Nicolai Haugsted
Canada is preparing to erase Trump from the map – literally.
Relations between Canada and the United States have survived plenty of disagreements over the years, but Donald Trump’s second presidency has given the neighbours a particularly personal list of things to argue about.
Tariffs have strained trade ties, Trump’s repeated talk about Canada becoming America’s “51st state” has hardly improved the mood, and political frustration has increasingly spilled beyond government offices.
Ottawa is now taking that frustration all the way down to street level.
According to The Independent, city councillors have unanimously backed a move that could remove Trump’s name from a street in the Canadian capital, leaving local residents to help decide what comes next.
Trump Avenue predates President Trump
Trump Avenue sits in Ottawa’s Central Park neighbourhood, where several streets carry names associated with New York.
Donald Trump was therefore not president when the street received its name, and today’s sign was not originally intended as a political tribute to his presidency.
Politics has since caught up with the address.
Trump’s aggressive trade policies toward Canada and his comments about turning the country into America’s 51st state have transformed an otherwise unremarkable street name into something some residents would rather leave behind.
River Ward Councillor Riley Brockington said the push came from people living in the community.
“I could speak at great length why I believe strongly it is time to rename Trump Avenue, but I don’t want to give a platform anymore to the person who is on the current street sign blades,” Brockington said.
Residents want a fresh start
Ottawa City Council unanimously approved the motion this week, moving the proposed name change another step forward.
Choosing a replacement, however, is intended to involve the people who actually have Trump Avenue written on their addresses.
Brockington described the process as an opportunity for residents to decide how their neighbourhood should be represented.
“I do believe this is about a new beginning, and I want this to be a community-led process where the community ultimately will select and recommend to city council what that new name will be,” he said.
Ottawa’s existing rules provide a formal route for changing municipal street names. Applications ordinarily require support from 75 percent plus one of the affected residents or property owners, along with the ward councillor’s agreement, before proceeding through the city’s approval process. City Council also retains authority to assign commemorative names by resolution.
Ottawa’s mayor is not exactly sentimental
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe made his own position on the Trump name fairly easy to understand after council approved the motion.
“I don’t like the idea of anything that’s named for Donald Trump, who has demonstrated hostility towards Canada,” Sutcliffe said.
Such hostility, from the Canadian perspective, has become increasingly difficult to separate from the broader relationship with Washington.
Trump reignited his trade confrontation with Ottawa after returning to the White House, imposing tariffs on Canadian imports and repeatedly arguing that Canada would be better off becoming part of the United States.
Those policies have contributed to a widening political dispute between the two countries.
For the residents trying to remove his name from their street, however, the geopolitical argument has acquired a much more mundane consequence.
Every letter, delivery and address still carries the name Trump.
Canada has heard plenty about American names too
Irony has not exactly been absent from the timing.
Trump has spent part of his second term attaching American branding to familiar geographic names, including his move to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
His administration has also pursued a change involving Lake Ontario, according to the source material behind the Ottawa dispute.
Ottawa residents are now considering a naming exercise travelling in precisely the opposite direction.
Rather than adding Trump’s preferred terminology to a map, they want to take Trump off theirs.
