Officials in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, unanimously voted Wednesday to rename a street bearing the name of President Donald Trump.
The move arrives a little less than a month after Trump — in the midst of his trade war with Canada — signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America, sparking widespread criticism (and doubling down on the OG name) from up north.
The president’s not-so-neighborly treatment of the country revived efforts to rename Trump Avenue, which — like other streets in Ottawa’s Central Park neighborhood, built in the late ’90s and early ’00s — was named after landmarks, locations and people related to New York City.
“It’s embarrassing, like they just chuckle and laugh,” said 65-year-old retiree John Germano of getting deliveries to the address in an interview with The New York Times. “It gets worse and worse every day.”
Other locals have expressed their distaste for the name, including Ottawa journalist Mohammed Adam, who wrote in an Ottawa Citizen column earlier this month that it “boggles the mind” that there’d be a street with Trump’s name in Canada’s capital given that he’s “committed to destroying the country.”
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Ottawa City Councillor Riley Brockington, in an interview just weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, told JS Canada that he saw embarrassed residents attempt to do away with the street name for years.
He said he felt it was “inappropriate” to change the name when Trump was in office, fearing that there could be “ramifications against Canada.”
“May sound extreme, but I just thought it would be more appropriate once his term in office ended to initiate a public process,” he added.
The fears lessened when Joe Biden stepped into the Oval Office, and the 2021 effort fell apart, as residents were “split” on the change, per CBC News.
Those concerns were apparently wrapped up in the “hassle” that the renaming could bring residents who would have to change the addresses on their driver’s licenses, with their banks and elsewhere.
Brockington, in comments to CBC News late last month, said it was now “past the point of debating.”
“I think the time has come when you look at the damage and carnage that the president has caused, including with our own country,” he said.
Brockington has been tasked with working with the residents of the 65 homes on the street to come up with a replacement name, which would then be approved by the city’s council next year.