Well Staind, I would say it's just marketing trick and nothing else... here in Canada, everything is well calculated... they like to spread those stories that lakes are not clean, blah, blah, blah... why ? Just because well known "Ontario Place", "MarineLand" and many many other "water world" places for kids wouldn't make enough profit if swimming in lake Ontario is allowed... everyone would go to lake Ontario beaches. First of all, simple because it's free, you don't have to pay anything to enjoy wonderful site, and second - it's really wonderful place to rest, believe me.
Just take a look at these 3 photos. Those photos are actual photos of river Sava in Croatia. Town where I came from is located on the east of Croatia and it's surrounded with river Sava (river makes big curve around that small city). We used to swim in that river every single day in past... last 20 and something years while I still was there. Just take a close look at color of that river... and no, it's not because it was cloudy (you can see that sky is still blueish), that's something like mixed mud and oil from heavy ships... no one ever got sick because of that... that's life. Comparing to that, lake Ontario is drinking water. Picture number 4 is proof...
