They aren’t hiding it. Behind closed doors, they’re already planning absorption.
There’s precedent. Canada’s constitution allows for provincial expansion by mutual consent. New England’s 15 million residents would make up more than a third of the country’s new citizenry. Its $1.3 trillion GDP would boost Canada’s economy by over 40%. Toronto stock markets surge on whispers of merger.
Still, it’s not smooth.
Cultural adaptation is messy. Duolingo and Babbel servers are overwhelmed by Vermonters and Mainers wanting to learn French—and Quebecois eager to brush up on English. Spanish, Haitian Creole, Mandarin, Portuguese—all spike too, reflecting the new cultural mosaic. DMV forms in Springfield. Health posters in Lowell. Teachers in Providence are handed bilingual syllabi with a week’s notice.
One organizer jokes, “We left the U.S. and gained two new bureaucracies.”
They tried to cut the sky, too.
On October 9th, the Trump administration issues an emergency directive: Starlink must suspend service over all Canadian provinces. Musk refuses. Citing “international neutrality and network autonomy,” SpaceX keeps the terminals online.
Right-wing media erupts. A Fox host calls Musk “a foreign actor.” Congressional loyalists propose sanctions. But Musk holds the line.
“You don’t get to pull the plug on speech because you lost control of the ground,” he posts. It’s boosted over 80 million times in 12 hours. In rural Vermont and the Berkshires—where sabotage hit terrestrial lines—Starlink becomes lifeline.
Then comes China.
Guowang SatNet, China’s state-run LEO constellation, offers free access to Canada and “all aligned territories in the interest of human rights and regional stability.” SpaceSail, a PLA-backed commercial firm, routes uplinks through proxy firms in Montreal and Vancouver.
Ottawa doesn’t confirm. But encrypted traffic starts bouncing through Shanghai and Rotterdam. Signal strength spikes. MonctonIX surges. Starlink alone wasn’t enough—but now, the sky is layered.
Washington calls it infiltration.
Canada calls it insurance.
“You can’t embargo the sky,” says a telecom engineer in Sherbrooke. “You can only make people choose whose sky they want to use.”
Backlash comes fast.
Washington freezes assets. Cancels Social Security transfers. Declares any former federal employee cooperating with the transition guilty of treason. Some walk off the job. Most don’t.
A trucker in Bangor shrugs:
“I don’t care whose flag it is. If the roads stay open and my family’s safe, I’ll take it.”
But not everyone adjusts.