dolly Parton's message while ignoring the singer's actual philosophy of hard work and self-reliance, referencing her famous "9 to 5" lyrics and her "cup of ambition" line. Sheila also questioned why Chow would invoke the country icon so soon after her death to score a political point, noting Parton spent her career deliberately avoiding politics.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow tells CBS News' @errolbarnett that President Trump should "take a page from Dolly Parton" in response to the president's threat to rename Lake Ontario to "Lake America" amid a trade war between the U.S. and Canada.

"She's loving, she's generous, she's… pic.twitter.com/uoaAzMTkby

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 26, 2026

Archival clips show Parton telling interviewers she keeps her opinions to herself to stay in show business, adding she'd rather "tell you where to put it" than weigh in on political questions. Sheila noted how that restraint stands in sharp contrast to politicians rushing to claim her legacy for their own arguments.

Lise Merle also highlighted Parton's charitable record, including her Imagination Library program, which has distributed millions of free books to children to promote literacy. Lise added that Parton's decades of quiet philanthropy, not her hit songs, deserve the spotlight rather than being used as a rhetorical weapon in a Canada-U.S. trade dispute.