A Canadian city council is considering renaming a street named after US President Donald Trump – and among the contenders for a replacement are “Obama Avenue” and “Taco Avenue.”
In a unanimous vote on Wednesday, Ottawa City Council took a first step toward renaming Trump Avenue, a residential street in the Central Park neighborhood of Ottawa that has carried the president’s name for roughly 25 years. It is just one of the references to New York City in the neighborhood, which also has a Staten Way, Madison Park and even a Gotham Private.
But amid the escalating trade fight between the two countries and Trump’s repeated jabs at Canada, some local councilors say they see the name as an embarrassment and do not want anything in Ottawa named after him.
The council’s vote came just a day before Trump signed an executive order directing the US government to refer to Lake Ontario as “Lake America” – a move that echoes his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
Ottawa City Councilor Tim Tierney told CNN that suggestions for the new name have included: Obama Avenue, Ontario Avenue, Canada Avenue, Beaver Avenue, Gulf of Mexico Avenue, Canada Goose Avenue, Pelosi Avenue and even Taco Avenue – a reference to the acronym Trump Always Chickens Out. Another suggestion: Rosie O’Donnell Avenue — a reference to the comedian and longtime Trump antagonist who moved to Ireland after his reelection.
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
Canada has plenty of other places bearing the Trump name, from lakes — including a Trump Lake in northern Ontario, which some online have already suggested renaming — to islands and a creek. But Trump Avenue is the only one actually named after Donald Trump, according to Tierney.
Tierney said changing the street name wouldn’t happen overnight. More than half of the residents would need to support a name change, and a new name would then go through its own public engagement process. None of this is expected to happen until after municipal elections, scheduled for the end of October.
And this is not the first time the Ottawa community has tried to change Trump Avenue’s name.
In 2021, the 62 households on the street were asked whether they wanted to rename it: 21 voted yes, 21 voted no, and 20 didn’t vote at all.
Those opposed weren’t necessarily Trump supporters, according to Tierney. Some simply didn’t want the hassle of changing their addresses, he said.
While the issue had seemed closed following the 2021 vote, Tierney told CNN that the controversy over Trump renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America had put the issue back on the “front burner.”
Still, he cautioned against letting the battle over names overshadow the much bigger tensions between the two countries.
“The semantics of names, we can save that for another day in the future,” Tierney said. “Right now, I think our focus has to remain on trade and tariffs, something that this is just nothing more than a distraction from.”
“We see the president doing something the same and it’s tired,” Tierney said. “Stop with the lame name game and let’s get back to the table.”
