Local leaders in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa have initiated a process to rename Trump Avenue in response to United States President Donald Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”

It’s not the first time Ottawa has considered renaming the street.

Shortly after Trump’s first presidential term ended on Jan. 20, 2021, Ottawa City Coun. Riley Brockington polled Trump Avenue residents to gauge their support for renaming the street.

The poll was evenly split with 21 residents in favour and 21 opposed to the renaming proposal, along with another 20 residents who did not respond. At the time, the city’s naming policy required that more than 50 per cent of a street’s residents must support a street renaming application, so the proposal to rename Trump Avenue did not proceed further.

Read more: Trump’s Lake Ontario bluster: Why treating his sovereignty threats as a joke is dangerous

The Trump name on the Canadian map

The issue of renaming Trump Avenue resurfaced again after Trump declared Lake Ontario would appear as “Lake America” on U.S. federal maps.

Trump’s use of place renaming to retaliate against Canada for withdrawing from trade negotiations led many Canadians to defend the name of Lake Ontario as a matter of national pride.

Read more: Trump’s ‘renaming’ of Lake Ontario is emblematic of centuries of colonial erasure

It’s also drawn attention to a number of geographic features in Canada that bear the Trump name. Canadian commentators have raised questions about whether places in Canada should continue to share a name with one of the most anti-Canadian presidents in American........

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